UC As A Service Gaining Steam

Enterprises increasingly see unified communications as a viable cloud service option.

Beth Schultz

August 26, 2016

2 Min Read
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Ask a UC&C watcher what's hot in enterprise communications these days, and chances are pretty good "UCaaS" will be among the first things out of his or her mouth.

As enterprises grapple with next steps to take for improving their communications and collaboration capabilities, cloud solutions are increasingly factoring into their decision making. We hear this on a regular basis, whether in conversations with UC&C analysts, consultants, and enterprise IT professionals, or in formal earnings statements each quarter.

Much of the focus is on UC as a service, with pure-play cloud communications companies like 8x8, RingCentral, and Fuze (formerly ThinkingPhones) garnering much of the attention. UCaaS players are seeing steady revenue growth in the 25%-to-30% range, one industry watcher recently told us. Recent company highlights bear that out:

  • 8x8 reported $60 million in revenue, a 25% year-over-year (YOY) increase, for its first-quarter fiscal 2017, ended June 30 (service revenue from midmarket and enterprise customers grew 44% in the same period, accounting for 52% of 8x8's total service revenue)

  • RingCentral tallied $92 million in total revenue for its second-quarter 2016, also ended June 30 (revenue from software subscriptions grew 34% YOY to $86 million)

  • Privately held Fuze doesn't disclose financials, but the company has reported that it's added more than 200 customers in the first half of the year

I point out these particular UCaaS providers, as not only do they come up often in our general UCaaS conversations, but also are among the five companies, along with BT and West, positioned in the "Leaders" quadrant of the "Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications as a Service, Worldwide" report Gartner published earlier this week.

As Gartner analysts Daniel O'Connell and Bern Elliot noted in the report, "UCaaS is now a viable alternative for many (not all) enterprise deployments." As such, it is seeing a transition from "early adopter phase" to "early mainstream phase," they said.

Read the rest of this article on No Jitter.

About the Author

Beth Schultz

Managing Editor, No Jitter.Beth Schultz is Managing Editor of No Jitter. Beth has more than two decades of experience as an IT writer and editor. Most recently, she was the founding editor in chief for UBM Tech's AllAnalytics.com, a three-year-old editorial site for analytics, IT, and business professionals that's developed into a go-to community for thought leadership and conversation on the analytics, business intelligence, and data management disciplines. Prior to that, she brought her expertise to bear writing thought-provoking editorial and marketing materials on a variety of technology topics for leading IT publications and industry players. Beth was also a longtime editor at Network World, where she oversaw multimedia content development, writing and editing for special feature packages. In particular, she focused on advanced IT technology and its impact on business users and in so doing became a thought leader on the revolutionary changes remaking the corporate datacenter and enterprise IT architecture.Beth has a keen ability to identify business and technology trends, developing expertise through in-depth analysis and early-adopter case studies. Over the years, she has earned more than a dozen national and regional editorial excellence awards for special issues from American Business Media, American Society of Business Press Editors, Folio.net, and others.

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