Okay, I will stop picking on UCaaS like I did HERE and HERE and tell you about some good stuff.
VOSS Solutions has been a Cisco shop for many years. Now they are launching VOSS-4-UC, a management platform for the hybrid Cisco and Microsoft environment, which I would imagine is how many Fortune 5000 companies operate. VOSS also hired a Skype for Biz Chief, in a nod to the growth of Office365+Skype4B.
Meanwhile another Cisco shop launched a UCaaS service for small business. Verizon One Talk is a BroadSoft based, mobile first offering for small business. As Verizon wrote me, "It is selling well out of the gate because it is simple, easy to buy, only the key features, and the sales channel that incented to sell it at scale." At this time, I don't know the difference between One Talk and VCE, the other BroadSoft offering that VZ sells, but I will look into it.
Meanwhile, Gary Kim has a good write-up on One Talk; so does Telecompetitor. The VZ commercial is a little over the top but it gets the point across. The key is that small businesses that One Talk targets are going all mobile anyway. This offers them some PBX functionality on top of that -- to look "bigger". See the video here.
Intelepeer added some channel help and re-organized to support their Cloud Advantage Partner Program. Intelepeer is a SIP provider with close ties t o Cisco platforms including Spark. They partnered with Chinook on a hosted Lync/SIP bundle. More and more providers have to embrace both Cisco and Microsoft, who hold 55% of the UC market.
"According to the survey, 26% of IT decision makers and 39% of business decision makers are either "somewhat" or "very" fearful about migrating to UC with nearly half (48%) of those surveyed admitting that they don't fully understand the full impact UC would have on their organizations."
Verizon kind of tackled this, right? By getting simple AND by targeting a segment of the marketplace (not the WHOLE marketplace of 1-1000), their UCaaS offering will sell. Skinny bundles will help or highly targeted packages make it easier to message to the prospect.
On the enterprise front, it will be a hybrid world going forward. We see more providers embracing Office365 (especially when so many ran from it at launch). Others have come to realize that it will be a Cisco+Microsoft world, so adjust to it.
