EVENTS Channel Live 2019
“We’ve had internal questions around how we compete with Teams but the simple answer is you don’t, you
integrate with it.” Richard Whybra, Technical Director - Taurus Clearer Communication
Launched – Pod from 24 Seven Cloud Communications
Alex Grant, Director of 24 Seven Cloud Communications joined David Dungay on the
live stream at the event to discuss their new hosted platform which is underpinned
by Metaswitch.
When asked what was different about the proposition Grant said, “One of our
promises is we will never go direct to end users. The platform is different to what is
out there. At the moment the UK landscape is dominated by one big platform which
everyone knows. Everyone is running the same license model, although it might
be on different networks. Ultimately, they are dictated to by that one vendor with
license costs etc. The problem is there is very little room within that model for price
movements which means essentially it is just a race to the bottom. We believe with
our product, which is completely different that won’t happen.”
how we compete with Teams
but the simple answer is you
don’t, you integrate with it. As
voice resellers if you integrate
with Teams e ectively you still
keep all the revenues around
the voice market. You just don’t
give that to Microsoft. We are
specialists in voice and actually
will be able to deliver that much
more e ectively than Microsoft
will ever be able to do. With all
the di erent systems and ways
of doing it we can do that much
more e ciently. We have been
out in the market delivering
voice with a Teams endpoint for
about three months already.”
Whybra continued,
“ ere are lots of software
manufacturers looking at
Teams as a central point,
Microsoft always wanted to
create this workspace that
everyone worked in and that’s
what they are doing. ey are
taking the desktop to the next
level utilising Teams. Everyone
is creating their apps within
Teams so it is almost becoming
that correct workspace which
Microsoft were looking for
in the 90’s. ey are nally
getting there, but one of the
key elements to that is voice,
whether they like it or not
people still want to talk and I
think voice will grow within
that environment.”
But what about the price for
customers? Is this a barrier to
adoption?
Ben Pinder, Pre Sales Technical
Consultant, Taurus Clearer
Communication commented,
“People often don’t realise
that it’s the calling plan which
is the prominent cost within
Microsoft’s package, the
phone system itself will have
internal calling but it won’t
allow you to dial in or out of
the business. at is delivered
through Calling Plans which
is per user per month, it starts
at £9.90. at has to be applied
across everyone in the business.
ere is no option there to have
piecemeal adoption of teams.
You have to put everyone on
it and pay £9.90/m for each
member of sta . Integrating the
two allows you to do it on a per
user basis.”
ED SAYS…
There was so much which came out of the event it is impossible to cover it all here. For me there was one obvious
trend which the Channel should take comfort from. No one brought up Brexit for the entire two days, this was a clear
indication that the Channel is concentrating on what they do best, serving businesses with the right technology to
enable them to succeed. 2020 is clearly going to be a big year for enablement services and some key providers are
doing some great work to allow the Channel to really ‘fl y’ when it comes to fi bre. I would like to thank all those who
supported the event this year, I believe when the Channel gets together amazing things can happen! We’ll be back next
year at the NEC on the 22nd and 23rd of September, get it in the diary!
If you want to catch up on more of the action from the NEC I would recommend you follow the #CHLive19 hastags over
social media.
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