Channel Survival – Crossing the Chasm Into True Collaboration Solutions Beyond Telephony & Mobility

Today I’m excited to kick off a new weekly column on Real-Time Communications World, focusing on the future of enterprise connectivity and creativity. As the lines between voice, data and video continue to blur, and as we re-think the definition of what it means to be “mobile” – CIOs and IT teams are faced with more choices and decisions than ever. With the pace of change in real-time communications technologies, the rapid advancement of web and browser- based “over-the-top” solutions, and the increasing number of “Gen Y” workers coming on the scene with enormous expectations for getting things done the “social” way…it often feels like everything is up for grabs.

Billions of dollars have been invested in the global aggregate on “phone systems”, which over the last fifteen years or so morphed from VoIP to converged IP services to multimedia conferencing to all that and multiple modes of IM on mobile devices too. BYOD has become BYOE (bring your own experience) and BYOA (bring your own app) which has only added to the complexity of making investment decisions and providing support. Security has become its own full-time job, and the global economic situation, which is only now starting to really improve, hasn’t helped.

My company, GENBAND, has been a leader in the enterprise real-time communications market for years, in our DNA including the acquisition of a large chunk of Nortel, but also “new school” with recent acquisitions like fring and uReach. We’re successful and profitable and continuing to grow steadily because we are thinking ahead, and investing in developing software and solutions that address the next growth phase (communications as a service) and move the success of the “cloud” beyond computing to communicating. We’re good listeners, and have over 700 large customers (including some of the biggest carriers, operators and service providers in the world – serving enterprises and SMBs) helping us develop our road map looking years into the future.

I am so enthusiastic about the progress we are seeing that it’s high time for me to start sharing success stories (we’re having a lot of fun with our channels and their customers implementing some pretty cool platforms). During this inaugural month of columns, I am going to start with a series called “Channel Survival: 2.0.”

An incredible amount of value was created in “1.0” – IP communications for enterprises including Centrex, PBX, applications integration, multi-channel solutions tying in IM, VM and video conferencing. A huge channel reseller industry sprung up and is still going strong – but we all realize we are here to serve new generations of end-users, who prefer a different way to connect and collaborate over the Internet, using social networks, and moving constantly with mobile.

So what moves should channels make to ensure they don’t just protect their installed base, but grow that base, with more revenue per customer, and more customers in what will continue to be a very competitive space? What will the “communications cloud” look like, and how will the proliferation of WiFi shift the balance from 3G/4G “connected” experiences to all IP, OTT solutions? What will the new “end-points” look like as desktop phones start to feel more like paperweights, and how can channels replace the revenue associated with “phones and servers” on-prem with increasingly cloud-based revenue for licensed experiences? Will the provisioning of “phones” be replaced with the provisioning of “tablets” and how will the decline in the sale and “refresh” of laptops intersect with this trend?

How can channel resellers who have mainly played in telephony now emerge more as “IP and IT” partners for existing customers?

In my next post, I’ll be going “back to basics” – which is revenue – and margins. High margins. Recurring revenue. There are the “new economics” which can be gracefully leveraged without “uprooting” existing systems, through sales strategies that solve customer problems (for example business continuity) while bringing them to the cloud, and address customer confusion (for example voicemail systems – can’t live with them, can’t live without them?).

Following on that “numbers crunching,” I’ll be posting on the “Next Price War” and the change up from “Hardware Sales to Software Margins – Lowering Capex and Opex.”

I’ll also be sharing success stories – examples of how visionary channels are already making the shift into the “communications as a service” realm by letting go of legacy approaches and doing what entrepreneurs do best – changing intelligently.

I’d love to hear what you’d love to learn and share, and look forward to building a community around the evolution that has already started – or is it revolution?