Author: Kevin Gulley
Was taking a few planned days off when I realized that everywhere I looked there was video conferencing news. Gartner’s new Magic Quadrant for group video systems just came out, there was a big acquistion in the business meeting / video conferencing space and leading business publications were pushing stories about how to make video work for your business. Let’s dig in. 2016 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Group Video Systems The group video market is changing quickly (no surprise) and according to Gartner is in a slow decline phase (contracting by 1.3% annually through 2020). Software video infrastructure, innovative form…
One of the Biggest Deals in the UC & C Space in Years is…well…it’s Not Happening. Last week Polycom backed out of their agreed to acquisition by Mitel, which definitely turned some heads amongst industry watchers, participants and investors. According to the New York Times DealBook there was plenty of upside to the merger: The cash-and-stock deal offered a 22 percent premium to Polycom shareholders, who also would have owned three-fifths of the enlarged entity. An anticipated $160 million of annual synergies, worth some $1.3 billion once taxed and capitalized, should have foretold plenty of upside. However, the deal announced in April…
I’m not doing a lot of research to back up the thesis of this post. I don’t need to …you will all testify that what I am about to say is true. Nintendo is one of the most impressive and innovative companies in the world. They’ve revinvented what it means for humans to play games four times. Four! So far. The Nintendo Entertainment System This was the first console. Oh sure, those of you my age will say, what about Atari. Yeah, I spent more hours wasting days away with Atari than I care to admit, but it was…
The way we use voice communications in business has changed more in the last 10 years than it has in the last 40. In this information packed conversation with Urban Gillis, Vice President of Distribution and Channel Sales at headset maker Jabra, we discuss the different ways that business people use phone calls and how businesses can categorize them into user types. In particular, we dig into the specifics around the “Call-Centric” user type and the various types of professionals whose jobs revolve around taking, making and managing high volumes of calls. We also dig into how unified communications, mobility and increased collaboration opportunities have…
Most of us think of the small and medium business (SMB) market when we think of hosted UC (UCaaS). In fact, Cisco recently came out with a report saying that 86% of SMBs were actively testing, planning on implementing or had already deployed UCaaS. There were signs that SMB dominance was poised to change when last year’s Gartner Magic Quadrant for UCaaS threw us a curveball and went global. They did so to show some separation between businesses and solutions that were ready and able to execute on a global scale (i.e. those companies that could support multi-national companies) and those that weren’t there yet…
As usual, there is a LOT going on this week in the unified, enterprise and consumer communications space. Here are a few things you should really know about. Microsoft Keeps Up the Pressure With Skype Meetings, Free Conferencing for SMB’s They’re not screwing around in Redmond. Microsoft is pushing forward on multiple UC & C fronts, from Cloud PBX to Cloud Connector to connect your existing PBX to Skype for Business, to Project Rigel…they are flexing their UC&C muscles, big time! Their latest offering announced this week is Skype for Meetings, a web and video conferencing solution for the SMB market. It…
We recently published a post called ‘5 questions SMBs must ask and answer before implementing UCaaS or Hosted VoIP’. It was based on a conversation with Aldo Ramirez, the VP of Sales at UCaaS company ANPI, and there was so much information packed into that discussion that I had to write up a second article with the next 5 questions SMBs should ask themselves. So without further ado, make sure you know the answers to these questions: What Types of Employees Do You Have and What Capabilities Will They Need? Employees can have very different communications requirements, especially when it comes…
Before you head out to enjoy your 4th of July weekend, I wanted to make sure that, in addition to beer, hotdogs, hamburgers and red solo cups, you were provisioned with things to think about or peruse as you’re having a cup of coffee (and potentially nursing a hangover) this weekend. Enjoy! Are API’s Driving a Communications GoldRush? Interesting article in NoJitter this week discussing how API’s and embedding communications wherever and whenever they’re needed is driving the next Big Bang in the communications space. It certainly seems that way with Twilio going public and having a 92% bump in share prices the day…
Customer engagements have changed more over the last five years than they have in the previous thirty, according to Natalie Keightley, the Contact Center Product Marketing Lead for the EMEA region at Avaya. Customers are mobile first, demand service in whatever channel and on whatever device suits them, expect companies to know everything about their history (regardless of channel) and insist they solve their problems immediately. Related: 4 Keys to eContact Center Success In this information packed conversation, we dig into how companies are moving to make a superior customer experience the cornerstone of their brand. We discuss how businesses are changing mindsets…
This year is the year of enterprise video, but so was last year, and next year will be the year of video as well. That’s according to Ira Weinstein, video conferencing and collaboration specialist and partner at Wainhouse Research. We dig into how the video conferencing market is evolving, the challenges keeping it from meeting its promise and how new solutions from service providers, like Yorktel’s Univago virtual meeting room platform, are starting to tear down those barriers and open up ubiquitous access to visual collaboration. If you are an SMB or a larger enterprise looking for ways to take video to…
If you’ve been following The UC Buyer, or you’ve just heard the incessant buzzing sound coming from the marketplace, you’ll know the business world is moving towards a Customer Experience Management (CEM) mindset. For many companies this represents a shift to an omni-channel contact center and a fundamental change in their approach to customer care. As a colleague recently explained, it can be neatly summed up as a company’s migration from an ‘inside out’ to an ‘outside in’ approach. Businesses that have successfully made this transition have customer care as a core aspect of their brand and see this company-wide approach as a competitive differentiator.…
This article is not about the business case, the benefits or the use cases for a small or medium sized company looking at cloud-based communications, hosted VoIP or UCaaS (you can dig into that here, or even deeper with this whitepaper). This article is about the questions businesses need to ask themselves to determine whether they are ready to successfully implement and use UCaaS or Hosted VoIP. Here are five critical questions in no particular order (with 5 more hot on their heels) that every small and medium business should ask and answer before pulling the trigger. Is Your Local Area Network…
Of all the ways organizations have of communicating and collaborating both internally and with their business partners, none is more powerful than face-to-face. But we also know it isn’t always possible or practical to in the same space and share a visual frame of reference for our meetings. Video conferencing and the use of UC tools like Skype for Business is therefore the direction many companies take in an effort to promote better collaboration and idea sharing—often with mixed levels of success. There’s no question that communicating via web link or video conferencing is preferable to using audio alone (especially…
Although video conferencing in the enterprise has been around for decades, many organizations and employees still find the use of this technology to be less than reliable. Whether it’s the complexity for end users, issues with image or sound quality, or problems with interoperability, traditional enterprise video frequently presents challenges. That’s why a new video collaboration product from CafeX called Chime is generating such interest and excitement. Many of you may recognize CafeX from their early involvement in WebRTC and in helping some big companies incorporate that technology in their contact centers and mobile apps to deepen customer engagement. Now they’ve turned their attention…
As regular followers of The UC Buyer know, we keep our eyes and ears tuned to the latest trends in enterprise communication so you can stay informed. One of the exciting areas we’ve been watching recently is the convergence of Unified Communications and contact center customer management solutions. The blurring of the lines between UC and the customer service experience has led to exciting new ways of meeting customer needs. To learn more about how businesses are taking advantage of the confluence of UC and contact center technology I recently spoke with John Cray, VP of Product Management for Contact…
Here at The UC Buyer, we love sharing with our readers how the newest advances in technology are helping organizations streamline their communications and improve their business flow. One area of particular interest recently has been the growth of WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communications). WebRTCis a browser-based communications platform that allows users to communicate via voice, video and text without the need for extra plugins or special communications equipment. Although WebRTC has been around for a few years now, only recently have Apple and Microsoft gotten on board with supporting this new standard in their respective browsers. That new development alone portends…
In case it rains this weekend, or you just want some great topics to dig into while you’re enjoying your morning coffee, here are the latest five bullets to keep you occupied. The State of the Weg (and the global economy) – Mary Meeker, of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers just presented her latest ‘State of the Web’ report. As usual it is chock full of amazing data and insights. You can scroll through the whole deck here, and if your business or personal life depends upon the Internet (and if you’re reading this, it does), I strongly suggest taking the time…
Improved interactions with customers and greater internal efficiency has always been the promise of WebRTC and with the standard solidifying and Microsoft and Apple getting on board, businesses are now really starting to take advantage of it. In this insightful podcast interview with Xander Dumaine, Senior Software Engineer at Interactive Intelligence, we get into the details of where WebRTC is headed, the benefits to businesses and customers and why Interactive Intelligence has moved quickly to deploy their Contact Center solution as a WebRTC native application. We discuss market demand for WebRTC, how businesses and customers benefit from WebRTC applications and the types of…
As Unified Communications solutions become more widely deployed, companies are beginning to take advantage of them to expand their customer service beyond the walls of their contact center. In this information-filled podcast, I discuss this accelerating trend with John Cray, the VP of Product Management for Contact Center Solutions at Enghouse Interactive. We discuss how businesses are working to integrate UC into their customer care process in a holistic manner, the types of technological challenges that need to be addressed to bring these disparate solutions together and how businesses and contact center agents are taking advantage of these new opportunities. If…
It’s been clear for a while now that UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service) will play a huge role in the future of enterprise communications. Moving the communications and collaboration layer to the cloud in one (integrated) fell swoop is appealing to many, many businesses and helps explain the rapid expected growth in the hosted UC space. Check out this infographic for details, but multiple market research firms expect an average of 22% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) through at least 2019 and a UCaaS market that exceeds $20 Billion annually by 2020. With market penetration like this, it won’t…