Gartner’s Magic Quadrant reports are easily some of the most valuable insights into the communication landscape. Every year, countless companies strive to meet with the requirements that would allow them to place in one of the MQ segments.
This November, Gartner released its latest Magic Quadrant for the Unified Communications as a Service space (worldwide). According to Gartner, UCaaS providers develop, operate, and manage multi-tenant cloud-based UC services, which are more cost-efficient for customers than on-premises options.
Gartner also noted that by 2022, 74% of organisations will move around 5% of their typically on-site workers into permanent remote working positions, making cloud solutions more crucial. Additionally, by 2023, 50% of large companies will connect with cloud providers using WAN direct cloud connectivity. What’s more, Gartner believes that by 2024, 74% of new UC licenses will be cloud-based, an increase from 48% in 2019.
The Gartner UCaaS Magic Quadrant 2020 Leaders
The leader quadrant is the most desirable of all the segments in the Gartner MQ, demonstrating an incredible completeness of vision, combined with ability to execute, from those involved. This year’s leaders are:
- Microsoft
- RingCentral
- Cisco
- Zoom
- 8×8
Microsoft
Microsoft is at the highest point in the leadership quadrant this year, thanks mostly to its Microsoft Teams service, which offers telephony, team messaging, and meeting capabilities. Gartner notes that Teams’ operations are geographically diversified, and clients are distributed across a variety of segments, including Microsoft 365 subscribers.
This year, Microsoft took its UCaaS strategy to the next level with countless new features, including virtual backgrounds, live captioning, direct routing in up to 90 countries, and more. Gartner notes that the majority of Gartner clients have Microsoft Teams licenses in place.
RingCentral
Another high-level leader in the Magic Quadrant, RingCentral offers a host of UCaaS services through RingCentral Office, which includes messaging, telephony, meeting services, fax, MMS/SMS and more. The operations of RingCentral are mostly in Europe and North America. Customers are also distributed across most market segments. Enhancements in the past year include strategic partnerships with AT&T, ALE, and Avaya.
RingCentral continues to improve in various key areas according to Gartner, including capabilities, development of products, global coverage, and customer support.
Cisco
Cisco is a Magic Quadrant leader with the Webex suite, which focuses on services for meetings and collaboration, as well as messaging, telephony, workstream collaboration, and contact centres. Cisco has geographically diversified operations, a full management platform, and the user experience benefits of integrating Webex Calling into the Webex application suite.
Developments like cloud-connected PSTN options and unified mobile and desktop clients make Webex more appealing. Gartner also notes that Cisco benefits from strong CIO relationships and branding around the world.
Zoom
One of the best-known video providers in the current landscape, Zoom also achieves a leadership position in this year’s UCaaS Magic Quadrant. The company offers a combination of Zoom Chat, Zoom Phone and Zoom Meetings. These solutions focus on meetings, enterprise telephony, and messaging. Enhancements in the last year have included partnerships with Zoom Room appliance providers like Poly and Neat.
Gartner also commends Zoom for its investments into new security enhancements for customers, and the offering of Zoom Phone Basic at no extra charge for Meetings users.
8×8
Offering the X Series UCaaS suite, 8×8 is a leader in the Magic Quadrant this year, offering an excellent combination of meetings, telephony, messaging, and contact centre services for the enterprise. The operations of 8×8 are geographically diversified, and customers are well-distributed across a variety of segments.
Notable enhancements in the last year with 8×8 include meeting solutions based on new technology from the Jitsi acquisition, and the arrival of 8×8 CPaaS. Integration enhancements are also a plus point for 8×8.
The Gartner UCaaS Magic Quadrant 2020 Challengers
Challengers in the Magic Quadrant are those that show an exceptional ability to execute on UCaaS solutions but may lack some of the completeness of vision that would allow them to stand out as leaders. This year’s challenger companies include:
- LogMeIn
- Mitel
With a UCaaS offering consisting of Google Voice, Chat, and Meet, Google is a challenger in the 2020 Magic Quadrant, offering globally diversified operations, and a range of excellent features. Enhancements over the past year have included the arrival of new Global Meet features (like 49-participant grids) and improvements in meeting safety. There’s also presentation support, bulk provisioning for Google Voice, and the arrival of Google’s UCaaS features within the Gmail sidebar.
LogMeIn
Another challenger in the current Magic Quadrant, LogMeIn delivers UCaaS functionality through GoToConnect with telephony, messaging, and meeting solutions. LogMeIn focuses heavily on North American markets, with various distributed customers. Enhancements over the last year have included new user experiences for the mobile and desktop clients of GoToConnect, as well as integrations with Google, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and other leading tools. LogMeIn also has an extensive track record in the cloud-based meeting environment.
Mitel
Mitel earned its challenger position in the Magic Quadrant for 2020 with the MiCloud Connect service, which provides both messaging and telephony. You can also access the solution with MiTeam Meetings, which is powered through Amazon Chime. Mitel has a strong presence in Australia, the UK, and North America, and serves a lot of small and midsized companies. Over the last year, Mitel has introduced MiCloud Connect with Google Cloud, and SelfStart self-service portals for improving onboarding experiences for the customer.
The Gartner UCaaS Magic Quadrant 2020 Visionaries
Visionaries in the Gartner Magic Quadrant have a more comprehensive completeness of vision, but they may not have the ability to execute their ideas on a significant scale in the same way as the challengers and leaders. This year, Gartner listed a single visionary for its 2020 UCaaS Quadrant:
Fuze
Standing out as the singular visionary for 2020, Fuze made the Magic Quadrant for this year thanks to its focus on various messaging, calling, contact centre, and meeting services, in a geographically diversified landscape. Notably, Fuze has achieved a lot of growth in the last year, introducing more support of the enterprise segment, enhancements to Fuze Rooms, and a new supervisor and agent desktop for Fuze users. Fuze also offers a more simplified pricing and licensing strategy to help companies take advantage of a transformative new UCaaS solution.
The Gartner UCaaS Magic Quadrant 2020 Niche Players
Finally, niche players in the Gartner Magic Quadrant are those that offer sensational UCaaS solutions but focus primarily on a singular group or sector. The niche players for the UCaaS Magic Quadrant of 2020 are:
- Vonage
- Star2Star
- Dialpad
- Windstream
- Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise
Vonage
Vonage achieved the niche player position in the 2020 Magic Quadrant with Vonage Business Communications, a service offering meetings, team messaging, and telephony. The company focuses mostly on North America, with customers mostly in the SMB segment. Enhancements in the last 12 months include Vonage Meetings, built with TokBox, and the integration of Vonage Meetings into desktop, mobile, and web apps. There’s also Vonage Smart Numbers for modifying call flows using programmable API technology.
Star2Star
Another niche player in the Magic Quadrant for UCaaS 2020, Star2Star offers an Enterprise Communications and Collaboration Platform service which offers mobility, meetings, messaging, telephony, fax, and MMS/SMS services. Star2Star operates mostly in North America, focusing on the mid-market. In the last year, Star2Star launched video meetings – a new self-developed solution for meetings. Additionally, new licensing arrived to bundle capabilities for various types of users, including remote workers.
Dialpad
Offering Dialpad Talk, Dialpad provides meetings, telephony, and messaging to customers in search of UCaaS solutions. The company focuses heavily on North America and the Asia/Pacific space, with customers distributed across various market segments. The company introduced UberConference in the last year, along with voice intelligence functionalities including AI-generated summaries post-call and transcriptions. Dialpad also added a coaching centre to Dialpad sell to help resellers deliver the right technology to consumers.
Windstream
With the OfficeSuite UC product, Windstream is a niche player in the 2020 Magic Quadrant, offering messaging, telephony, and mobility features. Largely, Windstream focuses on North American SMBs, and in the past year, the company has introduced a range of enhancements. Updates include the new packaging of complementary services for enterprise customers, like SD-WAN, security services, and more. OfficeSuite can support up to 1000 meeting participants, and it now offers a range of new reporting and analytics solutions.
Gartner acknowledged Windstream’s decision to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2019 but notes that the company has successfully completed its financial restructuring strategy.
Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise
ALE is a niche player in the Gartner Magic Quadrant with the Rainbow service. This solution focuses on file sharing, team messaging, meeting hubs, and mobile technology. Telephony isn’t available natively but is available through integrations with third-party solutions or Alcatel. Enhancements over the past year include integration with Sipwise Cloud PBX, new meeting room solutions, integrations for supporting CRM applications like Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics, and the arrival of Rainbow Edge. ALE’s partnership with RingCentral was not acknowledged in this MQ.
Changes to Note Since 2019
If you’ve been keeping up with the UCaaS Magic Quadrants from year to year, you’ll notice that there have been a few changes this year. Gartner notes that it changes its criteria for inclusion and exclusion each year, which means that things in the Quadrant can often change.
This year, there were no dropped vendors from 2019, although the name of Star2Star has changed from “StarBlue” in 2019. Blueface sold to Comcast early in 2020. Though no vendors were removed from the Magic Quadrant, 2 new arrivals emerged in the form of Zoom and Vonage. Zoom achieved a leader position thanks to its combination of meetings, voice, and chat. This might be an interesting addition for many companies who often see Zoom as a video provider.
Vonage arrived in the MQ as a niche player, with Gartner commending its Vonage Business Communications solution, and the company’s fantastic cloud-native approach where capabilities built atop programmable APIs.
What Do You Think?
Gartner’s Magic Quadrant reports are some of the most sought-after insights into the communication marketplace, but they’re also quite controversial. Not everyone agrees with the choice of companies displayed in each MQ, or the position of the brands.
Do you think this year’s selection is on point? Join the conversation with us on social media!
