With so many UC/Hosted VoIP Providers operating in North America, who is ready for 2019?
The Big 3 pure play UCaaS providers – 8×8, Vonage and RingCentral – all ended 2018 with acquisitions. They will spend the first half of 2019 trying to put all the pieces together.
These 3 aren’t even UCaaS providers any more. Along with Nextiva, they have switched to being software platform providers – with too many extra functions being added – including CRM!
We will see how this works in the long run, but of the 4, only Vonage has a CPaaS platform ready to power the SMB space. Even Intelepeer has jumped into this space. Will Vonage knock off twilio as the CPaaS king? Or will 100 providers divvy up the CPaaS space like they do UCaaS?
Jive has gone into hibernation since LogMeIn bought them. We will see if they wake back up by 2Q19.
Verizon re-organized twice in the last year . I haven’t heard a peep out of the OneTalk product in a long while.
Mitel is trying. Avaya is hoping. West is still in sales flux.
Momentum says they are ready to grab deals.
Star2Star has been relatively quiet since the merger last year.
Fuze must have fired their PR firm.
Masergy says because of their network and SLAs they are ready to go. Even on OTT?!
OnSIP is ready for 2019 and has some good things coming out soon. See HERE.
Broadvoice is coming out of 2018 with a new product offering that partners are taking a liking to.
Regional players will still win business at a better average seat price than the majors.
There are so many players: TPX, Panterra, Fusion (Birch+Megapath), AireSpring a bunch more that will be showcasing at ITEXPO in 2 weeks. The cable guys — although rumor in 4Q was that Spectrum was dumping their BSFT! No confirmation.
With so much change (think Cisco/Broadsoft, Polycom/Plantronics/4Sale, Digium/Sangoma) providers had to re-think their product offerings. It is a good time (Q1) to remind partners of your best product offering.
Also, reiterate internally and externally in a clear and concise manner the Value Proposition!
Training will be big. On features, on Verticals, on Business Impact and on how to sell. Who will take this bull by the horns?
Will SPIFFs be back as the driving force in 2019? Maybe. I think that can be a factor in winning some business with a partner. I think having a PMO department and explaining what the post-ink process will look like is where the tire meets the road.
ASIDE:
And please understand HIPAA Compliance if you say you are compliant. It is HIPAA, not HIPPA. Also, network – the pipe 0 is irrelevant. HIPAA is about the PHI – the DATA. You know the data that we leave unencrypted lying around!