RingCentral has become Mitel’s “exclusive UCaaS partner” after the pair announced a new alliance.
The deal will see Mitel nudge its customer base of 35 million users towards RingCentral’s Message Video Phone (MVP) platform and sees Mitel’s private equity backers invest $200m in RingCentral.
RingCentral also announced the $650m acquisition of Mitel’s CloudLink technology – a cloud platform that enables migration from on-premises PBX to the cloud.
Vlad Shmunis, RingCentral CEO, said: “We are bringing together the best of Mitel and RingCentral to give customers the right communications and collaboration solutions for their needs.
“Given our maniacal customer-centric focus, we’re delighted to now be able to offer customers a flexible and differentiated digital transformation path.”
The partnership will see the RingCentral MVP platform marketed under its own name, differing from the firm’s collaborations with the likes of Avaya and Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise.
RingCentral and Mitel plan to increase the integration between their technologies in 2022, starting with Mitel phone and device support for RingCentral MVP.
“The key differentiated feature of this new partnership is that Mitel's users will be able to utilize RingCentral's cloud-based video and team messaging capabilities alongside Mitel's on-premise technology,” Shmunis said on an earnings call with investors"
“This will be provided via RingCentral's unified MVP app and administrative portal. Mitel's on-premise PBX users will then be able to migrate to RingCentral's full cloud PBX at their own pace, which is the path that is unique in the industry.”
