Microsoft, RingCentral, Cisco Among Leaders on Gartner's UCaaS Magic Quadrant
Wildix was added to this latest Magic Quadrant, while Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise (ALE) was dropped.
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Cisco is the UCaaS vendor with the most complete self-developed UC portfolio, including phones, headsets, cameras, personal meeting endpoints, room meeting systems, gateways, analog terminal adapters (ATAs) and session border controllers, says Gartner. It also provides data networking and security infrastructure.
However, Webex Contact Center is still maturing. Therefore, organizations seeking an integrated contact center for large and complex operations should confirm that Cisco meets their requirements and also investigate other options if required capabilities are not supported.
Among its strengths, 8×8 is well-positioned to deliver UCaaS and CCaaS in conjunction with Microsoft Teams workflows, notes Gartner. Its integration to Teams via 8×8 Voice for Microsoft Teams enables telephony and contact center global PSTN calling using Teams across more than 40 countries.
However, although 8×8 grew its user base in the previous year by approximately 20%, its strongest competitors (RingCentral, Microsoft and Zoom) grew their respective bases considerably more.
The adoption of Microsoft Teams for UC over the past year has greatly surpassed that of every other provider in this research. Microsoft has reported nearly 80 million monthly active Microsoft Teams Phone System users and nearly 250 million monthly active users of Teams.
However, Microsoft can’t address organizations that require advanced telephony features, Gartner said. This has given rise to a multitude of providers creating offerings that are meant to only provide telephony for Microsoft Teams. This gives competitors an advantage, and some organizations are switching to other providers.
RingCentral continues to expand revenue above 30% despite strong competition from Microsoft and Zoom. Its strong marketing, strategic partnerships and e-commerce sales help deliver this growth, says Gartner.
However, RingCentral faces significant threats from even stronger brands such as Zoom and Microsoft. In addition, the Cisco threat is expected to become stronger as it has also invested heavily in Webex in the past 18 months, and now has a much more capable and innovative offer.
Zoom has experienced surprising growth in its Zoom Phone user base in the past year. Other than Microsoft, no other provider has increased its base as quickly as Zoom. In the one-year study period of this research, Zoom added over 1 million Zoom Phone users.
However, in the most challenging telephony environments, such as hospitals, manufacturing, field services and retail, Gartner clients select providers with the most extensive capabilities and a longer track record, such as RingCentral, Cisco and 8×8. Zoom Phone’s latest developments are expected to increase adoption with these specialized use cases.
The existence of Google Voice, Meet and Chat within the Google Workspace ecosystem provides Google customers with easy and cost-effective access to enterprise UC capabilities, says Gartner.
Google’s telephony capabilities will satisfy the needs of organizations that require only a basic feature set, but not those that require a more complete set of telephony features. For example, Google does not support E911 device tracking or E911 emergency onsite notifications.
GoTo has an attractive value proposition for organizations that seek bundled services extending beyond UC into IT support applications (GoToAssist), training (GoToTraining), events (GoToWebinar) and password management (LastPass) in their work from anywhere bundles, notes Gartner.
However, although GoTo’s solution now serves and is suitable for midmarket organizations, more than 90% of its UCaaS customer base is composed of small organizations, with under 100 users.
Mitel has a broad partner ecosystem with local sales and industry-specific insight expertise. This network enables Mitel to have a reach across unique market segments, Gartner says.
However, Mitel’s product/service delivery innovation, broad geographic PSTN delivery capabilities and meeting scalability enhancements have lagged behind leading UCaaS providers.
T-Mobile has taken part ownership in Dialpad, and the two have formed a strategic partnership to provide a new T-Mobile Collaborate offering powered by Dialpad. This creates a significant opportunity for Dialpad to tap T-Mobile’s mobile base, and to innovate with deeper mobile service integrations. T-Mobile is now also a Dialpad customer, as it has deployed Collaborate to T-Mobile’s employees.
However, although Dialpad does not disclose the size of its user base, Gartner estimates that it is among the smaller providers in this research. Dialpad has limited market visibility with Gartner clients. Its business is skewed toward English-speaking markets, although it can support additional languages and customers in other geographic regions.
Sangoma’s UCaaS suite and related offerings (SD-WAN, DaaS, contact center, API-enabled communications, handsets, session border controller, access control, trunking and fax) are well-suited for midmarket customers seeking a bundled solution, Gartner says.
However, integrating the people, processes and technologies between Sangoma and Star2Star, which have merged, comes with risks and will take significant management effort through 2021. This, in turn, will make focusing on innovations more challenging.
Vonage consistently receives positive feedback from customers on service and support resolution. The vendor extends customer success managers to small and large users, and leverages customer service software to proactively obtain data to support the customer base.
However, while Vonage has significantly expanded its geographic footprint over the past 12 months, its international service delivery capabilities are immature, especially in the Asia/Pacific region, says Gartner.
Windstream offers optional bundles for network access, SD-WAN and professional services that enable it to serve as a one-stop shop for small and midmarket organizations.
However, Windstream’s geographic presence is limited compared to other competing providers in this research. It relies on partners to support all customers outside the United States and Canada. Moreover, its administrator portal is only available in English. Windstream can only contract with customers in the United States, Gartner reports.
Wildix’s web-based approach and broad country-level PSTN replacement capabilities, provided by Wildix partners, can satisfy the requirements of sales-focused organizations with a highly distributed sales and support staff.
However, measured by revenue and organizational size, Wildix is by far the smallest provider in this research. Thus, it is expected to be challenged in competing with other providers that have R&D budgets that are much larger, and a constant focus on innovation and growth.
Fuze is focused on serving organizations with more than 500 users. This strategy has enabled the vendor to better align its end user, management and integration capabilities, as well as its customer success and professional services to meet the UC needs of large organizations, says Gartner. Fuze serves hundreds of organizations that operate in more than one region of the world.
However, although Fuze has markedly improved its self-developed Fuze Contact Center offering, it’s a voice-only solution and lacks digital channels (text, email, web chat, video, social), which are increasingly required by larger organizations.
Fuze is focused on serving organizations with more than 500 users. This strategy has enabled the vendor to better align its end user, management and integration capabilities, as well as its customer success and professional services to meet the UC needs of large organizations, says Gartner. Fuze serves hundreds of organizations that operate in more than one region of the world.
However, although Fuze has markedly improved its self-developed Fuze Contact Center offering, it’s a voice-only solution and lacks digital channels (text, email, web chat, video, social), which are increasingly required by larger organizations.
Microsoft, RingCentral, Cisco, Zoom and 8×8 are leaders on the latest Gartner Magic Quadrant for unified communications as a service (UCaaS).
Google, GoTo by LogMeIn and Mitel are ranked challengers, while Vonage, Dialpad, Sangoma, Windstream and Wildix are niche players. Gartner lists Fuze as a visionary.
This Gartner Magic Quadrant assists digital workplace application leaders in selecting providers that best align to their organization’s needs.
UCaaS has matured to the point where it is markedly superior to premises-based UC in collaboration and mobility services, according to Gartner. The procurement, operational and delivery models for UCaaS typically require less time and effort compared to premises-based UC.
Gartner defines UCaaS as a cloud-delivered service that provides many of the same functions as premises-based UC solutions.
The core capabilities of UCaaS offerings include those in the following areas: telephony, meetings, messaging, software apps, communication APIs and SDKs, and adjacent services.
By 2023, the number of remote workers will have doubled to over two-thirds of digital workers, according to Gartner. That is shifting buyer requirements to demand work-from-anywhere capabilities.
In addition, by 2024, 75% of enterprise users will not use a desk phone, up from 30% in 2020.
Wildix was added to this latest Gartner Magic Quadrant, while Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise (ALE) was dropped.
Scroll through our slideshow above to lean more about the providers on this Gartner Magic Quadrant.
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