The future of telecommunications platforms or Hosted versus CPE solutions

Cloud based or CPE solutions, which one will prevail?

Mark Shane, Sales Director at ICON says.  

 “Cloud based hosted telephony will not displace CPE PBX telephone solutions in the short, medium or long term.  The last time ICON looked at the market hosted solutions accounted for only around 10% of the total.  That is significant, but given the time hosted solutions have been available it’s not the performance one would expect of a revolutionary displacement solution some claim it to be.”  

"ICON supplies the channel with the Wave CPE IP-PBX solution, but” says Mark “we are not talking up the market just because we supply CPE solutions.  It’s because of our experience in supplying the endpoints market that we are convinced that CPE solutions are here to stay” 

ICON provides endpoint solutions that can be deployed in traditional CPE environments or as a mobility upgrade for the desk endpoint provided with the hosted solution.   Few of the Spectralink solutions are being installed on hosted solutions.  The majority, if not all, are going onto CPE equipment. 

These Spectralink handset solutions can also be deployed in remote offices in a quasi-hosted solution by connecting them remotely to the CPE IP-PBX at head office. However, most companies opt to provide remote office communications using the multi-site capability of the IP-PBX solutions such as the Wave IP-PBX solutions.

“In the channel the popularity of hosted telephony does not seem to be as great as the hype would suggest” says Mark

Microsoft Lync not a meteoric success

 “Microsoft Lync has not been the meteoric success it was claimed it was going to be a few years back.” Says Mark  

ICON distribute the only Microsoft approved voice mobility endpoint solution for Lync solutions and although pundits claim that Microsoft is one of the top 3 suppliers next to Cisco and Avaya, ICON is not seeing this reflected in its sales of Spectralink handsets for Lync.  

 “However,” says Mark “Lync is one of the main solutions in market and the fact the channel has not embraced this solution as fully as it could does not mean that it will not become one of the top channel solutions in the long term.  ICON is already geared up for Lync’s success and can provide and support channel partners with Spectralink handset solutions needed by Lync”

The future is a smart PBX  

Hosted solutions have not traditionally competed with the CPE solutions distributed by ICON and long-term their impact on our Channel Partner CPE business is not expected to change radically from what it is today.  Hosted telephony is not a disruptive technology that will change the landscape forever.  Nevertheless, it does have a place in the market and offers valuable solution for some customers. 

Looking at the market from the perspective of a hosted PBX or CPE PBX is as outdated as looking at an android or IoS handset and seeing only a telephone.  Like cell phones, PBX’s have morphed into platforms for running business apps and delivering solutions.  The future is not one of hybrid PBX solutions. It is a future of “smart” PBX’s.   Smart PBX’s, such as Wave IP, which, amongst other things, integrate with cloud based or on premises based business applications,  will manage the communications services of your road warriors and report on the performance of your advertising.

You can see this happening today.  The “smart” PBX Wave IP solution is used by US automotive dealerships as an adjunct to their DMS/CRM solutions.  With it, they track the performance of advertising campaigns, manage the workload on the parts and service departments and much more – they also use it to make calls. 

Unified Communications for the SME

 An interview with Mark Shane of ICON

Is the concept of unified communications difficult to understand? Why is that and what can we do about it?

Unified Communication is industry speak and probably not understood by the average SME.  But, asks Mark do they need to understand it.  Do you need to know the terminology used in an industry before you can make an informed judgement about the solution to buy. All the customer needs to understand is that the box in front of them solves their problem and will deliver the productivity, resources or business outcome they want. 

The problem says Mark is that in many cases the customer is unaware that there are solutions that can do this.  There are several reasons for this.  Firstly, the industry has not been good at educating the market about these benefits.  Secondly, often the customer is not sold anything but a plain old telephone system either because the solution offered is not UC capable or because the sales person is more comfortable selling a traditional telephone solution rather than a business solution.

ICON has supported many of its channel partners in competitive bids where this has been the case and in most cases has successfully upsold the customer.  It helps to have a versatile UC solution such as the Wave IP to offer but in all cases, the sale has been won by putting together an offer that understands the needs of the business and proposes a solution that focusses on the business and not on the management of telephone calls.  In all cases, the concept of Unified Communications per se has added no value to the negotiations.

Should vendors produce an SME Edition of unified communications applications?

Mark is emphatic when he says that there is no need for the industry to produce an SME UC solution.  These already exist.  Solutions are available which are affordable by the SME and which deliver all that an SME needs and more.  The Vertical Wave IP business solution is one such solution.  It scales from an SME to an enterprise solution and has been deployed by an SME with as few as two handsets.  It was chosen because the business needed the capability to record calls and a Wave IP UC solution offered the best value solution.  

Are end users better served by single vendor solutions or by a best of breed mix of third party applications?

Third party applications have a place in the market but says Mark these are usually deployed when the customer needs highly advance features.  
 

Single vendor solutions are able to deliver all that the typical SME or enterprise customer  requires and can do this at significantly better value than multiple vendor solutions.  That is, of course, provided the single vendor solution like the Vertical Communications UC solution includes as standard all the applications needed.  If the applications are available only at additional cost then the situation changes completely.  
 

Single box, single vendor solutions such as the Wave IP that include as standard the core business applications needed by the SME or the enterprise have significant advantage for the customer.  The initial investment is low, there is no solution integration as there is with multiple vendor solutions, no need to take out multiple maintenance agreements and they come with the reassurance that when an application is upgraded it will continue to work with the others.