CoreDial's eZuce Acquisition Sets Up Battle with 8x8, RingCentral

CoreDial is buying eZuce, a move that helps its partners compete directly against 8×8, RingCentral and Vonage.

eZuce, a video collaboration and communications technology vendor, is based in Stoneham, Massachusetts. It has engineering and development teams in Slovakia and Romania.

Included in the assets acquired are: Vibe, eZuce’s cloud-based video collaboration platform; Uniteme, the company’s unified communications (UC) solution; and Reachme, the company’s contact center (CC) offering.

CoreDial’s Alan Rihm

Alan Rihm is CoreDial’s CEO. He said the CoreDial buying eZuce will have a “tremendous[ly] positive” impact on CoreDial partners.

“It will enable our channel to compete in a wide range of deals with SME seats and enterprise deals,” he said. “They’ll have multilingual support for international opportunities, and flexible shared and private cloud deployment models for larger, strategic channel partners and customers. They’ll have the ability to offer as a bundled part of CoreNexa UC and CC to meets the needs of the market and compete with the likes of 8×8, RingCentral and Vonage. But also, they can offer as a standalone offering that works with virtually any SIP provider or system.”

Partners will compete with GoToMeeting, Webex and Zoom, Rihm said. In addition, they’ll get high profit margins.

Vibe Advantages

Built for cloud deployment, Vibe addresses a complete range of customer needs. Those include on-demand, scheduled, and recurring free and paid meetings, virtual rooms, large webinars and communities.

Integrated huddle and conference room solutions are available. They use a wide range of third-party hardware products. And CoreDial plans pre-integrated hardware offerings.

The Vibe platform is designed for scalable and secure cloud deployments. It supports downloadable clients for Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems, as well as iOS and Android mobile environments.

As part of the acquisition, CoreDial will support existing eZuce video, UC and CC partners and customers.

“The companies are not really competitors,” Rihm said. “We have solutions portfolios that are complementary. eZuce’s video collaboration platform is highly and globally regarded by customers, MSPs and its channel. CoreDial is renowned for its proven business model, UC and CC offerings. The acquisition was driven by the two companies recognizing the strong synergies and opportunities that existed.”

Pandemic-Prompted Needs

There’s no doubt that video and collaboration have become go-to-solutions in the wake of work from home and social distancing mandates, Rihm said.

“Even as the impact of the pandemic somewhat abates, we see that many customers will remain hesitant to return to the workplace,” he said. “This acquisition will allow our partners to offer compelling video services that are necessary today, but that we all know will remain highly relevant and increasingly demanded well into the future. ”

eZuce has a strong customer base in North America, Rihm said. It’s also strong throughout Europe and other core global markets.

“This represents a unique opportunity to move strategically into the enterprise sector, and capitalize on a tremendous global opportunity,” Rihm said. “The acquisition enables us to accelerate our growth through up-market movement and international expansion.”

“While video meetings were certainly gaining traction leading into the pandemic, the impact of COVID-19 has exponentially accelerated demand for reliable, secure and scalable solutions,” said Roopam Jain, senior industry director at Frost & Sullivan.

CoreDial’s eZuce acquisition aligns with dramatic shifts in the “future of business communications,” she said.