Software-Only Evolution Changes Nature of Unified Communications Marketplace

Every couple of decades or so, the telecommunications industry goes through a technology transition – analog to digital, for example – that profoundly impacts the way services are created and delivered, as well as the business models behind them. The ongoing and steady distillation of communications functions and features into pure software, which can be executed on generic and elastic hardware resources, is one of those industry-altering transitions.

Virtualization, in fact, is bringing deployment liberation to the communications industry. Now that communication functionality comes in the form of invisible strings of 1s and 0s rather than physical boxes, enterprises and service providers are free to locate functionality wherever it suits them economically or strategically. One of the byproducts of this new-found deployment freedom is the ability to mesh together formerly discrete functions, sometimes provided by different suppliers. It’s not a stretch at all to credit the ongoing software-only transition with being the engine powering the Unified Communications (UC) movement. 

In addition to accelerating the evolution of telecommunications networks through software-defined networking (SDN), network functions virtualization (NFV) and other industry-altering technologies, the software-only movement is also shaking up the traditional supplier marketplace. For the past several years, the UC market has been roughly divided into two camps:  vendors that supply premises-based equipment and those that provide carrier-class application servers for hosted or cloud environments.  The emerging model of hardware independence not only blurs that historic line, it essentially obliterates it. As a result, vendors from both camps are now quietly – and not so quietly -- traipsing into each other’s sweet spots.

Although these incursions are not first-time events, they are taking on a new tone.   For example, GENBAND has long-offered a version of its UC solution for installation at large enterprises. As UC capabilities move to software-only solutions, deployment location – enterprise or cloud – is no longer a defining competitive differentiator. To fill what is essentially a marketing void, UC suppliers are clinging to historic and sometimes dated classifications to separate their solutions from competitors’ solutions. Those coming at the market from a hosted deployment legacy, for example, tend to focus on carrier-class reliability and multi-tenant capabilities as hearty traits that are recessive in enterprise-oriented solutions and are now being fitted for the cloud.

Over the past few months, it has become apparent that the historic enterprise-side of the UC market has settled on feature richness as a competitive differentiator.  That comes as very welcomed news to GENBAND, as the GENBAND SMART EXPERIENCE UC solution, regardless of where it’s deployed, can go toe-to-toe in terms of features and functions with anything on the market.

Not only was GENBAND’s SMART OFFICE recently validated as an  industry-leading UC solution through a unique alliance  with smart device giant Samsung, the platform establishes new benchmarks in terms of sophistication, ease of use, and deployment flexibility – making it a fertile foundational platform for industry-specific applications, such as healthcare. SMART OFFICE’s market-differentiating features include tight integration into a complete IP communications infrastructure solution, which includes session control and session border control, proven carrier-class reliability and performance, enhanced multimedia messaging management, and federation of social networking applications.

It’s a whole new ballgame for enterprise communications. The software liberation movement has redrawn the competitive landscape and exposed enterprise IT departments to a new and rich palette of options for fulfilling their communications requirements. GENBAND feels good about the opportunities awaiting its UC solutions in this new environment – regardless of whether the evaluation is weighted toward hosted capabilities, features and functions or any other criterion.