Has the Video Interop Cold War Ended?
All year, I've been describing 2019 as the year of video-first communications. It's the year that UCaaS providers decided to lead with video. It's the year that video communications truly became mainstream. It's the year that video became much more immersive and inclusive.
Innovation in video (or sometimes referred to simply as 'meetings') has been driving the collaboration portfolios at Amazon, Cisco, Microsoft, Google, and really most of the industry.
- Fuze launched a new video service
- Zoom had a spectacular IPO
- Highfive introduced unlimited free video, enterprise-wide, with the purchase of room systems
- 8x8 launched a free new video service
- Lifesize and Bluejeans report new revenue milestones
- Logitech video has been growing like a weed, and is even reporting an increase in average room revenue
- Avaya made video a standard part of its new subscription offer
- Vonage introduced Vonage Meetings
- We saw AI related news all year including auto-framing, transcription services, live captioning, translation services, and virtual assistants
The list goes on. But, the biggest news came in November when Microsoft announced that for the first time that MS Teams will inter-operate with [anything] room systems from Cisco and Zoom. Cisco and Zoom each announced they would inter-operate with Microsoft Teams.
Basically, pigs are flying.
This research note dives deep into these announcements. I spoke with all three vendors as well as many other video experts. The report is almost 7 full pages in TalkingPointz format. It was sent out to subscribers this morning, and is also available here for purchase.
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