Here are some interesting stories.

The US presidential election is finally over.

So is IPv4!

GTT is buying Hibernia Networks for $590 million (mostly cash). Hibernia adds sub-sea assets to GTT’s Tier 1 global network. This move also adds IRUs across Europe to GTT’s network. It also adds “about $185M in revenue and $65M in EBITDA.” What is that 9x EBITDA and less than 3x revenue. This feels strategic as opposed to other M&A that feels defensive. (EarthLink-Windstream was both!)

More M&A: Lumos Networks, a fiber player in the mid-Atlantic region signed an LOI to “acquire Clarity Communications Group, which operates a 730 mile fiber network with 75 on-net locations located across four states in the south-eastern United States. The vast majority of Clarity’s operations and fiber mileage is in the state of North Carolina.” [PR} This is a strategic fill-in move. Lumos has been growing the fiber biz for about 5 years. It has a wireline business that was formed in 2011 as a spin-off of nTelos. LUMOS is trying to figure out what to do with its RLEC business.

Zendesk re-branded to pivot beyond just help desk ticketing. They added some analytics and business intelligience (BI) to improve customer experiences. It is about UX/CX now more than ever – especially if one company KPI is LVC (lifetime value of the customer).

In a similar vein, Why the goal should be unified experiences – not just unified communications.

BIG STATISTIC (for Agents especially): “40-75% of audio calls in the enterprise are conference calls – and its growing! [source]

75% of users communicate at work with 3 or more devices! [source]

“All are chasing the UCaaS growth opportunity. UCaaS is expected to grow from USD 17.35 Billion in 2016 to USD 28.69 Billion by 2021. The market is transitioning from the “early adopter phase” to the “early mainstream phase” for enterprise delivery.” [source]

Google parent, Alphabet, is pulling back on projects – from Google Fiber (aka Alphabet Access) to Project Wing (drone delivery) – as it strains to build profitable business lines beyond Google and search.

Dave’s update on Polycom.

Tags: broadband, conferencing, customer service, fiber, google, hosted pbx, mergers, UC, UX
Related tags: fiber, business, google, network, lumos, source

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Studying UCaaS – Aug 29, 2016

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Tidbits #2438 – Jun 07, 2016

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A couple of marketing lessons from the campaign. (Non-political).

If your Brand is broken, run a Branding campaign not a negative campaign.

When your brand is broken — maybe your uptime is three eights instead of nines or maybe your customer service is notoriously awful – the buyer doesn’t have trust in you. You need Trust for being to buy.

Look at how Ma and Pa Bell (Verizon and AT&T)have been re-branding away from telecom. Meanwhile, CenturyLink, Windstream and Frontier have been struggling to find their brand, their message, their future.

EarthLink had struggles growing beyond a dial-up ISP. They tried so much stuff: DSL, cable resell, MVNO, Muni wi-fi, VoIP, fiber, etc. – before finding their groove in Retail.

FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) will get you so far, but the best brands in the DNC ran on hope, change and issues. Take a lesson from people doing it better than you. Learn from your rivals what resonates with your buyers.

I look at the independent candidates who took 9% of the total vote. They remind me of the 1195 other Hosted VoIP/UCaaS providers in the US. You say you are in the running, but are you even campaigning? Are you doing ANY effective marketing, advertising, PR? Chances are: notsomuch.

To look at Broadsoft as a candidate that thought it should have won – and quite frankly has disappointed. Of the top UCaaS providers – RC, 8×8, thinkingphones/Fuze, Star2Star, West, Broadview, Mitel, Jive, CoreDial, Cisco and Microsoft – none of them are using Broadsoft. That has to be disheartening. To some extent that is like the Democratic candidates for House and Senate that lost. The party leader didn’t help them win; the big name, carrier grade softswitch didn’t help the 400+ UCaaS players win either. (You could argue that a few are doing well, like Vonage Business, Nextiva, Evolve IP and Comcast. Yet mainly the Top 25 are anything but BSFT. Isn’t that interesting?)

Doesn’t matter the technology or the pedigree, you have to market to win.

Tags: advertising, advice, broadsoft, hosted pbx, marketing, pr, UC, voip
Related tags: ucaas providers, brand broken, marketing, ucaas, brand, doing

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What Pain Does UCaaS Solve? – Aug 22, 2016

2 Reasons It is Hard to Sell UC – Mar 14, 2016

Is UCaaS Growing? – Oct 31, 2016

Why Do You Look at an iPhone That Way? – Apr 07, 2016

Uh Oh, Microsoft is Closing the Gaps – Jan 15, 2016

Is There Any Telecom Disruption? – Sep 22, 2015

What the Studies About UC Say – Aug 25, 2015

Vonage Picks Up Another One – Aug 20, 2015

Verizon Invites the Channel Once More – Mar 20, 2015

Vonage Buys Simple Signal – Mar 17, 2015

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A couple of marketing lessons from the campaign. (Non-political).

If your Brand is broken, run a Branding campaign not a negative campaign.

When your brand is broken — maybe your uptime is three eights instead of nines or maybe your customer service is notoriously awful – the buyer doesn’t have trust in you. You need Trust for being to buy.

Look at how Ma and Pa Bell (Verizon and AT&T)have been re-branding away from telecom. Meanwhile, CenturyLink, Windstream and Frontier have been struggling to find their brand, their message, their future.

EarthLink had struggles growing beyond a dial-up ISP. They tried so much stuff: DSL, cable resell, MVNO, Muni wi-fi, VoIP, fiber, etc. – before finding their groove in Retail.

FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) will get you so far, but the best brands in the DNC ran on hope, change and issues. Take a lesson from people doing it better than you. Learn from your rivals what resonates with your buyers.

I look at the independent candidates who took 9% of the total vote. They remind me of the 1195 other Hosted VoIP/UCaaS providers in the US. You say you are in the running, but are you even campaigning? Are you doing ANY effective marketing, advertising, PR? Chances are: notsomuch.

To look at Broadsoft as a candidate that thought it should have won – and quite frankly has disappointed. Of the top UCaaS providers – RC, 8×8, thinkingphones/Fuze, Star2Star, West, Broadview, Mitel, Jive, CoreDial, Cisco and Microsoft – none of them are using Broadsoft. That has to be disheartening. To some extent that is like the Democratic candidates for House and Senate that lost. The party leader didn’t help them win; the big name, carrier grade softswitch didn’t help the 400+ UCaaS players win either. (You could argue that a few are doing well, like Vonage Business, Nextiva, Evolve IP and Comcast. Yet mainly the Top 25 are anything but BSFT. Isn’t that interesting?)

Doesn’t matter the technology or the pedigree, you have to market to win.

Tags: advertising, advice, broadsoft, hosted pbx, marketing, pr, UC, voip
Related tags: ucaas providers, brand broken, marketing, ucaas, brand, doing

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What Pain Does UCaaS Solve? – Aug 22, 2016

2 Reasons It is Hard to Sell UC – Mar 14, 2016

Is UCaaS Growing? – Oct 31, 2016

Why Do You Look at an iPhone That Way? – Apr 07, 2016

Uh Oh, Microsoft is Closing the Gaps – Jan 15, 2016

Is There Any Telecom Disruption? – Sep 22, 2015

What the Studies About UC Say – Aug 25, 2015

Vonage Picks Up Another One – Aug 20, 2015

Verizon Invites the Channel Once More – Mar 20, 2015

Vonage Buys Simple Signal – Mar 17, 2015

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With all of the deals going on being a telecom partner is a nervous business. Why do I say that? Uncertainty is never good. Less choice is never good. Less competition is unhealthy for an industry.

AT&T with its DirecTV buy and its grab for TW is basically following Comcast’s playbook. Comcast bought NBCU, is becoming an MVNO (cellular reseller) and has a $6B Comcast Business division that is going to chase enterprise (much to the dismay of CenturyLink and Windstream).

Verizon is busy selling off wireline assets and buying up as much spectrum as its AMEX card will allow in a heavy bet that 5G and IOT will solve all of their revenue and cable issues. In a move bizarre move, VZ bought up AOL and Yahoo! as content plays. This playbook is solely Lowell C. McAdam’s.

Frontier, Fairpoint, CenturyLink and Windstream are RLECs looking to get out from under a heavy debt burden without cellular assets and without a content play. Each has its own playbook.

Windstream buying EarthLink almost makes sense especially at a $1.1 Billion all stock deal. (This move doesn’t hurt the channel since both providers were pro-channel.)

CenturyLink buying Level3 is not only surprising; it is disheartening. Level3 has its problems certainly. Yet its management understood the business it was in and what it took to win business. For a partner, that is a plus.

To fuel that $34B deal (total value of stock, debt, etc), CenturyLink is selling its data center business (Qwest and Savvis) for $2.1B to a coalition of PE firms headed by the former CEO of Terremark. This coalition is also buying 4 cyber-security firms to build a global cyber security business. Partners are curious if they will still get paid on deals already sold. And what the future holds here.

FPL getting acquired by Crown Castle also makes partners worry about commissions, since CC doesn’t have a channel and doesn’t retail its fiber.

The CLEC industry is practically gone now. After nearly one trillion in investment money dating back to 1996 or so, most of the CLECs we have come to know and sell are pretty much gone.

What does that leave the Channel? IOT, Cloud, UCaaS, SD-WAN, security – basically selling managed services. Network is going to be tough to sell and make a living on as prices continue to erode. SD-WAN for the win!!!

Network is easy to sell and there is demand for it. You really can’t say that for any other product in the portfolio.

Data center is still alive and well. Long live colocation!

Tags: agents, channel partners, cloud computing, cloud services broker, collocation, commissions, data center, IOT, mergers, SDN, security, UC
Related tags: centurylink windstream, cyber security, business, channel, centurylink, buying

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Data Center Outlook for 2016 – Jan 06, 2016

Savvis Changes Comp Plan – Jan 10, 2012

Conversations with Clients – Jun 03, 2016

4 Moves in January – Jan 09, 2014

Good News from CenturyLink Channel – Jul 10, 2012

Correction: Savvis Comp – Feb 03, 2012

End Caps – Jan 21, 2012

VZ Buys Terremark for $1.4B – Jan 28, 2011

The Data Center Market is at a Peak – Oct 17, 2016

Tidbits #2439 – Oct 03, 2016

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Copyright On Rad’s Radar?

Sponsored by Apex Technology Services, a leading IT Services company

With all of the deals going on being a telecom partner is a nervous business. Why do I say that? Uncertainty is never good. Less choice is never good. Less competition is unhealthy for an industry.

AT&T with its DirecTV buy and its grab for TW is basically following Comcast’s playbook. Comcast bought NBCU, is becoming an MVNO (cellular reseller) and has a $6B Comcast Business division that is going to chase enterprise (much to the dismay of CenturyLink and Windstream).

Verizon is busy selling off wireline assets and buying up as much spectrum as its AMEX card will allow in a heavy bet that 5G and IOT will solve all of their revenue and cable issues. In a move bizarre move, VZ bought up AOL and Yahoo! as content plays. This playbook is solely Lowell C. McAdam’s.

Frontier, Fairpoint, CenturyLink and Windstream are RLECs looking to get out from under a heavy debt burden without cellular assets and without a content play. Each has its own playbook.

Windstream buying EarthLink almost makes sense especially at a $1.1 Billion all stock deal. (This move doesn’t hurt the channel since both providers were pro-channel.)

CenturyLink buying Level3 is not only surprising; it is disheartening. Level3 has its problems certainly. Yet its management understood the business it was in and what it took to win business. For a partner, that is a plus.

To fuel that $34B deal (total value of stock, debt, etc), CenturyLink is selling its data center business (Qwest and Savvis) for $2.1B to a coalition of PE firms headed by the former CEO of Terremark. This coalition is also buying 4 cyber-security firms to build a global cyber security business. Partners are curious if they will still get paid on deals already sold. And what the future holds here.

FPL getting acquired by Crown Castle also makes partners worry about commissions, since CC doesn’t have a channel and doesn’t retail its fiber.

The CLEC industry is practically gone now. After nearly one trillion in investment money dating back to 1996 or so, most of the CLECs we have come to know and sell are pretty much gone.

What does that leave the Channel? IOT, Cloud, UCaaS, SD-WAN, security – basically selling managed services. Network is going to be tough to sell and make a living on as prices continue to erode. SD-WAN for the win!!!

Network is easy to sell and there is demand for it. You really can’t say that for any other product in the portfolio.

Data center is still alive and well. Long live colocation!

Tags: agents, channel partners, cloud computing, cloud services broker, collocation, commissions, data center, IOT, mergers, SDN, security, UC
Related tags: centurylink windstream, cyber security, business, channel, centurylink, buying

Follow me:

Twitter Profile

Related Entries

Data Center Outlook for 2016 – Jan 06, 2016

Savvis Changes Comp Plan – Jan 10, 2012

Conversations with Clients – Jun 03, 2016

4 Moves in January – Jan 09, 2014

Good News from CenturyLink Channel – Jul 10, 2012

Correction: Savvis Comp – Feb 03, 2012

End Caps – Jan 21, 2012

VZ Buys Terremark for $1.4B – Jan 28, 2011

The Data Center Market is at a Peak – Oct 17, 2016

Tidbits #2439 – Oct 03, 2016

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Sponsored by Apex Technology Services, a leading IT Services company