One online magazine for the channel posted their Top 20 UCaaS Providers list again with some analyst color commentary.
Most of the lists and reports are pay to play. But to be fair, if you do not pay for engagement with the analyst (or fly them to your show, put them up in nice digs and feed them well) they won’t know enough so that they can write about you – or add you to a report or MQ.
There are 2000+ companies in this space. It is the potato chip aisle in the grocery store. (Yes, it is that bad!) One exception is that since most don’t brand or market, the average buyer has NO idea who they are, so they buy Doritos.
Here’s my list – by category.
Mobile UC:
- Metaswitch Max UC
- Counterpath
- VZW One Talk
SMB UC:
- broadvoice
- Panterra
- net2phone
- Intermedia
- Saddleback
- TPX
- onSIP
- Telesystems
Regional UC Players:
- PBX-Change
- Altus
- Nexogy
- C Spire
- Stage2
UC in a Platform:
Vonage, Nextiva, 8×8 and RingCentral [want to be everything to everyone]
Enterprise Cloud Comms:
- Evolve IP
- Fuze
- West
- VZ with Cisco HCS
The winner in Enterprise will be Microsoft and Cisco due to certified brand ambassadors internally.
Cloud-enabled UCaaS:
- Avaya
- Mitel
- Star2Star
- NEC
Messaging with extras:
- Slack
- Webex
- Microsoft
- Panterra
CPaaS:
- Vonage/Nexmo
- Twilio
- Intelepeer
- VoIP Innovations
- Plivo
- Kandy by Ribbon
- Telestax RestcommONE
- VoxImplant
- Tropo
I think CPaaS sales will grow faster than UCaaS. I think most businesses don’t need a full stack of CP+UC+CC. Most need dial-tone, SMS, a few other functions.
Built for Cloud Contact Center:
- Telax
- TalkDesk
- Amazon
- Twilio
- AireSpring AireContact
- inContact
- 5 Nines
UCC:
- Amazon Chime
- GoTo
- Microsoft
- Webex
- Dialpad
- Workplace by FB
- Arkadin
- PGi
White Label:
- Re-Invent (Saddleback)
- Coredial
- 2600Hz
- Bicom
- Skyswitch
Also ran: Google (interested in their Cloud Contact Center AI)
Telcos: Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, Granite, Bullseye
Not Sure What they are doing:
- Spectrum & CenturyLink – do they even sell UC anymore?
- Windstream is in BK. Who would sell a bankrupt service offering?
- Fusion = Megapath + Birch ??? – all I hear is blah blah cloud
- Masergy – more global network than UC; that BSFT is collecting dust.
- Momentum – cable white-label + Alteva + ILEC
- Jive – not sure what happened after GoTo acquired them
- Bandwidth – mostly Google revenue, CPaaS, DIDs and minutes
- Calltower – a Microsoft shop with some other services
- a plethora of other providers
Here’s why you didn’t make a list? You don’t (a) market effectively; (b) booth at some expos; or (c) engage an analyst.
Most providers want to be all things to everybody. We have AT&T, VZ, Comcast to fit that bill. We also have MS & Cisco owning the Enterprise market. And Slack, Google, Facebook and GoTo as well. So how do you differ/compare to those guys? You better have a really good answer.
Alternative Strategy:
Find a Target. Have a solid Value Proposition. Cater to a Tribe!
Most VoIP Providers do less than $10M in revenue. At $20 per seat, that is 40K users. Aim for that. Aim for 40K users. Build a Strategy for that!
If you chase just dentists as one provider does, 10% of that vertical is 32K accounts!! Not users, billing customers. So many verticals, so many ways to win, so few have taken that path.
(Note: Jive, sipIQ and Phone.com have some vertical integration.)
