It is that time of year where every UCaaS provider pats itself on the back for receiving awards, especially if they are on the Gartner Magic Quadrant. [see here and here and here and here.]
There just isn’t a list that is true and unbiased. None. Most of the wards go to companies that do business with the firm handing out the awards. That’s one reason that the MQ and other lists have pretty much stayed the same the last 5 years. Only changes due to M&A.
Think about it: there are over 2000 providers. I learn about a new one every month or so. No one is researching all 2000 or even 1000. Maybe 100.
Even at the UC Thunderdome with Avaya, Mitel, Ring and Coredial, how did those 4 get picked? They paid to be up there. Mitel raging about 1M users. Ring claiming the only pure play OTT UCaaS provider on the dias. Um, Coredial is too (and they have surpassed 300K users all sold through partners). That’s how market aware these folks are.
Speaking of Mitel, they recruited a Verizon channel director to be their channel director. That is interesting to me since Verizon isn’t what we would call Channel Friendly. (Ask Teledomani or Kingcom). On top of that, Mitel was acquired by the same PE firm as Rackspace with the suggestion that they would be merged. Interesting times over there.
I still see Shoretel logos on partner websites. Is that even an option anymore?
XCaaS? Really?!
Quite a few companies are buying to fill in features for Enterprise level contact center (CCaaS the level up from UCaaS). I just wonder how big that market segment it, especially since this isn’t a unique statement: “[SP] delivers full omni-channel contact center capabilities with latest unified communications enhancement”. Delivers might be over-selling it. Offers is more like it.
With copper going bye-bye around 2020, many small businesses will be looking for POTS replacement. I guess this will be where the cablecos once again beat the telcos to the ground and win market share (like they do in broadband).