Will the Cloud Change the Price of Business Communications?

15 Feb 2016

Over the last year the Cloud has been a major trend in the IT industry. Cloud is much more than technology, as cloud industry veteran author Timothy Chou details in his book "Cloud: Seven Clear Business Models," cloud is not a technology, but a business model transformation. Through his analysis, he demonstrates that cloud deployment models generally reduce the cost for a specific software solution by up to 90%. This is due to a combination of scale, focus, specialization, standardization and economies based on repetition.

Cloud is a hot communications topic for 2016. The leading cloud telecom providers have been growing rapidly, both in number of subscribers and in the size of their customers. In late 2015, both Cisco and Microsoft made major cloud announcements. As we discuss cloud in the communications and collaboration space, the question of the business model remains. Will the emerging communications cloud have the same pricing impacts in communications as it has had in other spaces? What will this mean to telephony pricing and the newer bundled services like UC, messaging, presence, video, etc. How should you plan to manage your investments and commitments in this changing environment?

To get a view of the changing landscape, plan to attend an exciting session that will investigate the future of our industry at Enterprise Connect on Wednesday, March 10, at 8 a.m. The session will start by looking at cloud as a disruptive pricing force and proceed to a panel of leading cloud communications providers to discuss their outlook on pricing and business models for the future. Join me and:

  • David Sipes | Chief Revenue Officer, RingCentral | Panelist
     
  • Darren Hakeman | Senior Vice President of Product & Strategy, 8x8 | Panelist
     
  • Clark Peterson | President, Business Solutions Group, Vonage | Panelist
     
  • BJ Haberkorn | Director, Product Marketing, Microsoft | Panelist
     
  • Vishy Gopalakrishnan | AVP, Product Marketing Management, Unified Communications & Collaboration, AT&T Mobile & Business Solutions, AT&T | Panelist

Together we will plumb the depths and heights of the cloud and see if there is a common view on how the pricing models will change.

 

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