MARKET REPORT Unified Communications
“The real advantage of Cloud services is that evolution of products and services can now happen at a
much faster rate than in the past.” Alex Grant, Director - 24 Seven Cloud
Enterprise UC in the SME
Has the cloud swept away the traditional way in which vendors are promoting their products to users?
UCaaS solutions with all the bells and whistles you could throw a stick at that claim they are cost effective
down to a handful of users would appear to show Enterprise and SME needs are now one and the same.
What’s the reality?
We are used to the theory
of top to bottom trickle
down for technology,
but many are saying
that this model of costly and
sophisticated applications being
sold initially only to Enterprises
– after all they are big budget
targets with greater in house
skills, no longer applies in the
world of the cloud.
Companies that herald huge
applications that are suitable for
any company size, say from ve
to ten users, all the way up to
thousands of users clearly think
the old enterprise order is long
gone.
Nowhere does this scenario
seem more evidenced than in the
Unied Communications market
where UCaaS versions seem to t
the 5 to 5000 user market with
apparent ease.
So, what are Enterprise UC
applications? Research (Google)
pings up a number of well-known
favourites such as;
• Hosted Voice
• Unied Messaging and
Presence plus Collaboration
• Mobile Connectivity and Apps
• Video and Web Conferencing
• Existing Business App
Integration
• Mobility
• Customisation
• Security
ere can’t be too many
readers who at this point would
not consider these applications to
be standard or readily available
options to almost any UCaaS
oering no matter what the
size of the deployment. Perhaps
customisation may prove to be
somewhat limited for smaller
installations.
Gamma is a good place to start
when looking both for a place
to begin and a channel reference
point. Gamma’s Horizon hosted
telephony platform is hugely
popular and successful in the UK
and last year the company added
a number of UC applications in
the form of Horizon Collaborate.
Applications will continue to
be added and having attended
one of their reseller roadshows
recently the provider disclosed
their UC ‘attachment rates’ for
the Collaborate products.
Firstly, we must realise that
Gamma Horizon is based upon
the Broadsoft hosted telephony
platform and therefore is a proven
example of a solution that can
address both a mere handful
of users all the way up to many
thousands of users.
Given the longevity of Horizon
Collaborate in the market; just
12 months, I have to say that the
attachment rates to date for their
Collaborate UC applications is
impressive especially given the
size of user that the Gamma
Channel typically sells to.
e customer size spread
illustrates that these applications
really do scale down to the
smaller SME.
CUSTOMER
SIZE
ATTACHMENT
RATE
0-9 6.3%
10-49 8.3%
50-249 6.6%
250+ 3.6%
Gamma also sells two third
party UC apps, Akixi and
Cirrus that also display this
scaling ability.
Are there really 5 to 5000
user applications out there
successfully competing
across the SME, Mid-Market
and Enterprise sectors?
Alex Grant, Director at 24 Seven
Cloud says typically with new
technologies, new features and
functions trickle downwards.
“Our stance on this is that
within the Cloud services sector
we are actually seeing new
innovative technologies starting
to be implemented at all levels,
not just from the Enterprise
downwards. For example, the
rise of BYOD within smaller
SME’s have brought on new
challenges for the Unied
Communications market, and
innovative technologies like
native mobile phone dialler
integration have become a
driving force to push Unied
Communication sales into the
SME market.
e real advantage of Cloud
services is that evolution of
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