I know we are facing TDM sunset but from the looks of advertising from the likes of Birch and Bullseye, POTS is still alive and well - and profitable! POTS is still the reliable choice when it comes to voice lines for alarms, elevators and faxes.
For many scenarios, an on-premise PBX makes more sense than a haphazardly deployed Hosted VoIP scenario. Many a small business replaces POTS with SIP trunks to get mileage out of their aged key system. Switching to a new cloud PBX is not a viable option for some small offices because they don't want to change behavior. Hosted VoIP does a poor job on key system emulation despite years of partners selling it and providers trying to deliver it. It is one big face palm.
If PBX were indeed dead, wouldn't one of the leading UC companies have 1 million seats by now? Instead they are struggling to get to 700K seats.
The problem with UC is that it is mass market and it would be better off verticalized.
It would be better for all if Broadsoft wasn't competing directly with its own customers by selling direct to users at $15 per seat. That smells of desperation.
Someone asked me what I meant by that. Broadsoft selling direct cuts out their 400+ clients - like Vonage, TPX & Nextiva. Now these providers have to face price compression from their vendor. It's like ISPs and CLEcs who buy wholesale from ILECs and cablecos only to see retail rates are cheaper than their wholesale rates. Isn't that a crock?
BSFT can't add any more clients because every carrier on the planet has already picked a softswitch - BSFT, Meta, Netsapiens, or home brew. The only way to maintain revenue is to sell direct. BSFT isn't exactly raising the ocean or expanding the pie. They are just taking a big bite from the pie that their clients have been baking for 10+ years. Sure, everyone says that cloud comms is starting to take off; that it is hitting high adoption, but is it the UC we have seen or a bunch of variety?
Office 365, Cisco Spark, Dialpad, One Talk, Fuze, Shoretel, 8x8, RingCentral, Grasshopper, Mitel, Avaya, Jive, Intelepeer <- that is a lot of variety under the UC umbrella. With 2000+ providers of some form of UC in the US, even with an accelerated pace of adoption by users, will there be a clear winner soon? Probably not.
In fact, all these choices without a clear winner probably helps Microsoft more than anyone. When in doubt buy from the established.
There are factors: it isn't a replacement system so much as a change. Extra gear is required (POE switches, QoS Router). It isn't as reliable as POTS - and can't be used in all places POTS was. The call quality is often not clear (unless you put it up against cell phones). (It's why they are touting SD-WAN for UC). It isn't cheaper than POTS in many cases. The deployments are often messy. (Providers can barely turn up Internet Access without issues let alone something complicated like Hosted PBX.)
And finally it doesn't pay much in commissions. At $15 per seat and even a 20 seat deal, the MRR is $300. That is a big headache for $300 in billing revenue. Easier, faster and better to sell network still. Or POTS. Or on-premise PBX with higher compensation. 3CX has been doing everything to make a partner's business model sing.
This isn't me being a Pessimist. This is me being a Realist. This is just how it is in the street in many places.
I don't hear anyone hawking white glove service or money back guarantee or no headache install. I hear the talk of zero touch deployment. That's the wrong way to go except for the CFO who wants to maximize profit per contract. Customer experience is someone else's domain.
I don't hear anyone talking about their call quality, their customer experience, their hand holding on deployment, their world class PMO. These are better things to talk about than price and features.
]]>We have seen consolidation in the contact center space - ININ-Genesys and others. It isn't over yet. There are too many players in the marketplace, and for right this moment money is still cheap. Better to buy your competition than try to beat them.
More predictions: "Global unified communication and collaboration market expected to grow at a CAGR of 12.3% from 2016-2020," says a report by Technavio.
So 8x8 and Vonage are at 600K seats each. 8x8 has 45,000 Customers according to June 2016 investor prezo with ARPU at $399 now.
Windstream and BroadSoft team up to bring customized Virtual PBX to hospitality market. WIND is a confusing deal. They own Allworx which they never discuss. They push MITEL and Avaya - and they have a Broadsoft. That is a lot of platforms to know, sell, manage, support.
Comcast Business Services revenue increased 17.0% to $1.4Bn with small business accounting for ~75% of revenue and ~60% of growth. Voice makes up 7% of Biz Services Rev..
Megapath launched the latest Broadsoft offering called MegaPath One with the usual collection of bells and whistles. MegaPath also rolled out Skype for Biz integration.
ITSPs are so worried about Microsoft eating their lunch that they integrate with it or add some Microsoft to their offering, like MegaPath and Velis4. Even TelePacific is joining the Microsoft CSP program. WIth the DSCI deal approved at the federal level, there should be more news out of TelePacific.
RingCentral doesn't break any stats out anymore as they just play with GAAP and performa stylized finance sheets. "In 2015, nearly 30% of RNG Office new bookings coming from up-market customers with at least 50 users, up from about 20% in the year ago period." Now they are bringing in customers with 100+ seats. All the UCaaS players are going upmarket, where the ARPU is higher, to cover the cost of sales and support.
RingCentral (RC) did make one big change: previously RC distributed phones to customers by reselling third-party phones; maintaining inventory, handling A/R and warranty processing, etc. Now they made a deal with Westcon to distribute phones to RC customers with RC acting as an Agent of Westcon and getting a referral payment per order. Westcon will now maintain inventory, handle A/R and warranty processing.
Jabra Survey Finds Small/Medium Businesses Driving Productivity through Unified Communications. "Between a third and two-thirds of all small/medium businesses (SME) will either add unified communications (UC) or replace existing systems with UC within the two years, according to a recent survey by Jabra."
Cisco Spark, Microsoft Skype4B and other services are putting pressure on the OTT VoIP players. "RingCentral and friends are now facing challenges from Microsoft and many other titan-sized technology experts. The proof is in the pudding, and these VoIP experts must continue to show that they can deliver healthy business results in head-to-head competition with true giants," states this article. Because all the noise right now is about Skype (and Slack started doing TV commercials), the market is wondering if stand-alone VoIP can continue to afford to buy market share. VoIP players are giving free phones, SPIFFs, free months of service, just to get a customer. The cost of that acquisition is being questioned on the stock market. OR it may all be a fluke and stock speculation going awry.
There were a large number of service providers in the space of UC&C - from Fuze, RC, the Cloud Comm Alliance members to the LECs to the other numerous ITSPs. Then softswitch vendors decided to become service providers, too. Broadsoft BroadCloud; GenBand Nuvia; Alianza Cloud Voice Platform; and Metaswitch MetaSphere Cloud Services are all competing with their customers and making it easier for new entrants into the already bloody ocean of Hosted VoIP. (Now even enterprises can be an ITSP).
Everyone is pushing up-market, but Cisco recently did a study on small businesses. The study found "on the IT front, a majority of small companies (86 percent) are considering the use of cloud-based unified communications (UC) systems as a possible solution to their communications needs, replacing their more traditional premises-based counterparts."
"Yet unified communications as a packaged service, despite its relative maturity, remains far less than universally adopted, particularly outside of larger enterprise accounts. A recent survey of more than 400 enterprise and SMB IT decision-makers, performed by UBM Tech for XO Communications, found that only one-third of organizations had fully embraced UC. On the other side of the spectrum, a separate survey performed by Osterman Research for ConnectSolutions found that about as many IT decision-makers (26 percent) and business deci-sion makers (39 percent) are either "somewhat" or "very fearful" of migrating to UC. Nearly half of those surveyed admitted that they don't fully understand the full impact UC would have on their organizations. These fears and trepidations come despite the fact that 71 percent of those surveyed by Osterman believe there are "significant" or even "enormous" benefits that can be realized from the deployment of UC." [from ChannelVision magazine].
Mobile UC is going to be another segment of the UCaaS pie. Mast Mobile, Apple, Google and now Verizon's One Talk. You know that Sprint could have driven this years ago when it first announced integration into the Broadsoft switch for 4-digit dialing to cellphones. But Sprint just couldn't get out of their own way. It would take months to deal with them for quotes, sales sheets, etc. It would be scary to think how long deployment would take. But now VZW is doing it - all in-house - with their Broadsoft.
]]>New ReportsWeb Global UC&C study:
"The global market is gradually experiencing the transition from legacy telephony services and messaging platforms to new UC&C services and platforms. We expect more number of global deployments of UC&C in coming years, driven by growing popularity of applications, such as rich collaboration, mobility, video conferencing, and telepresence." Key word is gradually.
"Business process integration and social media communications have become the primary focus of enterprises. Companies seek low-cost solutions, such as BYOD and web real-time communications (WebRTC) to deploy UC&C solutions." BPI or BPaaS - it isn't stand alone products. It will be an integrated platform to run business process that happen to include comms. (At least at the enterprise level)
And of course the growth guess: "Global unified communication and collaboration market expected to grow at a CAGR of 12.3% from 2016-2020," says a report by Technavio.
The news seems to miss that the different sectors of the marketplace are migrating from legacy for different reasons - like cheap dial-tone replacement, simul ring, etc.
The market is buzzing with Skype Integration news from RingCentral, MegaPath, BitTitan, even Yealink and others.
Master agencies are seeing a way to grab the attention of Cisco partners. First, AVANT teamed with Cisco to accelerate sales for Cisco Powered Providers.
Next, MicroCorp amped up its "relationship with IntelePeer, in order that certified Cisco partners can earn monthly recurring commissions on voice services for those selling the Spark and Meraki MC platforms." Cisco wants partners to get used to selling cloud and voice, because Spark, ya know.
RingCentral teamed up with Google for Work to chase enterprise. Having also integrated with Skype, RC is hedging bets or wants to be all things to all people, which never works.
Windstream, after showcasing Mitel and Avaya, teams with BroadSoft to bring customized Virtual PBX to the hospitality market. So WIND has Mitel, Avaya, BSFT, Allworx and Metaswitch. Yeah, that is cost effective.
As if there weren't a large number of service providers in the space of UC&C - from Fuze, RC, the Cloud Comm Alliance members to the LECs to the other numerous ITSPs. Now softswitch vendors have decided to become service providers, too. Broadsoft BroadCloud; GenBand Nuvia; Alianza Cloud Voice Platform; and Metaswitch MetaSphere Cloud Services are all competing with their customers and making it easier for new entrants into the already bloody ocean of Hosted VoIP. (Now even enterprises can be an ITSP).
Not to be left now. Cisco and Microsoft have jumped into the fray to compete for UC&C customers with Spark, HCS, Office365+Skype4B. The PBX vendors like NEC, Unify, Avaya and Mitel are in the mix and feeling the pinch to have a cloud component. Not only a cloud component but contact center too. Oh, how complex we must make it.
Everyone is pushing up-market, but Cisco recently did a study on small businesses. The study found "on the IT front, a majority of small companies (86 percent) are considering the use of cloud-based unified communications (UC) systems as a possible solution to their communications needs, replacing their more traditional premises-based counterparts."
Yealink has phones for Skype4B. One of the reasons that you see Jabra, Plantronics and Sennheiser at VoIP shows is because bluetooth headsets are becoming common in the call center space and more UC&C users are choosing to dispatch the deskphone.
"Yet unified communications as a packaged service, despite its relative maturity, remains far less than universally adopted, particularly outside of larger enterprise accounts. A recent survey of more than 400 enterprise and SMB IT decision-makers, performed by UBM Tech for XO Communications, found that only one-third of organizations had fully embraced UC. On the other side of the spectrum, a separate survey performed by Osterman Research for ConnectSolutions found that about as many IT decision-makers (26 percent) and business deci-sion makers (39 percent) are either "somewhat" or "very fearful" of migrating to UC. Nearly half of those surveyed admitted that they don't fully understand the full impact UC would have on their organizations. These fears and trepidations come despite the fact that 71 percent of those surveyed by Osterman believe there are "significant" or even "enormous" benefits that can be realized from the deployment of UC." This is a part of a nice piece that Martin Vilaboy at Channel Vision magazine wrote on UCaaS demand and adoption.
The role of SD-WAN in UCaaS HERE.
Good read on Churn from a former BSFT exec on LINKEDIN.
A look at UCaaS service delivery by AVNET.
]]>Sendhub,a business SMS provider that raised $10M, was acquired by Cameo Global, a global managed IT shop that does some contact center work.
Salesforce's leadership position in CRM now gets e-commerce with Demandware $2.8B acquisition
Broadsoft acquired Intellinote. [see here]
QTS buys DuPont Fabros Tech's New Jersey data center. This transaction comes after QTS transformed the Sun Times building in Chicago into a Tier 3 data center with 317K SF of capacity and 24MW of power.
Nest has unlimited budget, large workforce, and nothing. Oops!
The strike is over for Verizon and the lesson for the C-Suite: we can't get rid of wireline and unions fast enough.
ADTRAN launched hardware-as-a-service, a subscription service for MSPs to offer hardware to clients without leasing -- or another way to say that the leasing is built into a subscription service.
The Allied Fiber assets in the Southeast are up for auction under bankruptcy court approval. [source]
Rest assured, another prediction says the same thing that the other predictions said: VoIP Market Set for Steady Growth.
Want an example of Innovation? Zappos re-designs the shoe box!
CNBC list of Top 50 Disruptors
Mid-year channel trends HERE (site is hard to read with banners, pops, etc., but aren't they all getting that way?!)
Dean Bubley asks, "So uncomfortable Q for 5G designers & stds bodies: can critical-comms 5G really yield enough rev/profit to justify much expenditure/effort?" Follow up with this piece on 5G Vision. In short, is there enough revenue to build out yet another network (voice, 2G, 2.5G, 3G, 4G)?
Now softswitch vendors are service providers, competing with their customers and making it easier for new entrants into the already bloody ocean of Hosted VoIP. Broadsoft BroadCloud; GenBand Nuvia; Alianza Cloud Voice Platform; and Metaswitch MetaSphere Cloud Services [see here and here]
RETAIL: Sears, J C Penney - 30 Companies That Might Disappear In 2017 Based On Altman Z ]]>
Cisco demonstrated Spark, which I thought was for SMB, but is being pitched to Enterprise especially with its big hook into Salesforce. The demo that I got at the booth was rather disappointing. Not very visual. Looked like a console.
"Cisco Spark delivers cloud-based business communications that enables customers to message, meet and call anyone, whether it be on their mobile device, desktop or meeting room end-points." [PR] Isn't this what all the UC&C platforms promise? And keep in mind that this is re-branded Squared.
Not that Slack is the end-ll-be-all, but if you can't at least offer that type of look and feel and functionality (what I refer to as UX and CX or simply user or customer experience) then what are you doing? With two million daily users in 2 years, there is something they like about it besides the way it decreases internal email that people like.
Atlassian HipChat has a similar UX. The room or container or locker or folder or whatever you want to call the holding space for documents, conversations, recordings and notes around an event - sales call, project, meeting - is about organization and working on it when I want to or can as well as a depository for everything about the event in one easy to use, share, store space. This is a long time coming - and it still needs some improvement but it is getting better.
I still am waiting for a single inbox for email, texts/SMS, IM, etc. One place for all my comms. Maybe some day. Right after SSO (single sign on), which we haven't heard about since FOWA 2007.
I did hear more talk about APIs, SDKs, and integrations. Zapier and IFTTT weren't there but maybe in spirit.
Genband had some news. It has re-organized its product portfolio under Kandy. Now fring and other products that are monthly recurring revenue are under Kandy. Genband is in a patent dispute with Metaswitch that some have speculated leads to a merger. Genband is also doing co-marketing for its customers - see here.
And XO touted that it is using GenBand for advanced real time communications. When XO becomes Verizon in 2017 that means Alex Doyle will have one more platform to deal with!
ThinkingPhones came out as Fuze at this show with a marketing campaign playing on Unified.
NETSCOUT has a platform to measure service delivery issues in a multi-vendor environment. This platform looks at Voice and video media performance; Call signaling and UC server performance; as well as Network and enablers' infrastructure performance.
One big announcement came out before the show: Switch.co re-branded as Dialpad. Craig Walker was a keynote speaker at the show. Dialpad was in the Sprint booth talking about mobility and enterprise. (They gave away nice jackets.)
Another big deal was Avaya launching Zang.io, in what at first glance looks a little like Kandy's logo (and font and colors) and at second glance looks like they are trying to put one up on twilio. It is kind of a mixture of the two. "Zang connects popular collaboration apps like Google Hangouts with business solutions like Salesforce.com or SAP for a seamless user experience. Zang comes with simple SDKs, sample apps and the ability to use other third-party communications apps, which speed adoption and value creation." (You can read the rest here.)
This either works for Avaya and they move beyond premise PBX - or it fails and they file BK. Those are the only 2 options because while telcos like Windstream still sell Avaya, from what Avaya partners tell me, it is more about old logos, not new logos. And there is too much competition in the Enterprise space. Lot of big booths (20x20 and larger) at the #EC16.
One cool toy came from Oblong. "The result of more than 20 years of research at MIT Media Lab, Oblong´s flagship product, Mezzanine, is an immersive visual collaboration solution defining the next era of computing: multi-user, multi-screen, multi-device, multi-location." It was a total immersion telepresence system that could be controlled by something like a Wii game controller or an IOS device. It was a nifty toy that brings Minority Report to life.
Voxbone was serving up international DIDs, right alongside Belgian chocolates and expresso! Thanks!
Yesterday (3/8) was International Women's Day, so here are some forgotten women in tech history.
Today's GapingVoid cartoon is about silos in organizations and collaboration. Ha!
]]>ANPI's model is more like Momentum (pre-acquisition of Alteva) but in reverse, because Momentum was delivering white-label VoIP to tier 2 and tier 3 cable companies. With the TDM transition, there has to be RLECs and cablecos who are unprepared to deliver VoIP - or at least ANPI is hoping so.
Fonality put out a press release that says it is valued at $45M. The exact wording I received from the 11-year old company was as follows: "The $45 million business phone system provider continues to see its growth accelerating into 2016 and beyond." If you take it as a valuation, that means that there is a for sale sign on Fonality. Possible buyers in my eyes: 8x8, Voxox and Digium. 8x8 would want them because both target Allstate insurance agencies and Fonality is "Surpassing 2,000 customers in the insurance sector, the company's largest vertical."
Other things from Fonality: "Fonality just announced the latest updates to its Heads Up Display (HUD), which include greater functionality for the company's existing Video Collaboration offering. ...The new features include instant screen share and the ability to schedule and manage recordings,among others, but the best part about Fonality's Video Collaboration is its seamless integration within HUD Web." The company also stated that in 2015 it sold 22,000 new seats.
Last month, a jury awarded GENBAND an $8M judgement against Metaswitch for infringing on 8 patents. This is far from over as Metaswitch is suing GENBAND on patent infringement as well. GENBAND is sitting on the old Nortel patents. Someone explained to me last week that this all started over merger talks that went sideways. Does Metaswitch have $8M in cash to pay a judgement?
There are so many patents out there for VoIP, everyone is likely infringing!
Anyone recall magicjack? Well, they are entering the SMB market next quarter via a subsidiary company. That should be fun to watch.
]]>
First up is Apple versus the FBI over end-to-end encryption on the iPhone. For privacy nerds, Barry Eisler's new book, God's Eye View, was a scary realization that the NSA has too much reach -- and very little oversight.
Over at AVC, there is a discussion about privacy - or rather whether you think Apple should bother - or if all info will be hacked, why not just let it out to stop terrorists and child porn?? The way I feel: if you make the argument about those 2 extremes, you lose the argument. You don't do things like give up freedom because of a fraction of the users. 99.97% of iPhone users are not hiding, so why should the 99 be subject?
BTW, Your Toaster May Eventually Spy On You, and Your Camera Could Kill Your Kid
SAAS
5 things about the SaaS industry. (I tend to extrapolate data from SaaS to the UCaaS vertical).
CLEC
Layoffs at EarthLink AND they sold off the IT division. Layoffs at Windstream too. If you are laying people off and cost cutting and you are in the C Suite at a telco, please pink slip yourself too because you are not fixing anything!!!
Running a CLEC is not just about controlling costs. It requires a Strategic Plan that is executed to properly. EarthLink had a couple of plans that just could not get executed. Talent is important but so is Culture and a Vision that the talent (the employees) buy into and want to see succeed. There needs to be a feedback loop.
Tom Peters really needs to keynote a telecom event. Or one of these CLECs should hire him to help you over the hump of failure.
CONFERENCING
The founder of Vidtel, Scott Wharton, is over at Logitech, who just unveiled a Breakthrough Group Video Conferencing Solution, which turns any meeting room into video-enabled collaboration space.
Metaswitch just announced Accession integrates with Zoom Video Conferencing.
After buying video conferencing company, Fuze, ThinkingPhones changed its name to Fuze.
PanTerra Networks Overview in 2 minutes 19 seconds - UC, Storage, Slack, analytics and more.
Communications, Collaboration or Workflow? Forbes article. NoJitter has a similar article about adopting UC for work flow.
Patent troll sues Apple, Verizon and AT&T for $7B in Various Patent Infringements!
Avaya vs Cisco in mid-market <-- as if that was the battle! The battle is with Microsoft - and it might be with Slack in 2 years.
WHY TIDBITS???
I write columns for Channel Vision magazine, Internet Telephony and Cloud Computing magazine plus this blog, plus work as an agent and consultant. Not everything that happens is worth 350+ words. Sometimes just listing the stuff that is crossing my desk helps me to tick off the puzzle pieces so that later I can write 700 words about a trend or an idea or whatever. So there have been a lot of tidbits posts especially in the last year, but it is so that you can quickly consume some industry news and I remind myself of stuff happening.
Thanks for reading!
]]>The data center space is hot right now. Deals are happening frequently including the WIND-Tierpoint deal yesterday and the Digital Realty-TELX deal. Rumor has it that Terremark is up for sale.
8x8 landed 2 big customers: Regus and NetSuite. Regus, the global, flexible workplace provider, will deploy 8x8's cloud communications platform to 140 sites at first. "Regus was unable to offer a business phone service with key features such as mobility, multi-channel communications and presence-enabled directories. By selecting 8x8, Regus has ensured its customers have access to the most advanced enterprise communications tools to increase their business flexibility and productivity." At least Regus sees the flexibility benefit of Cloud Comm. Too often, our industry forgets that cloud is about change.
"Following an extensive multi-vendor, technical review and proof of concept (POC) process, NetSuite selected 8x8 as its new cloud communications solutions provider and 8x8's flagship Virtual Office business telephony solution to address its evolving global communications requirements. With more than 4,500 employees worldwide, 8x8 worked with NetSuite to onboard the first 2,400 employees by the end of August across nine locations - delivering a record-breaking six-week deployment in the final seven sites. The initial deployment spans three countries, including large offices in the Philippines. The remaining offices are expected to be fully deployed by 2016." [source]
These are big wins that will raise both 8x8's ARPU and seat count (and revenue). Who says desk phones are disappearing?
Edgewater Networks, Metaswitch and Jon Arnold did a study of 1200+ SMBs and VoIP in North America. You can get a copy of the analysis here.
"SMBs remain entrenched in a legacy environment, with 70 to 80% of businesses currently using TDM." So VoIP really has only penetrated about 25% -- sad really but there are factors, like how to cost effectively deliver under 8 SIP trunks with quality of service. The Duopoly serve 75% of the SMB market. Lack of features is biggest reason to move to cloud comm (see Regus).
Equinox Info Systems became employee owned after 29 years, David West told me at the show today. Equinox re-signed a number of bigger customers, including Fairpoint. Equinox offers call analytics, FCC reporting, VoIP fraud monitoring and help with robocalls and toll fraud.
UNITEL offers many lines of insurance and risk management for service providers. It now offers OSHA training on-demand as well as other HR compliance webinars. UNITEL is pushing further into its customers with HR specialists that know specific state and federal laws. At some point, you have to go deeper into your clients instead of looking for more and more clients.
]]>Cable over-builder, WOW! (WideOpenWest), rolled out a "simple" (their words) Hosted VoIP service. WOW is a Metaswitch shop but I can't find which softswitch is powering their hosted voice service. WOW lost 3000 voice subscribers in their 4th quarter. This may be a move to gain some back. The PR does mention that the service will be delivered over fiber. I wonder if that means cable modem, too. WOW is spread out (like Bright House) in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee. WOW also rolled out carrier Ethernet gear from Alcatel-Lucent. WOW is 13th in MSO size in the US with 700K subs.
News Corp. that owns Fox News is buying Move, which owns Realtor.com for $950 million. This comes after Trulia and Zillow merged. It's rough being a real estate agent today. Why mention this? It just seemed strange to me - Fox and Realtor.com
Another cyber-security attack - this time at JPMorgan Chase. Apparently they aren't spending enough on security. (I guess only the big boys get big bonuses.) The attack "compromised the accounts of 76 million households and seven million small businesses, a tally that dwarfs previous estimates by the bank and puts the intrusion among the largest ever." [NYT] And how do they notify? In an SEC filing. In the face of this, "Faced with the rising threat of online crime, JPMorgan has said it plans to spend $250 million on digital security annually, but had been losing many of its security staff to other banks over the last year, with others expected to leave soon." Talent retention is a problem for them?
Poll: Are Companies Finally Being Held Accountable For Data Breaches?
]]>Another take on the Metaswitch survey demonstrates that the speed of a quote (and knowing what you are talking about) are factors to the sale.
Two interesting stats: "According to the latest snippet from Infonetics Research, the number of OTT VoIP subscribers is set to head near one billion by the end of 2013." And the second: "Myers added: "In 2012, the average revenue per user was a meager US$7.13 annually. Since this alone is an unsustainable business model, most providers are turning to advertising, third party apps and wholesale arrangements with traditional operators.""
A perspective on WebRTC for the next-gen of real time comms.
Pulver is back in comms with a new start-up: Zula. Maybe he will be pitching at Startup Camp Comms at ITEXPO in Vegas next month.
BTW, Woz is the keynote in Vegas at ITEXPO.
And since we are constantly in conference season now:
ATTENTION PR PEOPLE!
]]>8x8 has hit $100 million in annual revenue making them the number 2 hosted VoIP provider (behind Comcast). 8X8 put up some good numbers last quarter.
At $100M, the company has proven that they can organically grow revenue. The churn is coming under control and the company is looking up-market.
Rumor is that 8x8 is a take-over target. I would have to agree.
At a market cap of $282M, that is less than 3x revenue.
When you look at the some of the largest ISP's - Comcast, Cox, Charter, AT&T, VZ, CenturyLink, Windstream - they all have a Broadsoft. And they aren't likely to grab 8x8, although Windstream might want to think about it since $300 million for 27,000 business accounts and $100M in revenue isn't bad.
Of the top MSO's - TWC, Bright House, Insight Comm., - don't offer a hosted PBX product. Bright House followed TWC in buying an Alcatel-Lucent switch. That's like entering NASCAR with a Dodge. Cablevision (Optimum Lightpath) and Suddenlink are Metaswitch customers. What does any of that have to do with anything? Well, I think that service providers make business decisions like they make hardware decisions.
That said the best fit would be TWC. TWC bought Navisite for $230M in early last year (2011). Navisite was running about $120M in revenue. TWC has consumer and small business customers like 8x8. TWC has one of the largest regions in the US (after Comcast). 8x8 customers are nationwide. TWC could put many of them On-Net to improve the VoIP quality (which might lower churn even more). It also makes the TWC customers stickier. Plus 8x8 could go up-market easier with network access available.
As a bonus, the company that acquires 8x8 gets its VoIP patent portfolio that could be used as a lever later.
Frontier could use the help but it is still trying to swallow that deal from VZ. And Frontier's DSL service is not capable of supporting VoIP in some markets. (Agents I know tell me how bad Frontier Internet is business and resi DSL. VoIP Provider have said that they won't sell VoIP OTT in Frontier territory.)
BHN has a small territory and is privately owned by Advance/Newhouse Communications, which also owns Business Journals. BHN hasn't acquired any companies yet.
I don't think a Metaswitch shop would buy 8x8, but I could be wrong.
I think it has to do with who can provide network for most of 8x8's customers and prospects to improve quality (much needed). With TV cord cutting, who needs the extra revenue stream?
Windstream might be a suitor IF they have completed integrating PAETEC, which I doubt. PAETEC was a gumbo of Inter-connects (XETA, Quagga), Energy, Allworx, fiber and CLEC's (CavTel, MacLeod, USLEC). If 8x8 is still single in a year when WIND is done with integration, WIND might date EGHT. We'll watch and wait.
]]>Optimum Lightpath (Cablevision) rolled out Next-Gen Hosted PBX for the mid-market and enterprise. It will be utilizing Metaswitch's MetaSphere multimedia application server for HD Voice, mobility, UM, visual voicemail, collaboration and conferencing.
One of the cool announcements was that Metaswitch inter-operates with the CloudTC Glass 1000, the industry's smartest IP phone. The CloudTC Glass 1000 includes a visual voicemail application that is fully compatible with the Metaswitch VoIP solution. The desk phone is an Android based device that is cool looking and one of the few desk phoens that actually utilize apps. (Not that others can't but this was designed to). Apps is where it is at. Thinking Different.
"Panasonic System Networks Company of America announced certification for interoperability of the KX-UT series of SIP telephones with Metaswitch Networks' platform, a recognition that signals admission into Metaswitch Networks' Mosaic Partner Program." More info about the phones at TechZone360. Panasonic is chasing the SMB market with these phones. They work with Asterisk too.
"Blue Mountain announced that its newly released hospitality middleware M-Suites enables hotel guestrooms to have carrier-grade VoIP services." Chasing verticals is the key to margin.
Finally, Lyrix introduced Mobiso, a new Cloud Based Speech Assistant to Metaswitch customers as a SAAS app. It's speech enabled auto attendant (SEAA).