New NICE UCaaS Offer, Aligned with CCaaS, Ready for Partners

NICE, which now bills itself as a customer experience AI platform, has a new bundle that brings together UCaaS and CCaaS.

"We are thrilled to announce the launch of 1CX, our new unified-communications-as-a-service (UCaaS) solution," said NICE SVP of sales and global channels Nir Hod, highlighting its $5 per user, per month price tag.

Hod said the freshly launched solution extends "seamless alignment with our contact-center-as-a-service (CCaaS) solution, providing a holistic package under a single vendor," further calling 1CX "disruptive," noting it was designed for rapid implementation and quick return on investment (ROI) in a LinkedIn post.

NICE's Nir Hod

NICE UCaaS Part of a Larger Consolidation Trend

David Smith, founder and principal of InFlow Analysis, said the move is part of a grander trend in the UCaaS/CCaaS world where vendors look to consolidate their offerings. NICE UCaaS is no different.

"This follows a trend of communications providers looking to merge UCaaS and CCaaS for an all-encompassing solution that addresses both employee experience (EX) and customer experience (CX) contextually," Smith told Channel Futures.

InFlow Analysis' David Smith

He said there is an "overwhelming realization that fully integrated communications platforms that unify UCaaS and CCaaS 'elegantly' remain critical to addressing and improving the actual experiences of people, both internal and external to the organization."

For this reason, he believes that NICE, previously having what he called a "strong CCaaS solution," yielded itself to a fuller, more robustly integrated offering with UCaaS.

"This new offering is at a good price point as well. I think the channel impact comes from the overall CXOne offering that I believe will positively grow the ecosystem and will give NICE a more well-rounded offering partners can bring to end customers," Smith said.

NICE Still Making Headway in CCaaS

At NICE, things appear to be business as usual, despite its CEO announcing he would exit come the end of 2024.

In addition to 1CX, NICE additionally launched an offer it calls CXOne MPower, which brings contextual artificial intelligence (AI) into workflows.

"What we're talking about here, and what this means to me, is contextual AI. In my estimation, that comes into the flow seamlessly of the business processes and workflows people are engaged in from an EX and CX perspective and infuses AI at all touch points," Smith told Channel Futures.

He added that "customers want AI in context at all touchpoints without thinking about AI. So this is a good evolution for NICE into a fuller and more complete platform that can yield more intelligent, contextual insights, and partner value."