This week, software and communication specialists, Ribbon Communications is holding its annual conference in Washington DC and UC Today is attendance to bring you all the latest news. Perspectives 2019 is the latest iteration of its annual conference and allows Ribbon to gather its partner and customer community to update them on its latest technology developments and market strategies.
Consisting of a series of keynote thought leadership speeches, interactive panel discussions and a solutions showcase this year’s event covers a selection of the industry’s hottest topics. A general theme appears to be a big focus on data analytics. This follows the announcement of Ribbon’s acquisition of Anova Data, for nearly $20 million earlier this year. The Anova acquisition aims to enhance Ribbon’s provision of data analytics to its partners utilising the machine learning technology developed by Anova. Potentially a smart move to capitalise on the current data boom taking place globally.
As well as updated messaging Ribbon also unveiled several news announcements, so let’s take a look at a quick summary of the headlines.
New Research Unveils Potential UC Boom
During Perspectives we caught up with Ribbon’s CMO and EVP for Business Development, Patrick Joggerst, to review the results of a new global survey, commissioned by Ribbon, examining the procurement strategies of SMEs and Enterprises.
The results allude to a potential upcoming boom in the unified communications industry. 68% of large companies surveyed, with more than 1,000 employees, and 46% of small companies, with between 1-20 employees, who have not yet invested in UC tech, revealed that they are planning to adopt some aspect of the technology over the next two years. Mid-market organisations are apparently even more likely to invest in UC over the next two cycles with, with 67% of those organisations with 21 to 100 employees and 71% of those with 101 to 1000 employees predicting investment.
Joggerst told us about the size of this opportunity for Ribbon, its partner network and the industry as a whole.
“Our findings highlight the significant market opportunity to serve these organisations, and results also provided us with some unexpected findings which we’ll be sharing on a regional basis over the next few months, starting in Europe.”
The survey which canvassed nearly 5000 decision makers in over 20 countries also unveiled some other headline findings.
- The UC market is still growing, with Ribbon estimating that there is an opportunity of 85 million seats in the United States alone
- Large proportion of UC purchases still come through traditional channels. Over a third, 39%, of UC adopters purchased their services through the more legacy channels, local exchange carriers in the US and national carriers in the rest of the world
- 83% of those surveyed believed that UC providers should be directly responsible for the security provision around IP communications and their platforms, with the remainder of the respondents willing to pay extra for security services
The research seems to confirm that the pace and rate of migration towards UC technology is only accelerating and also provides further details about customer expectations when it comes to supplementary platform capabilities like security provision. Encouraging for the market as a whole if this upcoming investment comes to fruition and security concerns can be allayed.
Encouraging CPaaS Growth with Kandy platform wins
The emerging CPaaS market is one of the fastest growing areas within communication technology. The ability to quickly deploy and amend solutions, without traditional telecoms infrastructure such as physical lines, utilising platforms to leverage real-time communications is becoming more and more popular. Ribbon’s provision in the CPaaS space is its Kandy platform. Kandy CPaaS offers customers and providers the ability to develop white label communication solutions, enhance e-commerce capabilities and easily deploy functioning applications offering a number of support functions.
At this year’s Perspectives Ribbon have confirmed that it also is reaping the benefits of the growing CPaaS market, with some big wins globally. Dutch service provider, KPN, have adopted Kandy CPaaS as the constituent part of its brand new API store. As well as the success with KPN other leading service providers have also taken up the platform. Optus, a large Australian provider, and Hong Kong Broadband are also leveraging the power of the CPaaS platform. These wins confirm that the CPaaS market is reaching new milestones in terms of industry provision and that Kandy is a valid option within that market.
Westcon-Comstor Add Ribbon’s hybrid cloud/edge solution to its European portfolio
Ribbon’s Network Edge Orchestration solution combines several aspects of its portfolio, EdgeView Service Control Center with EdgeMarc Intelligent Edge solutions, to create a package which will provide features such as call quality monitoring, security, traffic shaping and zero-touch provisioning. Westcon-Comstor, as one of the leading value-added distributors specialising in cloud based solutions, is looking for innovative offerings which will benefit end customers and now will add Ribbon’s Network Edge Orchestration to its distribution operations in Europe.
The addition of this latest solution package should add additional capabilities for Westcon EMEA to provide its customers and partners with enhanced voice and data management experiences.
Ribbon’s increased focus on data an analytics, coupled with the potential UC purchasing boom and its success in the CPaaS market, was warmly received at this year’s conference as those gathered recognised its strategic targeting of emerging markets.
Stay tuned to UC Today for more content from this year’s Ribbon Perspectives.
