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. 

Market Report - PBX & Communications Platforms

Unified Communications PBX is now a mature product and those vendors who are going to offer a UC solution already have an established and proven product line. Competition is now moving to developing sector specific solutions and offering extended support services. Leading this move is Vertical Communications who hold a strong position in the global retail sector and have set new standards in the market by providing 5-year warranty on solutions hardware.

It is the customer facing business sectors that are hungry for the UC applications and ICON believes that throughout 2015 growth in the UC market will come from the customer-facing businesses. 

Retail -- Retail is a key market for UC solutions such as Wave IP. Customers in large global department stores have invested heavily in UC solutions. Likewise, garden centres, automotive dealers and other customer centric business are all seeing the benefits of the UC applications. 

Automotive -- Vertical Communications, the makers of the UC solution Wave IP, has launched and presented an automotive focused solution at the 2015 NADA the National Automotive Dealers Association in the US and in 2014 teamed up with Spectralink wireless to offer a UC wireless solution for retail and other customers. This sector focused solution strategy is expected to continue throughout 2015 as vendors of UC solutions look to find and dominate a sector.

Not surprisingly, the customer facing sectors of retail, hospitality and automotive are the big opportunities for UC solutions such as Wave IP. However, what and why the customers are buying UC based solutions is most interesting. 

Benefits of UC -- The ICON sales team report that often the reason a customer invests in UC based solution Wave IP is because it delivers the ability to track and manage customer communications, links with back office applications and provides the ability to link mobile users with the business applications. 

UC Applications -- The leading vendors have provided the core UC applications as standard to all desk handsets by for several years now. Vendors such as vertical Communications are now providing these applications to the mobile extension be that a cell phone or a business dedicated Wi-Fi handset. Solutions such as Viewpoint mobile delivers all the enterprise UC applications, including call recording, to the mobile handset giving the road warrior the same communications resource as their desk based colleagues. 

Mobile Distribution

Typical applications we provide are the UC application for integrating the mobile with the business telephone and real time messaging solutions which integrate with mobiles.

In this respect we believe that 2015 will see a growth in demand for mobile UC applications as businesses integrate their mobiles into the enterprise telephone system. Several vendors are already providing these applications notable amongst them is Vertical Communications which provides its Viewpoint Mobile UC application for businesses. UC applications such as Viewpoint deliver all the enterprise UC applications to the mobile handset giving the "road warrior" the same communications resource as their office based colleagues. 

We also expect a continued growth in real time messaging applications to mobiles. These M2M like solutions are increasingly being deployed in the hospitality sector to monitor BMS, PMS solutions such as 

1. heating/air conditioning monitoring, 
2. fire/intrusion/door/elevator stop alarms, 
3. integration with hotel applications 
4. emergency buttons, 
5. information broadcast, 
6. tech-alarms, room & mini bar status

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.

Unified Communications - an Interview with Paul Pyatt, regional account manager at ICON

Are customers initiating the UC conversation and how much of what your typical SME needs is dominated by mobile technology?

“There is still a huge educational exercise needed both in the market, and in the channel, before UC is sufficiently understood to be requested by the user.

Many users are still ignorant of what UC means and how it relates to a modern day telephone system.  The message that UC is affordable and can have a marked impact on bottom line has been slow to permeate through the channel to the end user.  In some cases, resellers do not fully understand UC and are not confident about talking about UC to the customer.  In other cases, resellers prefer to stick to the traditional sales model of proposing extensions and lines rather than business solutions.  

Nowadays business is mobile. Not only do the classic road warriors need access to their messages and calls but so do the site-based employees whose jobs take them away from their desks.  In such an environment, a UC solution with its focus on mobility will help a small or medium sized business work more effectively.  

However, instead of getting a UC solution often the customer ends up with a simple mobile phone twinning solution.  A good UC solution such as Vertical Communications Wave-IP provides close integration of the mobile phone with the UC solution.  This means the road warrior and mobile employee get the same functionality that their desk bound colleagues enjoy"

Why if a UC solution can offer mobile workers so many benefits is mobile phone twinning more often proposed?

Except for the keynote vendors such as Vertical Communications with its Viewpoint mobile app there are few vendors who have a workable and reliable UC app for android and IOS phones.  Put this together with some reseller’s unfamiliarity with UC business solutions it is easy to see why customers are often sold a twinning solution rather than a UC solution such as Viewpoint mobile.
 

Paul went on to say.  Mobile technology in and of itself is not a UC feature. Mobile access to the features of a UC solution is what it is all about and it is probably true to say that, if an IP-PBX solution does not provide mobile access to its features it is not a UC solution.    Solutions such as the Wave IP-PBX from Vertical Communications are a UC solution that provides mobile access to its UC capabilities for both android and iOS handsets with its Viewpoint mobile app.  

Where are the opportunities for the Channel and how can resellers differentiate in this market?

For the reseller who is willing to embrace UC fully the opportunities are numerous but,  says Paul, the reseller must adopt a different selling model to the traditional extensions and lines approach.  It’s all about solutions when you are selling UC

UC is about business processes and productivity.  A UC solution links in with the work processes of your company and enhances the way you work.  

The reseller who is prepared to spend just that little more time to understand the customers’ business and how they work is able to offer a solution customised for the company.  Setting themselves apart from the traditional resellers in this way is a brave step for many to take. But by doing so they are able to out run the competition and differentiate themselves from the traditional reseller whose offer focuses on extensions and lines.

Is there such a thing as killer UC app that is going to drive sales of UC CPE or hosted solutions?   

 No, says Paul. There are plenty of must have apps but at the moment there is no one app which is universally desirable by all businesses.

The true mobile UC applications such as Viewpoint come close but the SME market still has a long way to go before UC solutions have a 100% penetration into business and businesses understand the power UC can bring to the bottom line.  Until this happens, the universality of Viewpoint mobile type applications will not take off.   

 

With the plethora of end user apps aimed at the consumer market available does this make the UC a hard sell?

Selling a UC solution is about selling productivity at the bushiness level.  Get that right then the arguments for investing in a UC solution become self-evident and the need to “hard sell” the solution does not arise.   

Do you think that end users are better served by single vendor solutions or by a best of breed mix of third party applications?

A single UC vendor cannot be expert in all technologies needed to deploy a UC solution.  This has given rise to a number of alliances.  Microsoft have partnered with Spectralink who are providing the endpoints for messaging, data capture and the like for Lync, Vertical Communications has also partnered with Spectralink who it relies on to provide on-site mobility endpoints for its UC solution Wave IP.    

Vertical has also opened up its UC solution Wave IP to third party developers.   

In addition to its android and IOS mobile Viewpoint app for smart phone and tablets, Vertical is encouraging third parties to develop UC apps to run on the UC Wave –IP platform. 

The available apps include CRM integration solutions and, mobility, reporting and utility applications.

The Future of Communications Platforms - a review by ICON

Hosted versus CPE

The days of the plain old CPE IP-PBX are numbered.  CPE PBX solutions that support cell phone mobility, smartphones & tablets, third party UC apps and have the capability to be deployed as a traditional CPE, in the cloud, or a distributed solution are the future.  

FortiVoice works with IP and analogue handsets

In the medium term the flexibility to work with either analogue or IP will be needed if vendors want to capture the legacy as well as the IP sites, but long term this capability is likely to become less important.  FortiNet with its FortiVoice solution offers one of the best examples of a CPE PBX that can work with IP phones, analogue phones or both. 

On the issue of cloud versus CPE, versus centralised, Mark Shane, ICON Sales Director commented,

“The demarcation between the CPE PBX, cloud, or centralised versus distributed solutions markets is very grey." 

"Let’s not forget that if a customer has multiple sites and wants a cloud based solution this does not rule out a CPE PBX sale. Vendors such as Vertical Communications with its Wave IP-PBX can deliver a CPE solution which can be deployed anywhere in the network - on-site or in the cloud”

Thje Wave IP-PBX offers built in applications and cell phone mobility

Microsoft Lync and UC

Mark Shane observed,

“Microsoft Lync is making an impact in the telephony and UC market and ICON with its vendor partner are looking at this market as one of the few growth opportunities available for the channel”

In terms of delivering UC capability Lync is one of many solutions available.  However, in its target niche it is a strong contender with an almost unassailable position.  Mark Shane, Sales Director at ICON, explains

“ICON distributes a range of UC solutions as well as MS Lync approved mobility solutions and it is the Microsoft tag, pedigree and connections that hold sway in its target niche.  This means that in those business and enterprises which are committed users of Microsoft solutions Lync is the natural solution and a contender has to be able to exceed the performance of the Microsoft brand for delivering reliably. There are very few UC solutions which have the brand credentials to do this.”

That is not to say that MS Lync will dominate the entire UC market.  Outside of its target niche where the emphasis shifts from brand credentials to features, functionality, and price, MS Lync competes on a more level playing field with other UC solutions.   Mark explained

 

“In niches which are brand agnostic and the focus is more on features, functionality and price than on brand there are other UC solutions that can stand up tall against Lync.  Solutions, such as Wave from Vertical Communications, which are continually stretching the envelop by offering novel business apps in a very advantages commercial package can often be a strong contender against Lync especially in vertical sectors needing specialist solutions.”

Mark added

Lync is unquestionably a force to be reckoned with in the market and it has to be a strong and confident brand to take it head on in its target niche.  ICON and our partner vendors who provide MS Lync approved mobility solutions are betting that there are very few who can do this successfully in its target niche.

The future CPE PBX

The concept of the CPE PBX is changing. Vendors or now delivering highly functional communications platforms capable of supporting third party apps. Mark explained,

“The notion that a CPE PBX is a platform for third party UC apps, just like the cell phone is a platform for apps, is a novel trend but one that long term will provide businesses with many more solution options and the capability to customise and add to the functionality of the PBX platform throughout its life. "

"Vertical Communications is pioneering this with its Wave IP solution which provides a platform to run applications traded on the VerticalAppMarket”

 

Investing in a CPE PBX platform that allows you to add functionality at will means your communications platform can change, develop, and be customised to suit the needs of the business throughout its working life unlike the monolithic CPE PBX solutions that, perforce, deliver the same functionality at the end of their life as on day one.

Leading the change in communications platforms are the Vertical IP-PBX solutions 

CPE PBX integrated applications fall into one of two categories.  There are the core UC feature set applications which vendors such as Vertical Communications include as standard on its Wave series of PBX and the traditional and not so traditional call management applications such as such as contact centre, call recording, IVR, fax plus a host of others. Mark commented,

“A few years ago integrated applications were the novel differentiators in the CPE PBX market.  Now they have become de facto standard necessary features.  Presence and instant messaging are the UC applications many UC PBX vendors package as UC standard features."

"However, true UC PBX solutions, such as Vertical’s Wave IP, provide a host of other UC applications such as visual voicemail, conferencing, document sharing, and screen based call management for mobiles.”