On Rad's Radar Archives - Page 19 of 376

VeloCloud Responds

After my latest SD-WAN article posted, I received an email from VeloCloud’s VP of Marketing, Mike Wood. We jumped on a call to discuss his concerns.

Wood corrected that Velocloud decided not to sell direct but to use a variety of service providers as sales partners. These partners could be VARs or MSPs or LECs. Many providers formerly known as CLECs, like TelePacific, Mettel, EarthLink and Global Capacity, have chosen VeloCloud. So has AT&T.

Wood says each provider is rolling out SD-WAN by adding Velocloud to its own network sauce. Personally, I don’t think that helps the SD-WAN term gain definition, but we’ll see.

ITSPs (VoIP Providers) are also rolling out SD-WAN. Some are using Velocloud (Vonage and Mitel); others are using other vendors including SimpleWAN. It improves call quality measurably.

In the case of Vonage, they are using Velocloud technology to leave a box on-site to perform MOS scoring and monitor the call quality in the first month. Then Vonage can go back to the customer to say that the Internet performance is the issue and with SmartWAN (Vonage brand name) the call quality will improve starting now. (The white SDN box is already on-site doing monitoring and testing. Now it just gets turned up and billing begins.)

Quality + Transparency + Monitoring is what Velocloud is offering. Analytics will come later.

Velocloud has 600 customers through 150 partners, but not all providers are past the pilot stage, so Wood tells me it is more than 4 deals per partner.

Wood said that EarthLink is spinning the SD-WAN story different with its SD-WAN Concierge service.

The story of SD-WAN has to be more than spun. It needs clarity of value and differentiation. Wood pointed out that Cisco has moved into the space (iWAN) as a vendor to LECs and as a provider. Also, WAN Optimization specialists like Riverbed are spinning into the space – but without really evolving.

The benefits of SD-WAN extend from simple WAN management to zero touch provisioning to SaaS/App Performance. In between, there are features for remediation, leveraging economical broadband, and mu;ti-path/best link path determination (packet traffic cop). The MOS scoring agent is what the ITSPs like. The features don’t change; it is all about how the provider packages the software (Velocloud or Broadsoft). The new year will bring more buzz and more spin. Stay tuned.

Tags: itsp, managed services, qos, SDN, voip, WAN
Related tags: using velocloud, velocloud, quality, providers, vonage, provider

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National Harbor: In the Bubble – Aug 17, 2016

The Last CLEC Pivot – Jul 14, 2016

UCaaS Tidbits #2440 – Jul 05, 2016

TelePacific Rolling Out SD-WAN – Apr 18, 2016

What to Ask Your Prospective VoIP Provider – Sep 29, 2010

Is SD-WAN the new UC? – Dec 19, 2016

A Look Back at 2016 News – Dec 14, 2016

Will Amazon Disrupt the Channel? – Nov 30, 2016

Talking Channel and Opportunity with TelAdvocate – Nov 11, 2016

Blabbing About SD-WAN – Aug 03, 2016

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December 22, 2016 , On Rad's Radar

Who is Your Target Audience?

If you answered everyone, you are wrong.

If you answered 1-1000 employee companies, you are misguided.

I had a panel last ITEXPO of sales vice presidents of PBX companies. They blamed all deployment problems on the sales team. Every deployment that went poorly did so because it was sold wrong.

So I ask them who the target is. Once answers 250+ employees. My follow up: If you had a deal for 150 employees would you take it? He said Of course.

The problem isn’t the sales team. The problem is the management.

They think ANY sale is a good sale due to revenue, even when the sale is underwater!

If you can’t properly serve the customer to their satisfaction, what kind of company are you running? Per Drucker, you have one job: get and retain customers. But to do that you have to know who the best customer is for you. Who benefits the most from your services? (It is NOT everyone!)

In software we call it product-market fit.

If the client doesn’t have need or budget or benefit, why would you shoe-horn in your service just for revenue? Especially when the cost of that sale AND subsequent deployment and support costs are going to sink your company numbers?

Spending 80 hours of tech time to deploy and fix and sooth the customer for a UCaaS sale is not profitable. It undermines confidence in the partner, the company and the service. It can’t feel good for your own employees who have to get out the duct tape.

The fastest way to sell and be profitable: Know exactly who buys, why and how they benefit. In a world of me-too products, the ones that are specific WIN.

Tags: marketing
Related tags: sales, employees, deployment, company, customer

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Is SD-WAN the new UC? – Dec 19, 2016

It is All Distribution Now – Dec 13, 2016

The Channel Marketing Dilemma – Nov 30, 2016

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Research Firms Missed Again on UC – Aug 24, 2016

What Pain Does UCaaS Solve? – Aug 22, 2016

Nothing But Vanilla Pudding – Jul 29, 2016

A Word About Your Elevator Pitch – Mar 22, 2016

Change or Die – Mar 18, 2016

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December 21, 2016 , On Rad's Radar

Hacking and Identity Theft

I find the news of the two major hacks on Yahoo! to be bigger than most people. These hacks were unrecognized for years (supposedly happened in 2013 and 2014).

Many people use the same password on multiple sites – even banking.

With cloud and app usage increasing, more and more personal data is available to hackers, from credit card numbers at any online store to medical records. Add in all those contests and tests you see online and hackers have a full profile of you. Apparently, not many worry about this – until your identity is stolen and then it is too late.

THE SCOPE OF IDENTITY THEFT. “The 2016 Identity Fraud Study, released by Javelin Strategy & Research, found that $15 billion was stolen from 13.1 million U.S. consumers in 2015, compared with $16 billion and 12.7 million victims a year earlier.”

Much of this was used for Government documents or benefits fraud. However, “Eighty-six percent of the 17.6 million Americans who had their identity compromised during the last year said fraudsters tried to open up credit card or bank accounts in their name soon after, according to the report.”

“Yahoo’s priorities clearly did not include proactive protection of user information,” said Chenxi Wang, chief strategy officer at San Francisco cyber-security firm Twistlock. Truthfully, does any company have a clear priority for security?

Cyber-security is an expensive game of cat and mouse. Yahoo “invested more than $250 million in security initiatives across the company since 2012,” according to Reuters. Many companies opt for insurance instead of spending the money on the game. Yet companies don’t even do the basics, like force password changes every 90 days. Do they train their employees on phishing and other social engineering techniques that are the number 1 avenue for hacks?

LA County is just the latest event in a year that saw colleges, healthcare, Verizon, Y!, Oracle, LinkedIn, Dropbox, Cisco, dating sites and more got hacked. It isn’t IF, it is WHEN. And then it is: What will you do about it? Do something with the barn door before all the animals flee.

Tags: security
Related tags: identity theft, cyber security, identity, million, security, yahoo

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A Look Back at 2016 News – Dec 14, 2016

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Security is the Ugly Word – Aug 02, 2016

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December 20, 2016 , On Rad's Radar

Is SD-WAN the new UC?

In 2003, Broadsoft was selling its softswitch to anyone who would buy it. Today, they are trying to sell direct. All in all, it is technology that is still struggling to find its voice.

Today, VeloCloud is selling its SD-WAN software to anyone who will buy it. They are having a problem selling it direct.

I have called UC a garbage can term often. Everyone has a definition for it. There is little agreement on that definition. It has a variety of other names: Hosted VoIP, Hosted PBX, UC&C, UCaaS, etc. It consists of many different components / features: voice, video, conferencing, collaboration, UM, etc.

SD-WAN is following suit. Load-balancing, packet shaping, circuit bonding, et al are all being re-framed as SD-WAN. It is becoming a garbage can term for a white box with a variety of functions.

As a buzzword takes off, every marketer wants to jump on-board. However, all it does is make the buzzword meaningless to the buyers. And we have to ask: Are there in fact buyers? If you had a hard time selling your box with Function A, what makes you think adding Function B and the hastag #sdwan was going to make it more appealing?

One thing to think about is product-market fit. The other is a clear value state to the defined target market. If you say 1-500 employees or 1-1000, you have no clear product-market fit. I have no idea what you told your investors about the market but it is likely a lot smaller than you think. It also will be segmented like crazy.

Some businesses will make great use of UCaaS or SD-WAN, others not so much. The sooner you identify who benefits most, the easier it will be to sell. Who benefits the most and why.

Note: If you are selling through an indirect sales channel AND you do not have a rock solid USP and target market, THAT is why it isn’t selling (not because of the channel).

Tags: branding, broadsoft, hosted pbx, marketing, SDN, UC, WAN
Related tags: target market, product market, selling, market, think

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What Pain Does UCaaS Solve? – Aug 22, 2016

Nothing But Vanilla Pudding – Jul 29, 2016

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Is UCaaS Growing? – Oct 31, 2016

Studying UCaaS – Aug 29, 2016

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December 19, 2016 , On Rad's Radar

UCaaS Growth Forecasts

Per a TMR study, “the global market is expected to reach a value of US$61.9 bn by the end of 2018 from US$22.8 bn in 2011. The market is estimated to exhibit a strong 15.70% CAGR between 2012 and 2018. The rising mobile workforce and increasing enterprise mobility are the primary factors expected to augment the growth of the global unified communications market in the forecast period.”

The TMR report looks at these “Key players operating in the unified communications market across the globe”: Avaya, Microsoft, Polycom, IBM, NEC, Cisco, Siemens Enterprise Comm., and Alcatel-Lucent. (I didn’t know ALU was in UC.)

Now another “study by Hexa Research reveals that increasing enterprise and workforce mobility will be important factors leading global unified communications market to attain revenues of more than $75.50 billion by 2020.”

Hexa suggests that “Rising penetration of smartphones will also augment demand for unified communication products. Many organizations, large and small, across the globe are encouraging practices such as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), necessitating reliable unified communication solutions. “

“Hexa Research divides all unified communications products into on premise and cloud-based or hosted.” The leading players in the global unified communications market include the same players as TMR but named Verizon also.

Frost & Sullivan agree with that addition, because F&S “recognizes Verizon Enterprise Solutions with the 2016 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for Market Leadership. The company garnered 25.1 percent of total market share.” F&S combine all VoIP, even SIP trunking, under their UC market.

Yet another firm called Research and Markets put out a forecast. “The global UCaaS market size is would grow from USD 15.7 Billion in 2015 to USD 31.3 Billion by 2022, at a CAGR of 10.5% during the forecast period.” While none of them agree on CAGR or market size, all agree it is growing — just in North America not as fast as investors would like.

R&M stated, “The major factors that are driving the [UC] market are low cost of ownership as compared to other communications tools, pay-per-use model, growing mobility trends and Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), single platform integration of all communicating services, rapidly growing demand by SMBs, and continuous service support options.” They all parrot each other, or more likely they are parroting the marketing material of the UC players.

R&M reported that “The North America Unified Communication-as-a-Service (UCaaS) market size is would grow at a CAGR of 9.2% during 2016-2022. North America would be the largest market during the forecast period. Driving Small & Medium business UC adoption is the need to enhance collaboration, especially among remote and mobile workers, and boost productivity.”

R&M lists these UC players in NA: BT Group; 8×8; WEST; Voss Solutions; Polycom; Cisco; Microsoft; Computer Science Corp.; and Verizon. That is a limited list for certain. In North America, the largest players are VZ, MS, 8×8, Vonage, Fuze, West, RC, Comcast and quite a few others among the 2500+ providers in that geography.

CenturyLink was honored with Frost & Sullivan’s 2016 North American Hosted IP Telephony and UCaaS Growth Excellence Leadership Award, yet didn’t make any other the research firms’ lists.

Tags: centurylink, hosted pbx, microsoft, numbers, UC, unified messaging, verizon, vz
Related tags: unified communications, north america, communications market, unified communication, global unified, market