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.
