Windstream Offers '1-2 Punch' of SD-WAN with Broadview OfficeSuite

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Windstream has updated its UCaaS portfolio by adding Broadview Networks’ OfficeSuite paired with its SD-WAN.

Windstream’s Brian Crotty

Windstream completed its $228 million acquisition of Broadview, the provider of cloud-based UC to SMBs, late last month. Broadview’s OfficeSuite with Windstream’s SD-WAN combines services such as phone, contact center, chat, video and collaboration with SD-WAN, for customers ranging from SMBs to enterprise.

Brian Crotty, president of Windstream’s midmarket and small business division, tells Channel Partners the combination is a “one-two punch; it’s absolutely unstoppable in the marketplace.”

“And you’ve got the power of a Fortune 500 company backing it,” he said. “This is going to be a whole new world for the entire channel. I’m very, very excited about the channel opportunity. What it means for the agent is multiple-fold. First, agents have lots of legacy access-only customers with Windstream, legacy EarthLink or legacy Broadview. When you go from access-only to OfficeSuite and SD-WAN, that customer’s life cycle and the amount of money that agent is going to make is going to double; it’s going to go twice as long as what it was before on an access only basis.”

The OfficeSuite platform serves more than 250,000 users nationwide with cloud-based UC services to “increase both their productivity and competitiveness in the marketplace,” Crotty said.

“When you move a customer from access-only to OfficeSuite and SD-WAN, while sometimes the revenue goes down, most of the time the revenue goes up,” he said. “And then from a customer-experience perspective and a customer-satisfaction perspective, these products are now to the point where you make it bulletproof. So unlike the traditional access customer, when that circuit goes down, they’re dead … now we’re no longer having discussions about disaster recovery, we’re talking disaster avoidance here.”

Windstream now is focused on simplifying its product suite and strategic message, and going to market with OfficeSuite and SD-WAN, “and we will pull through our other product suites of access, fixed wireless, managed services and everything else that we end up offering, but the message clearly is OfficeSuite and SD-WAN,” Crotty said.

Last week, Windstream unveiled an enhanced SD-WAN offering it says includes the best of its technology and that of EarthLink, which it acquired earlier this year.