What I want for Christmas (from Voice and UC Vendors)

22 Sep 2016

Just concluded a podcast with the UCStrategies team entitled, "Hopes and Aspirations for 2016." There were some interesting comments from my colleagues as well as my own contributions. The conversation got me thinking about the state of the industry; so here are my thoughts:

This expands upon what I offered in the podcast:

Interoperability and Federation among messaging vendors. I have many messaging apps on my Android phone as I'm sure most of you reading this article do as well. Why do we need separate apps for each vendor? I've been around long enough to remember incompatible email systems. Interoperability was solved for email with RFC 821 (adopted in 1982 and updated several times since). Why can't we all just get along?

User Choice. It seems as though almost every Voice and UC vendor is pushing their clients to the Cloud. The push can be subtle but more often than not, it's along the lines of "We are putting all of our R&D into the Cloud products so if you want new features, you'll have to get it from the Cloud." It seems Cisco and Microsoft are part of this group. Well, although Cloud is the best fit for some, it is not the best for every enterprise. In fact, I will be speaking about Hybrid solutions at the upcoming BC Summit in November. To the vendors I ask, please let us make the choice that is appropriate for our businesses. How about including feature parity between Cloud and premise products?

Make it easier to do business with you. I called out Microsoft during the Podcast with its practice of requiring engagement with a Licensing Vendor as well as a separate Systems Integrator in order to have a working system. I'm not aware of other manufacturers that require two parties to achieve a working Voice/UC system. This adds complication and delay to the provisioning process. As to the vendors responding to procurement solicitations, please read the material that is sent to you, ask questions as needed and complete the proposal as requested. In a recent procurement I managed (low six figures), two of three vendors did not complete the pricing worksheet. I know everyone is busy, but please pay attention!

Resolution of what happens to Avaya. I know I probably haven't been good enough this year to get this, but can someone please complete a transaction for the bulk of Avaya's core Voice and UC business (yes, this includes contact center) by the end of this year? If you read the trade press, you've seen acquisition rumors that weren't fulfilled (ININ, Genesys). Can someone please buy them so we can understand the risk a bit better and help our clients move forward?