Welcome back to our refreshed weekly news roundup! We may have jazzed the place up a little bit, but you can still expect the same top-tier news gathering from the UC&C space.
This week saw Zoom hit $1bn for the first time in a quarter, while UC Today’s Tom Wright compiled a collection of quotes from top industry execs on the vendor’s deal to acquire Five9. Elsewhere Vonage CEO Rory Read spoke with UC Today’s Marian McHugh on the company’s growth and channel strategy, and distribution giant Tech Data was renamed TD SYNNEX.
Zoom Hits First $1bn Quarter
The video platform giant hit a milestone mark this week as it reported it hit $1bn in sales in a quarter for the first time.
However, the good news was tinged with warnings from execs that it was expecting a slowdown in growth as customers resume “more thoughtful, measured buying patterns”.
Kelly Steckelberg, Chief Financial Officer at Zoom, told investors on the quarterly earnings call:
“While revenue, profitability, and cash flow were strong in the second quarter and the first half, other metrics have begun to normalise, especially when compared to the unprecedented year-over-year comps”
Top Execs On Zoom-Five9 Deal
UC Today’s Tom Wright gathered the thoughts of top industry execs on Zoom’s impending acquisition of Five9 for a cool $14.7bn.
The comments come from top execs from the likes of RingCentral, Avaya, 8×8, and Crexendo and were collected from each vendor’s most recent quarterly earnings reports.
“Zoom and Five9 have been partners for two-plus years and we are actually pretty thrilled about our win rates against them over the last two and a half years,” stated one exec, Anand Eswaran, COO of RingCentral.
“The other thing that I would probably offer up is, if you just look at our strategy, we’ve been working with NICE inContact for six-plus years. We saw this UC+CC trend long before it has become fashionable, as it is right now”
Vonage CEO on Growth and Future Plans
Rory Read gave a candid interview to UC Today’s Marian McHugh where he opened up on the company’s strong growth since he took the helm as CEO last year. He also spoke about Vonage’s revamped channel strategy and gave his predictions for the next big trend in the industry.
“We’re in the right space at the right time, and communications are going to be at the centre of this new virtual set of engagements,” he said.
“What’s driving our UC and CC growth is strong product fit, the move from metal to cloud – 80 percent of that yet to go. And this powerful combination of UC and CC together; we already see our cloud business in that area in the mid-high double digits already, and it’s only accelerating and we can really see the momentum of this.”
Microsoft Announced Windows 11 Rollout Date
Windows 11 is set to rollout from 5 October.
On this date, the new operating system (OS) will become available for Windows 10 devices, and PCs will start shipping with the latest iteration of the OS.
In a blog post, Windows Marketing General Manager, Aaron Woodman, said the update rollout will be “phased and measured” and that all eligible devices are expected to have been offered the update by mid-2022.
Tech Data Gets a New Name
Distie titan Tech Data’s $7.2bn merger with SYNNEX competed this week and the pair announced the combined company would now be known as TD SYNNEX.
Tech Data CEO Rich Hume will retain his position at the combined company, while SYNNEX chief exec Dennis Polk will take the position of Executive Chair on the Board of Directors.
“TD SYNNEX is uniquely positioned in today’s relentlessly transforming technology ecosystem,” said Hume.
“As a versatile distributor and solutions aggregator for the IT ecosystem, we’re strengthening our entire portfolio of solutions and raising the bar on the value we deliver to customers and vendors with exceptional reach, efficiency, and expertise. It’s an honour to lead TD SYNNEX with a talented team of 22,000 co-workers worldwide”
