Despite the Cloud, Part III
The year 2017 started with a bang with respect to new premises-based telephony solutions hitting the market. Five vendors on our radar have introduced new on-site hardware in recent weeks – Accent (VoiceONE Onsite), Cisco (Business Edition 4000), Epygi (QX20 and QX500), Toshiba (IPedge ES) and Zultys (MX-E). Each has a different target or niche market to address with their new hardware, and each recognizes the value of offering a full spectrum of deployments – cloud, premises and hybrid arrangements that involve a combination of on-site equipment and hosted services. This flexibility protects existing telephony equipment investments, while allowing a business to take advantage of pay-as-you-go hosted services for new locations or for advanced applications. Hybrid cloud-premises deployments also ease the migration to an all-cloud solution in the future.
Looking back over 2016, the focus was still on a transition to the cloud as expected, with the majority of providers and vendors enhancing and building out their cloud-delivered unified communications (UC) portfolios. New cloud UC offers emerged from Microsoft, Avaya, Cisco, Mitel and others, and there were only a few on-site IP-PBXs introduced in 2016 by the vendors we track. This included new systems from three vendors (Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, Panasonic and Grandstream), down from five vendors in 2015 (read more here) and 11 vendors in 2014 (read more here).
So it’s intriguing that, just a couple of months into 2017, a number of new premises-based IP-PBXs have already entered the market. Here’s a brief run-down:
- Accent, a national provider of telecommunications services and solutions, recently expanded its portfolio with a new premises-based IP-PBX called Accent VoiceONE Onsite. Accent, in a sense, is bucking the trend by introducing new on-site equipment when most providers and vendors are racing to build out their cloud unified communications (UC) offers. Yet, the company, which has been a cloud-only provider of business communications services for years, has found that not every business is ready for the cloud, and so, Accent has designed and developed an on-premises system with the same features and functionality as its cloud counterpart. The new VoiceONE Onsite solution, suitable for businesses in the small and mid-size business (SMB) or enterprise space, is shipping now.
- Cisco is expanding its Business Edition portfolio with the new Cisco Business Edition 4000 for SMBs with fewer than 200 users. The new platform will be deployed on-premises, but managed in the cloud. Business Edition 4000 replaces the earlier Business Edition 6000”S” introduced in 2015 for the low-end of mid-market or branch offices with 25-150 users. More to come on the new BE 4000 model which becomes generally available March of 2017 in the U.S., with other countries to follow.
- Epygi is releasing two new IP-PBX models in mid-March 2017, the entry-level Epygi QX20 for very small offices (to 32 users) and the Epygi QX500 for mid-size offices (to 500 users). The new models fill gaps in the earlier line of “QX” business telephony systems which includes the QX50 IP-PBX (to 50 users), the QX200 (to 200 users) and the QX2000 for mid-range and larger enterprises (to 2,000 users). Epygi transitioned to the QX product line in 2014, incorporating additional built-in applications and offering a licensable Application Programming Interface (API) for developing customized applications to work with the system. This last point is key to Epygi’s vision and strategy around migrating the IP-PBX to a “communications device” that easily integrates with other vendor’s systems, devices and applications for added value. Epygi states that it is open to exploring cloud-based and hybrid solutions, but at present, the company continues to find demand for its economical, all-in-one premises-based equipment. The low-end QX20 has an MSRP of only $385.
- Toshiba America Information Systems Inc., Telecommunication Systems Division has extended its IPedge business communications portfolio with a new model for the smaller business. The new Toshiba IPedge ES offers much of the same built-in functionality of the company’s established IPedge IP-based communications solution – unified messaging, unified communications, mobility, IP networking and SIP trunking – but in a compact and less expensive hardware platform suitable for very small offices with fewer than 24 users. The new IPedge model is now available in the North American market. Note: Since the writing of this, Toshiba Corporation announced abruptly it would “wind-down” its Telecommunications Systems Division (TSD) starting immediately, including all telecom sales in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Even more recently (May 11, 2017), Mitel signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Toshiba to acquire “certain” assets and support obligations, including existing inventory; this transaction is expected to complete early in the summer.
- Unified Communications (UC) solution provider Zultys announced the general availability of a new IP-PBX model, the Zultys MX-E. The new solution is designed to support larger enterprises with up to 2,000 users on a single appliance and offers a level of redundancy and reliability over and above earlier MX systems in order to meet the requirements of larger corporations. Major hardware components are duplicated to help ensure continued communications; this includes redundant, hot-swappable power supplies and storage drives and multiple cooling fans.
We’ll have to wait and see how the rest of 2017 pans out in terms of new premises-based system introductions. Will adoption of UCaaS be somewhat slower than anticipated? Will businesses demand more flexible options and increasingly turn to vendors that can offer all deployment types – on-site, in the cloud or a mix of the two? Recent surveys reveal that hybrid deployments are a growing preference and make a good migratory step to an all-cloud solution in the future. Will the prediction of hybrid models as “the norm” be further confirmed? We’ll be watching.
Look ma, no ads!
Admit it! You just can’t look away. Yet, there’s so much more.
Become a subscriber to TalkingPointz for access to reports and premium posts.
There are several ways to stay informed:
- Visit this site regularly.
- Receive new posts in your email once a week.
- Become an Insider or All Access Subscriber for alerts and access to uncensored content.
TalkingHeadz Podcast
The TalkingHeadz podcasts are @DaveMichels and @EvanKirstel chatting with interesting guests. These are unsponsored and unscripted for your enjoyment. You can subscribe on most podcast apps including iTunes.
TalkingHeadz with Scott Wharton, Logitech
I believe Scott is the first guest to return to TalkingHeadz. Our first interview with Scott took place after Infocomm 2018. Once again, in this interview we were able to discuss with Scott recent product announcements from Logitech: The Rally…
Leave a Comment