You are currently browsing Alex Doyle’s articles.
Back in January, we predicted that we’d see lots of service providers launch Hosted PBX or Hosted UC services in 2011. I’m thrilled to see that XO Communications has announced Enterprise Cloud Communications – a hosted UC offer targeted at the midmarket enterprise.
XO has brought many great services to market over the last few years – their XO IP Flex service, XO SIP trunking service, and XO Enterprise SIP (ESIP) Trunking have all been market winners, as shown by their announcement last year that they are serving over one million business VoIP users. In addition, XO has consistently differentiated their market offers – XO Anywhere added a mobility angle to their trunking services, and ESIP Trunking has changed the game for large enterprise trunking services.
Now with a Hosted Unified Communications offer, XO expands their portfolio. This is good for XO customers – they get the economic, technology, and productivity benefits of hosted communications, and it’s good for XO – as we see our market shifts more and more applications to the cloud, we believe XO is armed and ready to meet this demand.
In particular, what I find exciting about XO Enterprise Cloud Communications is its focus on midmarket customers. Another trend we’re seeing across the world is a movement towards adoption of hosted solutions in the midmarket. Traditionally the midmarket segment has primarily utilized premises-based PBX solutions, but when you consider that most midmarket companies are multi-site, oriented towards productivity-heavy workers, highly mobile, and demanding video – we think all those attributes make a hosted or cloud communications solution extremely appealing to the midmarket customer.
So congratulations to XO for their announcement – another step forward in our industry’s move towards hosted UC solutions.
I’m generally not fond of ‘top ten predictions for the New Year’ type posts, so, instead, I will focus on just one specific prediction. In 2011 – I expect to see a surge in new announcements of hosted business offerings from service providers.
I do not believe this is a bold prediction. Even in the last few months of 2010, we’ve seen service providers, who have historically been “trunking only”, make a move to deliver hosted/cloud offerings. BroadVox’s acquisition of Cypress has shown their interest in leveraging Cypress’s award-winning C3IP and C4IP “UC as a Service” solutions; separately, CBeyond’s acquisition of Aretta and MaximumASP likewise demonstrates movement more firmly into the hosted solution space.
Things tend to happen in the market when incentives align – it seems to me, that’s what’s happening here:
- Service providers that are “trunking only” are looking to go up the value chain, and, therefore, as I believe and have received feedback of, they are rightly concerned about commoditization problems, downward pricing pressure and a lack of differentiation.
- Market numbers continue to substantiate a large movement to hosted VoIP as businesses continue to adopt hosted models.
- The Agent and Channel community is looking for hosted solutions they can sell –clearly perceiving this demand as evident by, for example, the recent Channel Partners Conference – which pushed an agenda almost entirely devoted to hosted business solutions.
When “trunking only” service providers go ‘up the stack’ and also sell Hosted Business solutions – when they sell an app as well as connectivity and transport–customer feedback demonstrates a large growth in revenue and greater relevancy to the customer, with less churn and more customer mindshare. I expect to see many more similar announcements from service providers in 2011.
I’d like to introduce BroadSoft Xcelerate, a program developed by BroadSoft to help our service provider customers increase the adoption rate for their hosted communication services.
I think BroadSoft has earned a reputation – a reputation we’re proud of – for having the best technology and product in our industry. Certainly a tremendous amount of energy, focus, ingenuity and effort have gone into building our product line.
But what’s equally clear, is that the success of a service provider does not rest solely on the technology of its platforms. To succeed, service providers need to surround their technology with equally outstanding offers, value driven positioning and innovative tools designed to deliver this unique message.
Xcelerate is BroadSoft’s program designed to help service providers build a successful Go-To-Market plan. On top of an outstanding technical platform, Xcelerate ensures service providers have winning offers that meet target market segments, and they have the capability to market, sell, and deliver on these offers.
The first stage of the Xcelerate program is the BroadSoft Xcelerate web site, now live and available online. On the Xcelerate website, you’ll find tools and resources to help you with each aspect of BroadSoft’s Go-To-Market methodology, “The Four Pillars”, including: Offer Definitions, Sales Enablement, Customer Turnup, and Demand Generation. You’ll find things such as: Reference Packaging, Sales Training, Marketing Campaign Tools, Sales Battlecards, Demonstration Videos, and much more. For a brief overview of the program, you can download and view the live webinar introduction: Winning Go-To-Market Strategies from BroadSoft Xcelerate (http://bit.ly/xcelerate).
The Xcelerate site is free, available to all BroadSoft customers and partners, and requires only a BroadSoft Xchange account. Please take a moment to review the site today, and feel free to send feedback to xcelerate@broadsoft.com.
Congratulations to Verizon for the launch of their Global Fixed Mobile Convergence service, announced this month and immediately available in nine countries across Europe.
The Global FMC service has both “top-line” and “bottom-line” benefits to Verizon’s customers. On the top-line side, employees remain productive across Europe in any of the nine countries served by Global FMC; on the bottom-line, managers benefit from reduced costs for employees who use their mobile as an extension of their business handset.
According to Anthony Recine, vice president of network and communications solutions for Verizon Business, “With Global Fixed Mobile Convergence, companies no longer need to wrestle with productivity versus cost management to keep their business in full gear. This innovative new service helps on-the-go workers remain in touch with customers and other business colleagues while reducing the cumulative roaming charges for hundreds or thousands of roving workers.”
What’s been less noted, I think, is the positive impact this will have on Verizon Business’s hosted business service – Hosted IP Centrex (HIPC). Verizon already delivers a successful “cloud”/hosted business service that’s deployed across Europe and the Americas; the introduction of Global FMC extends this functionality to mobile handsets. It’s well-demonstrated that the value of hosted applications increases dramatically when you add a mobile component. For example, consider how many people update Facebook exclusively from mobile devices.
So congratulations to Verizon – another service provider igniting progress and changing the game with Global FMC and expanding their hosted business solutions to mobile devices.
Two separate announcements crossed my inbox today, and even though they were generated on opposite sides of the globe, they both highlight the beginning of a big change in large enterprise communications. It’s becoming more obvious not only that large enterprises (1,000 seats and up) are moving towards hosted communications – but what’s more interesting is why this shift is particularly well-suited for carriers and service providers.
First up, from today’s VoiceCon eNews newsletter from VoiceCon super-chair Eric Krapf, on what he’s looking out for at next week’s show:
- Are enterprises seriously considering cloud-based communications, to a more significant degree than they were a year ago? Can carriers/service providers deliver enterprise-grade services from the cloud?
- Is video coming to a meaningful number of enterprise desktops in the next 12-18 months, and if so, why?
- Is interoperability in Unified Communications even a remote prospect?
Now let’s shoot ten thousand miles away to Australia, where Telstra announced not only that their hosted communications service (TIPT) now supports video phones, but also that TIPT supports video calling and high-definition audio calling between enterprises on the Telstra network:
Following the launch of the first video telephony service from an Australian telco, Australians will now be able to communicate face-to-face using desktop video phones.
Telstra’s acting Executive Director, Data, IP & Enterprise Services, Carol White, said more than 300 organisations using Telstra’s hosted IP telephony product (TIPT) could take advantage of the high-quality business-to-business video telephony service simply by upgrading their desktop phones.
And remember – TIPT has already integrated enterprise OCS from Microsoft. Telstra also supports SIP Trunking as a complement to its hosted offers, allowing it to serve ‘hybrid’ enterprises.
The killer app here, the theme that’s starting to come to the fore across large enterprises around the world – and the key competitive advantage for service providers like Telstra – is integration. While Small Businesses and Midmarket companies are open to ‘greenfield’ unified communications solutions, large enterprises really aren’t. Large Enterprises have made decisions and investments in IT and tools, and they don’t want those replaced – they want them complemented. They want things like:
- Voice Integration – Integration of their premises-based communications systems (PBXs) and hosted communications,
- App Integration – Integration of their communications and the IT apps (Microsoft OCS, IBM Sametime) they have in-house, and
- Video Integration – Integration of their communications and video collaboration systems.
This is exactly what Telstra has done for their large enterprise customers – by integrating hosted/cloud communications, trunking to PBXs, video solutions and OCS integration, they’re delivering exactly what large enterprises need. And this is where carriers and service providers have an opportunity to shine – because these large enterprises needs really aren’t well served by individual PBX vendors.
So going into Voicecon this year, it’s obvious to me that some old misconceptions are fading away. Hosted communications is not a solution only for the SMB; as Telstra demonstrates, hosted is an ideal fit for large enterprises. SIP Trunking is not about making connectivity cheaper – it’s real value is more as an on-ramp to bring large enterprises into a hosted UC solution.
And for service providers – their opportunities to serve large enterprises, SMBs, and the midmarket – continue to grow. See you at Voicecon!
Avaya Labs recently demonstrated a prototype application that integrates call-control with Facebook, with the nifty moniker “FacePhone.”
Doug Mahoney from Doug on IPComm calls it a “UC Killer”:
Built using Facebook’s APIs, Avaya’s FacePhone is an enterprise app that loads into Facebook and is designed to enable social networking functionality within the enterprise, on a business-to-business basis, and on a business-to-consumer basis and enables voice, video availability, as well as the stock Facebookness of chat and IM. … doesn’t this sound a whole lot like UC?
Hmmm… it’s like UC, but it’s built on a common platform and is built to leverage social media with both call center features (consumer to biz, biz to biz), as well as enable communications within the large enterprise. Smells a lot like “traditional” UC solutions, but at a MUCH LOWER cost of implementation. Since users are already familiar with and using Facebook for communication, this app fits right in.
I’m going to respectfully disagree with that.
I think Doug’s argument relies on the assumption that UC solutions are ‘closed’ systems – so, therefore, if you can get UC-like functionality from places like Facebook, which are outside of the closed UC system, then you’re ‘killing’ the UC solution.
But…really, isn’t the whole point of a UC solution that it’s open? That’s certainly our philosophy: when it comes to CRM, you can integrate BroadWorks into salesforce.com, or ACT, or Microsoft Dynamics; when it comes to business messaging/presence solutions, you can integrate BroadWorks into Microsoft OCS/Exchange, IBM Sametime, or Google Apps….or even Facebook – something our BroadSoft Xtended team demonstrated about 18 months ago.
So – if you’re bringing a ‘closed’ UC solution to market –if your UC solution is basically an “all-in” PBX on steroids – and yes, there are plenty of “PBX in UC clothing” boxes out there – then Doug’s absolutely right: Facebook is going to be a threat to you. But if you’re a Service Provider delivering UC off of the BroadWorks platform – a platform that’s committed to application integration – then Facebook, salesforce.com, mint.com – these are all assets to you, not threats.
A few years back, CBeyond CTO Chris Gatch, a pioneer in SIP Trunking, famously said that using an IP PBX with TDM PRI circuits was “like driving a Ferrari on a dirt road.”
I thought about Chris’s comments this week when Sprint announced that their SIP Trunking solution (BroadWorks-powered), now generally available to business customers, is certified with Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007 R2.
OCS by itself brings communications productivity to businesses – but that productivity is stymied if you’re running your business through a “dirt road” TDM circuit. By complementing OCS with BroadWorks-based SIP trunks, Sprint allows enterprises to reduce operational costs, and reduce and consolidate equipment across the organization.
But – those are really operational and cost benefits of SIP trunking. That’s certainly substantial and appealing – but it’s only half of the story. If you read past the release’s comments on cost savings, and note their focus on wireline/wireless integration, check out Sprint’s Seamless Enterprise blog, and their Convergence portal – it’s great to see that Sprint is focusing on the UC/functionality aspects of SIP Trunking, not just the cost savings.
This certainly resonates with us – one of the themes we keep coming back to at BroadSoft is that we’re seeing the industry shift to a second generation of SIP Trunking– initial releases of SIP Trunking were all about integrated access and cost reduction, without a lot of differentiation, which is a recipe for fast market commoditization. (I suppose that’s sort of like putting fancy streetlights on a dirt road. It may look a little nicer – but it’s still a dirt road.) But now we’re seeing service providers “UC-enable” their SIP Trunks – add network functionality like mobile integration, video, business process services – and it’s nice to see Sprint push this in the market.
And since we’re talking about customers who benefit from UC services, it’s worth noting that BroadSoft’s “UC in the Cloud” solutions are stronger than ever. For businesses who want UC, but don’t want, don’t need, or can’t handle the process, overhead, and maintenance of premises-based systems, BroadSoft’s “Hosted UC” solution with Microsoft just celebrated its first year on the market, and is deployed live in every region of the world. We remain extremely excited about this solution – for economic, technology, demographic, and business strategy reasons, Hosted UC and Cloud Communications in general is hotter than ever. (Even the US federal government is hot on cloud communications, a sure sign that this has hit the mainstream.)
So – to service providers – you’ll come across customers where you’ll provide UC in a fully hosted model, and you’ll come across customers with premises UC systems where you’ll provide additional UC functionality “in the cloud”. You’ll see both scenarios – but your BroadWorks system will let you attack and monetize both.
As I’ve mentioned previously, there’s been a lot of excitement about cloud communications recently. We’re seeing an inflection point beginning with wide spread agreement about the ROI of hosted solutions and continual increase in awareness of this value.
Nick Carr, author of “The Big Switch,” a best-selling account of the transformative effects of cloud services and cloud computing has a great low-tech historical analogy for this, comparing the shift in our industry to a similar shift 100 years ago in how business and factories obtained power.
He talks about how in the 19th century, factories or mills would be built on a river. Owners would then have large waterwheels made to generate power for the factory. In essence, every business would need to invest in, and maintain its own local power production. That’s a complex, and costly undertaking, and resulted in mill owners spending more time on complex hydraulics and drive shafts than on their core business.
Of course, this model sounds ridiculous now. Within a few years of the turn of the 20th century, these premises-based production systems were abandoned, left to decay, a historical anomaly – because now businesses were getting their power from “the cloud” – from new, centralized ‘electric companies’ that revolutionized manufacturing:
“Manufacturers came to find that the benefits of buying electricity from a utility went far beyond cheaper kilowatts. By avoiding the purchase of pricey equipment, they reduced their own fixed costs and freed up capital for more productive purposes. They were also able to trim their corporate staff, temper the risk of technology obsolescence and malfunction, and relieve their managers of a major distraction. Once unimaginable, the broad adoption of utility power had become inevitable….the age of the private power plant was over. The utility had triumphed.”
The above is an excerpt from Mr. Carr’s astonishing book, a best-selling account of the transformative effects of cloud services and cloud computing. Mr. Carr is the keynote speaker at this year’s BroadSoft Connections Users’ conference, which is shaping up to be our best Connections event ever. I’m very much looking forward to Mr. Carr’s keynote, and certainly excited about seeing as many of our customers and partners as possible as well – as it’s our customers who are building the solutions that will eclipse today’s ‘waterwheels’ .
In recent weeks, blogging superstars Peter Radizeski and Rich Tehrani both picked up and promoted BroadSoft’s “Why Hosted Unified Communications is like a Gym Membership” page.
In case you missed it on our web site, UC is very much like a gym membership, because for if you’re taking UC seriously, it makes much more sense to buy UC as a ‘service’.
Consider the gym/fitness analogy – if all you want is to do some light exercise, you could buy an exercise bicycle for your basement, or you could go join a gym for a monthly fee. If all you’re doing is light exercise like this, then there’s really no ‘best’ way – you’ll make this “buy vs. lease” decision based on your personal preferences and circumstances.
But now let’s say you’re really going to focus on fitness – in addition to your exercise bike, you could buy a treadmill, free weights, swimming pool, basketball court, Nautilus machines (of course, you’ll probably need to build an extension to your basement too at this point). When you look at things in that vein, buying this equipment is pretty foolish – it obviously makes much more sense to ‘rent’ this equipment by joining a gym for a monthly or yearly fee.
Unified Communications is really exactly the same model – if all you need is simple “voice”, then you can buy a premises-based product or a hosted service – like the exercise-bike-only user, this is primarily a decision based on personal preference and circumstances. But if you need “Voice 2.0” or Unified Communications – something that integrates mobile, video, enterprise apps like Call Centers, CRM, Microsoft OCS, IBM Sametime, web 2.0 services, and on and on and on – well, that’s not really something you’re going to want to built in your ‘basement’ or IT closet.
One final observation – one area that BroadSoft’s gym vignette doesn’t really talk about is maintenance and operational support, and that’s worth remedying. Let’s assume you’ve struck it rich and bought yourself an amazing state-of-the-art home gym, with all of the equipment we talked about above. Now let’s say that your futuristic super-computerized treadmill breaks down, and needs to be repaired. Or even worse, maybe – it becomes obsolete when there’s some newer and more futuristic treadmill available.
When you’re a member of a gym, these problems are taken care of for you – you show up one day and equipment is fixed, replaced, or upgraded as needed, with no work required from you. If you take a moment to think about that, that’s a pretty astonishing value prop with Hosted UC that probably hasn’t been fully appreciated yet.
UC is powerful, but complex – and when maintenance, support, and operations are delivered by a service provider, that’s a huge benefit to the end customer.
Unexpected catastrophic outages are sort of like root canals, shoplifters, and Pauly Shore movies – you sort of have a vague impression that they exist, but you never expect them to actually happen to you.
Last Thursday, it happened to me.
So, for years now, I’ve been promoting why BroadSoft’s hosted business services provide disaster recovery and business continuity that simply can’t be matched by premises-based PBXs or Unified Communications systems.
This is a pretty simple concept – if your communications system is hosted ‘in the cloud’, then you’re protected from any flood, fire, or other disaster at your site. Your communications data and services are all protected in a managed network, and services like BroadWorks Anywhere allow you to continue running your business from your mobile or other devices, even if your primary phones are unavailable.
In fact, BroadSoft-based service provider Telesphere won an industry award –Most Innovative Disaster Recovery Service – based on this very functionality. In Telesphere’s case, one of their customers, Warehouse 86 in Memphis, had a site decimated by a tornado, and in the aftermath of the tornado, several fires broke out, making it impossible to gain access to the site. Yet throughout all this, Warehouse 86 didn’t miss a single call or voice mail, and all employees were able to continue making calls using their mobiles during the outage.
So – back to last week – around 3pm, this popped up on my mobile:
Sure enough, a contract crew on the street outside our offices accidentally cut all of our access to the outside world. No data in or out of our Gaithersburg headquarters.
But – since our communications service is provided ‘in the cloud’ in a hosted data center, all of our phone numbers stayed live. Gaithersburg and all our other global sites continued to receive incoming calls on our mobiles via BroadWorks Anywhere (many of us were out of the office meeting customers anyway; we use BroadWorks Anywhere every day). All of our voice mail and video mail stayed active. All of our BroadWorks conferencing bridges stayed live, and all of the BroadWorks Call Centers that are used for our technical support organization stayed live. Even our integrated Microsoft Office Communicator Unified Communications presence stayed live – when I would make or receive a call on my mobile, my OCS presence state would change to “In A Call”, so my BroadSoft and colleagues in Montreal, Melbourne, Sydney, Belfast, and other sites (which did not lose physical connectivity and therefore saw no issues) were able to see my telephony status.
In business telephony – outages aren’t an option. If we’d had a premises-based system, we’d have been out for the count and entirely disconnected from our colleagues round the world. But with our hosted BroadWorks solution, we stayed productive, and responsive to our customers and partners.
Michael Tessler
Scott Hoffpauir
Leslie Ferry
Alex Doyle
Curtis Hartmann
Shirish Andhare
Paul Adams
