Gartner Magic Quadrant: Cisco, 8x8, Microsoft, RingCentral, Zoom UCaaS Leaders

Cisco has a strong brand and deep CIO relationships across the globe. Its UCaaS portfolio is complemented by Wi-Fi, LAN, WAN, SD-WAN, security and data center assets. On the downside, Cisco is losing UCaaS mind share to Microsoft, RingCentral and Zoom. These competing vendors each focus on a single cloud UC platform.

8×8’s growing focus on channel enablement boosts its ability to grow its business. On the downside, its brand is less well-recognized than those of some of its UCaaS competitors. Also, it hasn’t developed strategic partnerships with legacy telephony providers. That reduces its chances of consideration by organizations transitioning from premises-based UC.

Microsoft’s enterprise license agreement, which entitles users to Microsoft Teams, is a strong influence on organizations considering UCaaS. On the downside, Microsoft is not a suitable option for organizations that require contact center capabilities delivered from the same platform as UCaaS services.

RingCentral has continued to improve in several key areas. Those include product development and capabilities, sales and distribution, global coverage, and customer service and support. On the downside, RingCentral’s focus on strategic partnerships, and especially on developing compatibility with partners’ phones, gateways and legacy UC infrastructure, may prevent it from devoting all its R&D resources to innovation.

Zoom has significantly raised its profile during the COVID-19 pandemic by bridging the gap between consumers and enterprises. It’s done this with “freemium” packages and by offering incentives to organizations signing up to Zoom for the first time. On the downside, Zoom does not offer contact center functionality, so it is unsuitable for organizations that want UCaaS and CCaaS delivered from a single platform. It does, however, partner with leading contact center providers, and its offering can be integrated with Five9, Genesys, NICE inContact, Talkdesk and Twilio.