Last week I reported some M&A here. The M&A Train keeps running.
Broadsoft has bought another company. No more internal innovation (still no Slack or Skype integration either!), just inorganic moves - Transera, Lenoid and PBXL. This time BSFT buys "Intellinote, an enterprise messaging-based team communication and collaboration software application built for the increasingly mobile and millennial workforce," says the press release. I am guessing this is their answer to Slack.
Or to put int another way: All your mobility and collab in one place idea. It might work, but playing catch up to Slack (like Microsoft is doing by re-vamping Sharepoint) is so telecom! Me-too! Me-too! Me-too! No one innovates.
"According to the latest market report published by Persistence Market Research, the global VoIP services market was valued at US$ 85.9 Bn in 2015 and is anticipated to increase at a CAGR of 9.5% over 2016 - 2024, to reach US$ 194.5 Bn by 2024," per the press release.
Maybe the inorganic growth will spur organic growth. Maybe at some point VoIP growth will actually catch up to predictions, but if you take out SIP Trunking, does it?
Adoption is the key. User experience. Productivity. We'll see.
Meanwhile, hardware PBXs are still be installed.
8x8 is working on world domination plans, which is great except they haven't really taken a bite out of the Apple (NYC) let alone most of America yet. At 600K devices, there are 25 million businesses in the US. With even 80K billing businesses, that isn't even cracking 1%. Take into account 325K from RC and another 80K from VB is about 2% of the addressable SMB market space. Yeah, I guess you should go global.
Adoption is a far cry from what was predicted. The smart home space is seeing the same issue.
"Despite the hype growing around smart homes - from fridges that can tell you what items you've run out of, to controlling your lights from a smartphone - the majority of people don't have much interest in the new technology, new research reveals." [source]
Consolidation and Adoption are just two issues to overcome.
Carbonite buys Seagate EVault cloud backup, DR for $14M, which is a deal, but even this little bit of consolidation does add up to much of the market - against Google Drive, MS Onedrive, Apple iCloud, Amazon S3, Dropbox and Box. Ransonware esurance is what this sector needs. Or some other way to tell the story of lost files, photos, etc.
While talking about needing a better story, here are 2 Slack commercials (one-zoo and two-spaceship) that are off-beat to say the least.
