Enterprise Connect is back in Orlando in person after a two year covid induced hiatus.
The booths were all large. Too large. Like they ordered a 20×20 and received a 20×30 space but didn’t have the physical booth and furnishings to match. No carpet on the aisles (and my knees, feet and back hurt today). Also, a lot of jeans and sneakers.
The theme was CCaaS, not UCaaS. AI, CPaaS and monitoring & security but not just UC. AWS had a big presence as did Microsoft, Cisco Webex and RNG.
You could tell many smaller providers are trying to fit into the new world that Zoom and Microsoft Teams are dominating.
8×8 was a big sponsor with no booth. Mitel, Avaya, Unify and Atos were absent. Buyers were mainly absent, but I did see 3 folks from Pasco County FL there.
Normally at the Gaylord, there isn’t a free chair at the bar or outside to sit on. Not the case this time. There just was not the numbers of old. And that took away from the energy.
There were two vendors there that were surprising: Lightyear.ai and Cloudscene. Both are brokers – procurement websites for telecom services. This is what Upstack is trying to do and to an extent AppSmart is doing with SaaS. LY and Cloudscene are chasing enterprise clients, not partners.
There wasn’t much in the way of surprise at the show, but it was nice to see friends in the industry in person again.