Today, we seem to be at something of a crossroads when it comes to enterprise-level collaboration and communication solutions. As traditional solutions attempt to intermingle with new software opportunities, companies are either finding themselves moving deeper into an uncertain future, or barrelling into a brighter time with opportunities at every corner.
While legacy vendors will sit on one side of the intersection, and digital companies on the other, cloud applications are happily located in the centre, where all the fighting for positions is going to take place. This has been the driving force for some time now, and we’ve seen a lot of progress in the industry. After all, if you want your phone solutions delivered from the cloud, along with UC, collaboration, and contact centre services, you shouldn’t have a problem. However, many are asking what might happen when a huge company like AWS (Amazon Web Services) arrives on the scene.
Introducing Amazon Chime
As you probably already know by now, AWS is offering a brand-new UCaaS service to an already competitive mix. Amazon Chime uses acquired technology as a starting point, and attempts to do things a little differently, from giving customers the opportunity to dial out to meeting participants, to providing a visual status roster for all participants, and allowing any meeting individual to mute the line of another.
Regardless of what Chime can accomplish, it’s worth giving it some attention. After all, from humble beginnings as an on-demand solution for cloud storage and server capacity, AWS has emerged as a computing powerhouse for companies across various industries. In fact, many enterprises are already asking “Does it run on AWS”, when it comes to SaaS deployments.
Now that AWS has the power to offer both the computing infrastructure and the communications software that enterprises need, it has the potential to truly change things. While you could argue that Microsoft has the same advantage, Microsoft offers an installed base of premise UC, which users need to work around when establishing long-term migrations to the cloud.
AWS Has Been Slowly Evolving
The transition that AWS has made into user computing has been a slow one. It first began with a virtual desktop service, before moving onto document management and collaboration software, along with email, business intelligence, and team collaboration. The business had two initial partners in the form of Vonage and Level 3 that were ready to sell the service as a part of their UC suites from the next quarter.
While some companies will still be waiting to see which company comes out on top before deciding where to go with their UCaaS solutions, it’s safe to say that the market entry from AWS could go some way towards complicating the decisions that enterprises have to make about moving to the cloud.
Fortunately, for those who want to find out more, Farrell from AWS has agreed to offer a keynote address during the Enterprise Connect 2017. He’ll be taking the stage to talk about the new development at 11:30am on March 28th, alongside a roster of keynoters that include the GM and SVP of Cisco’s Cloud Collaboration Technology Group, and the Corporate VP of Microsoft Office 365.
