8×8: Game Set Match
8×8 analyst event.
TL/DR: 8×8 is on offense, working its UCaaS+CCaaS+CPaaS mojo into customer-focused outcome magic. The company is innovating, excellent at storytelling, and seeing improvements across most metrics.
But there’s more to the story, and it’s not just an 8×8 story. It was a thought-provoking event for me. The industry is changing rapidly. Enterprise comms is simultaneously imploding and exploding.
Southampton?
Last year, 8×8 hosted its analyst event at the San Diego Zoo. That was clever. It was a customer site, an unusual venue, and near a major airport. The zoo itself provided a nice outing that accommodated casual conversations. It was such a success that they decided to stick with customer sites. It turns out the UK has other cities besides London, and Brits love “football” (soccer).
It was a bold move to pick Southampton for a location. It’s far, expensive, dreary, and the team was in real danger of losing its place in the Premier League before the event. Southampton comms staff were on site to tell us great things about their sponsor 8×8. All of the sessions took place at St. Mary’s Stadium. 8×8 branding was everywhere.
The Saints hosted Crystal Palace for my first UK Football game during the event. Premier sports is no game, so they call it a match, but not one you strike (that’s bowling). They use lots of English words incorrectly. Like, the field is a pitch. Even more surprising, they stop serving alcohol (and soft drinks) during the first half of the game. Also, I could not wear my new Saints jersey to the match. Those who wear jerseys must be segregated, and my ticket was in the DMZ. Face paint was out of the question.
The Saints did their best for 8×8. They managed not to lose, but didn’t win either. The following week, they did lose and ended their reign in the Premier League. Relegation is a bitch.
First and Ten
Eight is building momentum by most measures. I will give Liz Miller credit for saying the “8×8 Apology Tour” is over. 8×8 has made it clear that they are playing offense — nicely aligned with Southampton, which has no defense.
How exactly does one play offense in enterprise comms? That’s the million-dollar question that has me stumped. 8×8 is flexing its small-is-beautiful agility muscle. Consider its RCS announcement. 8×8 is the first CCaaS provider to offer RBM AND support RCS within its omnichannel CCaaS solution. This is beautiful on many levels.
- RBM (RCS Business Messaging) is taking off. The results are consistent: branded, rich, and secure messaging with customers is more effective than email, WhatsApp, and SMS.
- RCS is young and ramping fast. It took over a decade, and it’s been dismissed by many, but RCS is here. iPhone finally joined Android in supporting RCS last year. The bottleneck is the carriers, but most will support it this year. There’s no replacement cycle, so the glass in your pocket either supports it or soon will.
- It is such a new channel that there’s a notable discrepancy between the CPaaS providers screaming RCS is booming and the silence from the CCaaS providers. RCS, and especially RBM, is about brands and customers engaging, and it’s happening outside of the contact center.
- I did not predict 8×8 would be first. It’s easy to forget that 8×8 is a CPaaS provider. We forget this because its CPaaS business is Asia-centric (where RCS adoption is ahead of the US). This is an important lesson as so much of enterprise comms is viewed and developed from a US POV.
- We also need to give credit to the leadership. 8×8 is not the only CPaaS provider that offers CCaaS, but it is the only one offering RBM and omnichannel CCaaS with RCS.
I completely agree with 8×8’s view that the distinctions between UCaaS, CCaaS, and CPaaS are blurring. I’ve written a few times about the big blender of comms. It’s simultaneously a non-topic and blasphemous. It’s a non-topic because most UCaaS providers have become CCaaS providers, and many CCaaS providers have become CPaaS providers. It’s blasphemous because some believe in the purity of CCaaS. Many CCaaS fans see UCaaS as a contaminant (MudBloods of comms). The whole debate is meaningless. I like 8×8’s focus on outcomes as it emphasizes workflows.
Leadership
This was the third analyst event since Samuel Wilson became CEO, and it was CMO Bruno Bertini’s second. No more excuses. I’ve enjoyed interacting with these two, but I’m not special. Most of the analysts have a close relationship with them. They work hard to be transparent and responsive. I have a pet peeve about analyst events that feature leadership in one or two sessions. These guys were engaged the whole time.
Southampton was particularly good for Bruno. The CMO arrived less than two years ago and has been operating behind the scenes. 8×8 recently launched a new brand campaign, and I’d say Southampton was Bruno’s coming-out celebration. It was great to see what he’s been up to and hear his plans.
8×8 also has excellent analyst relations. The company values analyst feedback, and the analysts love to share the 8×8 story.
Open the Pod Bay Doors
8×8’s Southampton event was my 7th event in 8 weeks. This made me a little irritable, and yes, some sessions could have been an email. Two days of stadium catering didn’t help. Across these events, AI was a dominant theme. Two weeks before Southampton was Enterprise Connect, where AI, especially agentic AI, was a major theme. AI was certainly in Southampton, but it was more practical.
8×8 intends to lean heavily into AI, and that’s fine. CPO Hunter Middleton stated that most of the AI we have seen in comms has improved existing workflows. He is right, and the next wave will be different. Despite all the hype, AI hasn’t changed things that much. We are largely doing the same things but slightly faster or better. The AI that I’ve seen in science fiction remains there.
However, the use cases for generative and conversational AI keep expanding. I initially downplayed summarization, but its usefulness has proven to be remarkable. It’s the gift that keeps giving. We are learning more about how to use AI, and AI models are rapidly improving.
Over the past 30 years, we have seen one transformative tech after another change enterprise comms: digital to IP, prem to cloud, voice to UC, and so on. Each time, the post-transformation future was reasonably clear. The future that AI brings is not clear. We don’t know what is important today, what may be possible tomorrow, or when to expect breakthroughs. However, it’s becoming clear that we will see significant reinvention. So many long-held assumptions and best practices are about to become obsolete. We are going to see massive changes to workflows and pricing models soon. The impending creative destruction would humble Schumpeter.
I admired 8×8’s focus on customer outcomes, but I kept thinking about what Henry Ford supposedly said about customers who would have told him they wanted faster horses. Some use that line to point out that customer feedback can be misleading, but that’s a secondary point. Ford’s cars were replacing horses, a paradigm shift in transportation. Paradigms don’t shift very often, but comms is starting to shift. Two questions came up on hybrid deployments. The response both times was that 8×8’s customers don’t value that.
“The well-bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.” – Oscar Wilde
A recurring theme from all of these events is contradiction. I’ve become hyper-aware of how tech traverses multiple, conflicting trajectories simultaneously. Bitcoin is not the dollar, but its value and strength are measured in dollars. AI, like atomic energy, will both save and destroy humanity. It is the same in comms. For example, Cisco tells us that more AI and automation will create a more human experience. There were plenty of contradictions in Southampton.
Let’s start with 8×8’s UC+CC (+CPaaS) play. This makes perfect sense to me, but it’s a sensitive topic with many analysts. It was certainly true in the PBX era because premises-based equipment and circuits could be leveraged. Sure, there were specialized vendors, but most enterprises leveraged one vendor for telephony and CC.
With cloud-delivered services, the benefits of premises-based infrastructure disappear. However, multi-vendor solutions add complexity. Implementation, support, and costs are simplified with fewer vendors. We see this trend with CCaaS and WEM. But for some reason, the logic doesn’t apply as consistently to UC and CC. The UCaaS MQ requires providers to offer CCaaS. The CCaaS MQ has no requirement or use case for UCaaS.
Everyone is selling a bundle. What are the best apps to bundle? What bundle offers the most longevity? Do you charge for phone or meetings and include AI or charge for AI and charge for phone? Cisco bundles UCaaS + CCaaS + networking and video equipment. Zoom has UCaaS with AI but charges for the Phone. Amazon doesn’t have UCaaS but has CPaaS, CCaaS, and cloud infrastructure (all billed separately). Microsoft has Teams, Office, and Azure. We aren’t sure what should be bundled, but we agree on the importance of a bundle.
Regardless of the bundle, we know more vendors are necessary. This brings us to ecosystem. 8×8 has an impressive ecosystem and wants more recognition for partnering with Cognigy. I agree with that. Cognigy is one of the better conversational AI solutions, and it’s integrated with 8×8. Many of Eight’s competitors opted to build rather than partner, and most of those solutions are inferior to Cognigy. Should a customer (or analyst) prioritize single-vendor native solutions over an integration with one of the best solutions? Does 8×8 get to play its single-stack card and still insist on full credit for Cognigy? I believe RingCentral also works with Cognigy, but I am uncertain, as it’s all branded RingCentral.
8×8 wanted us to know they have an excellent dialer from their partner Regal. 8×8 was not on my shortlist for outbound campaigns. Does the solution offer predictive, progressive, or power dialing? Which CRMs are supported? Does it offer call recording? Is it compliant with TCPA, Ofcom, or PECR? What percentage of the 8×8 channel partners know these answers?
8×8 has an impressive collection of partners in its ecosystem, but the program is not tiered. There’s no way to tell which partners are integrated, supported, or sold through 8×8.
Final Thoughts
Southampton was one of the most thought-provoking events of the year. I left with many questions, but don’t hold that against them. The industry’s playing board is changing; the vendors are merely pieces in play. 8×8 is in the game. I’m very pleased with the progress and direction that I heard. One area I haven’t touched on but should is the people and culture of 8×8.
Vik and Samuel have fostered an incredibly collaborative and open culture at 8×8. My interactions are always pleasant. This was also expressed by the customers we met in Southampton. Every interaction I have with 8×8 feels genuine. There is a sincere desire to improve the world, and I truly appreciate that.
Everything I heard, every conversation, and every presentation was positive and affirming. This includes interactions with staff, executives, customers, partners, and other analysts. These types of analyst events never have enough time as there are always more topics to cover. 8×8 didn’t offer much on mobility or video, two areas I consider very important. Agentic AI received little attention. I also think there’s a window for hybrid partnerships and European expansion. Wilson said that 8×8 has more staff in the UK than Five9 has in Europe.
8×8 is a VoIP, video, and cloud pioneer. It has outlasted more brands than I can remember. But today’s competitive landscape is very different. Microsoft just told an estimated 30 million users that they aren’t interesting enough and shut down Skype (to be fair, Skype was mostly a free service). 8×8 has agility, a strong platform, a solid vision, and is making impressive, offensive gains.