Gartner has released its UCaaS Magic Quadrant 2022, which details the UCaaS market leaders.
Companies from all across the industry are after a place on the top right-hand corner of its ‘magic quadrant’.
As well as listing the biggest movers and shakers of UCaaS, it also lists notable challengers, visionaries, and niche players to look out for in the year ahead.
Changes from MQ 2021
Many of the UCaaS providers, and their positions, remain unchanged. The first two places have again been awarded to Microsoft and RingCentral, with Zoom and Cisco following.
Fuze has, of course, disappeared from the table following its acquisition by 8x8, who remain in fifth place, still within the leader’s quarter.
Replacing Fuze in the ‘visionaries’ section is Dialpad, which has shifted across from the bottom left ‘niche players’ quarter.
Mitel has disappeared from the quadrant after being listed as a ‘challenger’ last year, following its UCaaS partnership with RingCentral.
The rest of the quadrant remains the same, with Google and GoTo as challengers and Vonage, Sangoma, Windstream, and Wildix retaining their titles of niche players.
UCaaS Leaders
- Microsoft
- RingCentral
- Zoom
- Cisco
- 8x8
Microsoft
Microsoft has had a number of highlights this year, such as reaching 12 million Teams PSTN users, growing Office 365 seat numbers, and recently adding sign language view for Teams meetings and Teams games for work.
Gartner points to changes to the Microsoft Teams offering, including Microsoft Calling Plans expanding from 28 to 34 countries, Operator Connect expanding with 30 carriers in 63 countries, the preview launch of Operator Connect Mobile, enhancements to emergency calling, new SKUs like Teams Phone With Calling Plan, and more.
The key strengths of Microsoft Teams, according to Gartner, are its popularity, its ability to satisfy most organisations’ requirements, and its unified message, meet and call experience. Teams has also enhanced its voice availability SLA target from 99.9% to 99.99%.
Microsoft’s weaknesses, or ‘cautions’, are the uncertainty among organisations as to which is the best PSTN connectivity option for them. Microsoft Teams Phone System is often not considered sufficient to meet advanced telephony requirements, and large distributed organisations do not generally consider Microsoft's telephony as reliable. Microsoft also does not currently offer a self-developed contact centre option for organisations using non-Microsoft CRM providers.
RingCentral
RingCentral recently announced major layoffs, although its quarterly results were still quite strong. The company has expanded geographically, through the deployment of its UC-CC platform in Australia, for example, and it has grown its product base too, with the likes of its AI video features. The company is currently at the centre of a rumour that it is interested in acquiring 8x8.
Gartner believes its geographic expansion is a key enhancement for the company this year, powered by its service and technology provider partnerships. These partnerships include multiple German telecom providers, as well as Mitel. Mitel brings with it a large channel and customer community that RingCentral has been able to leverage.
The strengths of RingCentral, according to Gartner, include strong integration and deployment ratings via third-party integrations and application resources for developers. It also provides access to the installed telephony user base through technology and service provider partnerships. The company differentiates its MVP solution with a mobile-first experience and delivers a consistently reliable service.
On the other hand, RingCentral places its energy into telephony, but buyers are increasingly valuing meetings, messaging, mobility, and customer experience ahead of this. The RingCentral Video solution is lagging behind comparable solutions from competitors. The change in leadership at RingCentral poses challenges to the creation of a cohesive company culture. Finally, RingCentral has only converted a small amount of its partners’ user bases, despite its numerous partnerships.
Zoom
Although Zoom’s latest quarterly results revealed a lowering of revenue expectations due to online business declining, that is not entirely reflective of the past year. Earlier this month, Zoom rivalled Google and Microsoft with the introduction of email and calendar services. The company also set $10bn revenue targets, which UC Today discussed with Zeus Kerravala, Founder and Principal Analyst at ZK Research.
Gartner provides a long list of Zoom highlights from the year, including an explosion of its user base; the launch of Zoom Whiteboard, Zoom App Marketplace, Zoom Contact, and Zoom Phone metred and unlimited plans in Japan; expansion of Zoom’s channel and device partners, and more.
The main strengths Gartner outlined relating to Zoom are its growth in its Zoom Phone user base, the advancement of its telephony features, the release of Zoom Contact Centre, and Zoom Phone offering full PSTN replacement in 46 countries with a bring-you-own carrier option.
On the flip side, Zoom Team Chat has fewer collaboration features than competitors, according to Gartner. Gartner clients usually select providers with a longer track record than Zoom. Delays were reported in implementation and account management. There are concerns that Zoom will hike up its prices when their renewal date is due.
Cisco
Webex by Cisco has also been making progress this year with the launch of a partner program, the release of new hybrid working solutions, and new partners, such as AT&T.
Gartner shone a light on Webex’s enhancements to Webex Calling Dedicated Instance, expansion to over 110 countries, Webex Go support and integrations, Webex Meetings layout customisations, AI meeting capabilities, close captioning and real-time translations for over 100 languages, and more.
The key strengths of Webex, according to Gartner, include its aggressive investment in innovation, its large and global partner ecosystem, the most complete UCaaS portfolio, and its acquisition of IMImobile in 2021.
On the downside, when customers use competing UC services, it detracts from its value proposition as Webex’s self-developed solution, covering IP phones, cameras, headsets, etc., is tightly integrated with the Cisco Webex Control Hub.
Buyers also perceive Webex’s UCaaS prices to be higher than leading competitors. The market does not yet perceive its Contact Centre to have proven itself within the industry yet, in spite of some positive steps forward.
A final word of caution for Webex is that many of its channel partners have taken up partnerships with Cisco’s competitors, including Microsoft, RingCentral, and Zoom.
8x8
8x8 seems to be growing ever stronger. Throughout the year, the company has been launching promising new products, like its no-code automation builder, forming partnerships with National Express, the London Borough of Hounslow, Swim England, and more. In July, 8x8 revealed it was aiming to 10X its Teams user numbers within the next two years. Its invention of the term ‘XCaaS’ (eXperience Communications as a Service), capturing its unified communications and contact centre offering, has taken root in the industry.
Gartner lists notable changes over the last 12 months at 8x8, such as the introduction of the 8x8 Frontdesk attendant console, the release of 8x8 Conversation IQ, a partnership with Genesys for Cloud CX contact centre customers, domestic calling in 13 countries, as well as enhancements to 8x8 Meet and 8x8 Voice for Microsoft Teams.
Gartner lists 8x8’s strengths as being a UCaaS vendor leader offering CCaaS capabilities and meeting advanced requirements of small and midsize contact centres. The company is well-positioned to serve organisations using Teams with UCaaS and CCaaS solutions. The acquisition of Fuze has expanded its geographic footprint and its customer base is balanced across all the market segments.
Weaknesses for 8x8 include mixed customer satisfaction experiences using 8x8’s admin portal during deployments. Gartner also observed that adoption of 8x8 took longer than anticipated due to the difference in desktop app and mobile user experience.
While 8x8 has advanced telephony capabilities, many Gartner clients prefer to use competing vendors for meetings and messaging. 8x8 is also generally not selected by large organisations looking for advanced contact centre features requiring advanced WFM (workforce management).
UCaaS Challengers
- GoTo
