Not a Lot of Change on the Gartner UCaaS Magic Quadrant 2018
As companies search for more flexibility in their communication services, the “as a service” approach to UC has become increasingly popular. The as a service model allows organisations to access the latest features of UC technology through the cloud, ensuring exceptional scalability.
Today, Gartner believes that by 2021, 90% of IT leaders will be relying on the cloud for their UC technology. The Gartner Magic Quadrant is a report that evaluates vendors in the UCaaS space according to their “completeness of vision” for innovative technology, and their “ability to execute.” Let’s examine who made the cut this year.
The UCaaS Leaders for 2018
Leaders in the UCaaS Magic Quadrant offer the best completeness of vision, and the strongest ability to execute. In 2017, the leaders were:
- 8×8
- BT
- Orange Business Services
- RingCentral
- Verizon
- West
This year we have:
RingCentral
RingCentral has accomplished some phenomenal things this year. They were our UC Awards 2018 winner for “Best Cloud Communications Provider,” and now they’re at the head of the leader section for the Gartner Magic Quadrant too. RingCentral has successfully expanded their offering across SMB, mid-size and enterprise accounts, offering the full RingCentral Office with Glip collaboration, and multiple enhanced communication features. Gartner notes that RingCentral has a strong market position, and this year posted a strong revenue growth of 34% since 2017.
8×8
8×8 is a UCaaS application specialist who rebranded their product portfolio this year to the “X Series.” 8×8 now has a rich cloud portfolio featuring integrated UC, workstream collaboration, contact centre solutions, conferencing and more. Gartner believes that over 50% of 8×8 customers currently purchase CCaaS from the company to compliment their UCaaS deployments too.
Orange
Global CSP Orange offers two separate UCaaS services, including a Skype-based solution and Cisco-based option. Orange deploys reference architecture for UCaaS too through a range of gateways, handsets, headsets, SBCs, video endpoints and more. Gartner’s financial assessment tool gave Orange a positive financial rating this year, and Gartner showed that Orange is a well-proven vendor, with more than 10,000 seats in both the Microsoft and Cisco stacks.
BT
Global CSP BT offers five UCaaS options in its portfolio, including the “One Cloud Cisco” HCS, and the One Cloud Microsoft option, which are the focus of the MQ evaluation. The OneCloud iComms from Ribbon, Cloud Voice (RingCentral) and Cloud Phone (BroadSoft) specifically target the UK. Gartner suggests that BT has advanced skills in the UCaaS stacks and can support a range of communication environments around the world.
Verizon
Global CSP Verizon offers Verizon Unified Communications and Collaboration on a surface based on the Cisco HCS platform. Serving companies in more than 1040 countries, Verizon has a broad reach, and a connection with Cisco for selling WebEx Meetings, Teams, Cloud Connected Audio and more. Verizon’s UCaaS adoption platform also makes it easier for customers to access the full suite of solutions.
The UCaaS Challengers for 2018
The UCaaS Magic Quadrant Challengers are solutions that are quickly making their way towards a leadership position. Last year (2017) we had:
- AT&T
- Microsoft
This year, the Challengers are:
Microsoft
One of the best-known publicly-held IT service vendors in the world, Microsoft’s UCaaS application is Microsoft Teams, part of the Office 365 suite. The Microsoft Teams offering supports presence, workstream collaboration, screen and audio sharing, and more. With a new direct-routing capability supporting third-party PBXs, Teams is consistently gaining momentum in the UCaaS market this year. It’s only a matter of time before Microsoft hits the Leaderboard.
Google is another major contender ready to move to the Leadership position soon. Google’s UCaaS offering includes Hangouts and the G Suite cloud office bundle. The Google service is available in a wide selection of languages around the world, and it’s received various updates in the last year with new endpoints, clients, user experience solutions and more. Hangouts fosters a highly collaborative work experience that’s quick to deploy, and highly cost-effective.
AT&T
Global CSP AT&T targets UCaaS both directly, and through a selection of channel partners. AT&T has three separate cloud-based offers, which enable the company to deliver support for most UC stacks, regardless of the size of their customer’s business. Gartner also notes that AT&T has taken steps to improve and simplify the customer experience with a new upfront requirement design team, post-sales deployment services, and automated migration tools.
Cisco
Cisco’s position in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for UCaaS this year comes from Gartner’s evaluation of the Cisco BroadCloud component, where Cisco delivers and maintains UCaaS stacks. The BroadSoft acquisition in 2018 gave Cisco access to multiple cloud calling capabilities and additional services for UCaaS. Gartner notes that the Cisco BroadCloud platform is highly scalable, with countless new facilities on the horizon.
NTT Group
The UCaaS portfolio for the NTT Group come from the combined assets of Arkadin, Dimension Data, and NTT Communications. The three separate business units run UCaaS solutions that have offered a positive financial rating this year, according to Gartner. The NTT has made methodical gains this year according to Gartner, by aligning multiple UCaaS groups together to serve customer needs.
The UCaaS Niche Players for 2018
Gartner’s Magic Quadrant niche players for UCaaS in 2017 were:
- Star2Star
- Masergy
- NTT Group
This year, the niche players are:
Masergy
A privately-held vendor with a global footprint in networking, Masergy has recently expanded to support managed security services, and UCaaS delivered from the SD platform. Masergy offers a robust adjacent portfolio to its UCaaS solution which includes CCaaS, SIP Trunking, SD-WAN and more.
Star2Star
Star2Star is a UCaaS application specialist that delivers UCaaS solutions to a wide range of companies spanning from large enterprises to SMBs. Star2Star merged with BlueFace this year for extended coverage over Europe and Asia Pacific. Through two UCaaS offerings, Star2Star offers a broad range of services, and the system they provide over the cloud requires no customer premise equipment – ideal for low-cost deployment.
The UCaaS Visionaries for 2018
Finally, the UCaaS Visionaries for 2018 were:
- Fuze
- Broadsoft
- Mitel
This year, the Visionaries for the Magic Quadrant are:
West
West is currently a privately-held company following a recent purchase by Apollo Global Management. Today, the lead UCaaS offering for the company, VoiceMaxx CE is built on the Cisco HCS platform. West also supports CCaaS from Cisco, alongside its own branded CCaaS solution. The West offering is highly supported by adjacent services, and Gartner believes that Apollo is investing in West to improve its position in the marketplace.
Mitel
Mitel has two global UCaaS solutions to offer in the form of MiCloud Connect and MiCloud Flex. The two options give companies access to a broad range of services, and Mitel also plans to link its range of on-premise PBXs with MiCloud Connect through an emerging CloudLink integration. Gartner notes that Mitel can support both standard UCaaS portfolios, and customers with unique requirements.
Fuze
Finally, privately held UCaaS app specialist Fuze runs it’s own UCaaS multi-tenant platform which now supports collaboration features. In 2017, Fuze linked its portfolio with AppNeta to expand into video and voice reporting and quality monitoring capabilities. Fuze customers appreciate its fantastic rate of innovation according to Gartner.
Considering this Year’s Magic Quadrant
It’s been a successful year for many companies in the 2018 UCaaS Magic Quadrant. Cisco took over for BroadSoft after the recent BroadSoft/Cisco acquisition, but the players in the report remained the same from 2017 with a few vendors shifting up and down to new sections of the report.
We’re particularly impressed by RingCentral this year for its exceptional cloud performance, and believe that Cisco, Microsoft, and Google are well on their way towards a potential appearance in the Leadership quadrant of the MQ.
Source: uctoday
Indsutry: Unified communcation news
Latest Jobs
-
- VOIP / SIP App Developer. Contract. SIP | VOIP experience needed. SC Cleared Outside IR35 Contract. London
- London
- OUTSIDE IR35
-
SIP | VOIP Developer. SC Cleared Contract. London Looking for a SC Cleared SIP / VOIP Developer to develop an application that interacts with a set of voice and video signalling API’s You will also work on developing in-house applications, browser plugins and automated tooling to support secure communication systems. Responsibilities Develop an application that will manage number mapping and associated identities using commercial SBC API’s. Develop new user-facing features using React.js or other modern JavaScript frameworks. Build reusable components and front-end libraries for future use. Collaborate with the design team to translate UI/UX design wireframes into code. Work closely with backend developers to integrate front-end code with server-side logic. Conduct code reviews and provide constructive feedback to team members. Stay up-to-date on emerging technologies and industry trends to continuously improve our front-end development practices. Troubleshoot and debug issues that arise during development and in production environments. Maintain high coding standards and practices and ensure code is well-documented. Requirement Experience of developing specialist applications using REST API’s. Good knowledge of Go, Java and Python (open to alternative combinations of languages). Proficiency in front-end languages and frameworks such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, React.js, etc. Strong understanding of web standards, responsive design, and cross-browser compatibility. Experience with version control systems such as Git. Knowledge of RESTful APIs and asynchronous request handling. Familiarity with UI/UX design principles and tools.
-
- Senior Data Privacy Consultant. Client Facing | London
- London
- N/A
-
Senior Data Privacy Consultant. Client Facing | London Senior Data Privacy Consultant needed for a key client facing opportunity. Must be willing to undergo SC Security Clearance. Hybrid role- onsite with customer / office 2-3 days a week. London Key Responsibilities: Lead and support client facing data privacy projects. Assess compliance, define and deliver strategic projects / implement privacy solutions. Manage project teams and develop business opportunities. Required Experience: Experience in data protection and privacy standards. Background in consulting. Skills and Qualifications: Business consulting experience IAPP Privacy Manager / Privacy Technologist Location Greater London UK based role. Not able to provide VISA sponsorship.
-
- Security Analyst - Internal role. London commutable. Permanent
- London
- N/A
-
Security Analyst - Internal role. London commutable opportunity. Operational Security - Investigate, escalate and proactively work to ensure household name remains protected. Project Security - Coordinate, log change requests with project delivery teams to meet security requirements Policy / compliance - work with team to aid in uplifting these as and where needed This role is role to investigate, escalate and proactively work to protect a globally recognised brand. You must have current hands on operational analytical security experience with Microsoft technology stack Someone with a SOC Analyst / security engineering background would be well suited. This position will join a small team and would suit someone that has broad experience across the security threat landscape. Experience / knowledge across industry GRC standards such NIST, ISO27001 etc very advantageous and a priority. You will work across multiple teams proactively working to secure the business. Must be able to commute to Central London 3 days a week. Visa sponsorship not available Apply today to find out more.
-
- Network / Security Infrastructure Engineer | West London | Permanent
- London
- N/A
-
Network / Security Infrastructure Engineer | West London | Current Config, Install, upgrade experience On prem / Datacetner experience essential. Hands on experience MUST include: Routing, Switching, Network Security (firewall, IDS etc), Microsoft exchange / Exchange 365. Scripting / automation experience wanted. Python, Powershell etc Regular travel to West London is required. Visa sponsorship not available. Apply today for more information chris.holt@dclsearch.com Use this whatapp link to reach out https://wa.me/message/6USF5RAQBOZIP1