Insider Report December 2024

Curated Enterprise Communications News and Insights from December 2024

Featured

The Shot Heard Around the C-Suite: Two important stories are coming out of the assassination of United Healthcare Brian Thompson. The first is the incredible backlash against health insurance companies, and the second is about CEO security. There are angry people everywhere, but the US is home to the angry and armed. 

We’ve all gotten angry, perhaps even murderously angry, at some point, but there’s nothing funny about an attempted assassination. Many celebrities discovered significant consequences for making jokes about the attempt on Trump; overall, a different set of rules emerged after the murder of Thompson. Funny social media comments generally went uncensored and even found acclaim. This assassination, it appears, was OK to mock. 

That’s because there’s a lot of frustration with healthcare in the US. Most Americans can select among some narrow options from their employer, and that’s about it. The insurance companies are notorious for denying claims. An internal appeals process — that might or might not be led by actual doctors — might review denied claims. After that, it’s up to the courts to resolve matters, often too slowly to matter. We learned that United Healthcare leads the nation in claims denials, with a denial rate of 32%! 

Some considered this assassination reasonable and predictable. The US is filled with assault rifles and wealthy corporations committing murderous acts; of course, someone would shoot a health insurance exec. The question is whether this assassination will trigger health insurance reform or simply result in increased security for execs? 

Last year, Alphabet spent $6.8M to protect CEO Sundar Pichai. Amazon paid $1.6M to secure founder Jeff Bezos. Companies such as Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Snap, Coinbase, and Tesla spend millions to protect their most senior people. Securities filings for United Healthcare’s parent company did not mention executive security. That’s likely to change, not just in health insurance but in most companies.  

What determines if/when execs need security? Is it the size of the company? The size of the event? Perhaps the size of the outrage? That last category can be big. Disgruntled customers and employees are common.  

The cost of guns is very high, and not just in America. Gun ownership is illegal and rare in many countries, but most airports I visit still have scanners. Office buildings and events increasingly have metal scanners. Gun control isn’t a complete answer. The gun that killed Thompson was a “ghost gun.” These firearms can be assembled at home from parts purchased online without background checks or serial numbers. 

Annual Report

2024 was a year of resets for the enterprise communications industry, marked by significant leadership changes and continued readjustment to a post-pandemic world. The “new normal” industry also includes increased financial pressure, shorter timelines, and less innovation. 

Let’s start with resets. In 2024, we saw leadership changes at Avaya, Cisco Webex, GoTo, NICE, Twilio, and Vonage. There was a run-up in 2023, too, including 8x8, Calabrio, Five9, RingCentral, and Sangoma. Microsoft changed several titles as staff became more visibly connected to AI. It will be interesting to see how fresh perspectives impact UCaaS and CCaaS. 

It has become harder to make money in enterprise comms. Valuations are low. Five9 was one of the performing stocks in 2024. Dialpad, Genesys, and Talkdesk are on track for IPOs in a fiercely competitive environment with some of the world’s largest tech companies. 

AI

The sector has gone all-in on AI, and it was the dominant theme at every event with a UCaaS or CCaaS keynote. Despite the frenzy, AI’s impact has been somewhat muted, mostly geared around summarization. The vendor landscape remains unaffected by AI (so far). The excitement and fear about AI are mostly about reducing staff. AI will impact most sectors, including customer service, agent staff, software developers, and comms vendors. 

AI is something the providers can’t ignore, but it’s going to be tricky. It threatens the sector because AI is necessary, expensive, and likely impossible to differentiate. It relies on outsourced expertise, which may become a significant and unpredictable cost. 

There was so much excitement about AI in 2024 that many forgot the dire warnings in 2023. The US State Department reported that AI poses an extinction-level threat to humans. Last year, more than 1,000 technology leaders and researchers (including signatories such as Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, and Rachel Bronson) urged a pause on AI. Science fiction has provided plenty of warnings (for centuries) that hard programming bots with human-friendly priorities are difficult to do. Asimov’s Robot series gave many examples of how his Three Laws of Robotics can backfire. 

The year was filled with impressive technological leaps, endless hype, and frequent misfires. It’s been nearly a three-year ride, but it’s finally becoming clearer what this tech can and can’t do. It started with the power of the internet, became the power of the database, and now is the power of automation through integrations. None has yet delivered on the automation promise.

Throughout the year, AI expanded and morphed. The big use cases are summarization, insights, and Agent Assist and CX self-service. The solution stack is growing and is expected to eventually enable better automation. There were many more announcements of agentic solutions than GA releases because a gap still exists between expectation and reality. Still, we are beginning the shift from gee-wow to outcomes.

Post-Pandemic Normal Emerges

It’s remarkable how things changed during the pandemic. Because the end of the pandemic was gradual, the actual new normal became clearer in 2024. Enterprise comms have always promised a rosy, optimistic future. Recent promises have included the ability to work from anywhere, meetings in a browser, and live transcription. We used to talk about the “future of work.” Suddenly, everything became table stakes as the future arrived. The dog caught the car, and (temporarily) the innovation sector starved.  

One big change is the emergence of Microsoft Teams as a dominant force. It was a nascent product pre-pandemic, but Microsoft iterated rapidly, and Teams became the defacto standard. It became so dominant that the EU has raised antitrust concerns. We have not seen such a dominant communications vendor in the US since the Bell System. See: UCaaS is a Teams Sport. 

Microsoft’s big push on Teams is likely behind us. It has secured a strong position with no close share competitors. (The EU’s antitrust claims likely sent shivers across Redmond.) Microsoft seems to have shifted its focus and priority to AI and Copilot. If Microsoft gets its way, subscribers will have many Copilots (more than SaaS apps) helping customers. TalkingPointz predicts the start of a long-term shift toward other UCaaS providers, including SP-branded voice offerings.

Social media shifted toward tribes during the past few years. Social networks provide so many alternative realities that they exacerbate our inability to agree on the problems to solve. There is serious doubt over many topics, such as vaccinations and planet roundness. It’s hard to believe AI can solve the big problems that its fans expect, such as climate change, when half the US doesn’t believe the climate is changing. 

Zoom is very different post-pandemic. It was a video star at the pandemic's start and has shifted toward workflows. Also, its alliances with Avaya and Mitel have bridged the divide between legacy systems and cloud-delivered solutions. 

CX: Here We Go Again

There are two ways to solve the dog-catching-the-car problem. One is to re-spark the innovation engine. This will presumably happen in UCaaS soon. The convergence of UCaaS and mobility (UCaaS Mobility 3.0) is a good contender. The other way is to chase a different car, and that’s what’s occurring in CCaaS. 

During the pandemic, the contact center did become the front door and worked well. Yet the entire CC sector has agreed to become CX. This change, combined with reimagining the entire solution with AI, sets up the sector for significant changes moving forward. 

CC vendors have always enjoyed significant barriers to entry, but suddenly, all that glitters is AI. The problem here is twofold: there are a lot more AI companies than CC companies, and most of the CC providers are not AI companies. The BigCos are coming: Google, Microsoft, and Salesforce aim to join Amazon in the CX space. This could be another “be careful what you wish for” scenario as it invites many more adjacencies to compete.

RTO-Debate

Where to work is a fascinating post-pandemic debate topic. The pandemic provided us an It’s-a-Wonderful-Life-like opportunity to see an alternative reality that worked better than most expected. Note that this was done indiscriminately (impacting all but essential roles) and without planning. We now know, beyond doubt, that remote, distributed teams do work. 

Yet the debate persists. There’s tremendous RTO pressure. Nearly 20% of all outstanding US commercial mortgage loans will need refinancing in 2025, which means that keeping employees at home just might cause a financial crisis. Last October, Bloomberg reported that buyers of top-rated commercial mortgage-backed securities are suffering losses for the first time since the 2008 financial crisis. “Of all the hot spots across global finance that were upended by the pandemic, few remain as fragile as the commercial mortgage-backed securities market.”

In April of 2020, Julio Vincent Gambuto predicted: “the greatest campaign ever created . . . an all-out blitz to make you believe you never saw what you saw.” During the pandemic, our planet got healthier. Carless highways and a huge reduction in carbon and pollution helped restore our planet. We saw fish return to the canals in Venice and coyotes on the Golden Gate Bridge.

The pandemic was extreme, but clearly, some positions and some activities within positions can be done (better) remotely — especially with some planning.  

RTO and Climate

While the pros and cons of in-person collaboration make for an interesting debate, we must also consider the pros and cons of reducing carbon and pollution. For decades, climate scientists warned us we might pass a tipping point. But the “ifs” turned into “whens” in 2024. The signs of collapse don’t require a meteorologist or data scientist — continuous “unprecedented” weather-related calamities bring them home.

2024 was the hottest year on record. The UN Secretary-General António Guterres said, “We must exit this road to ruin.” He also observed that the 10 hottest years on record had happened in the past decade, including 2024. This year, we saw floods in Southern Brazil and Dubai. The last glacier in Venezuela vanished, taking a piece of history with it. Coral reefs continue to die from warmer-temperature bleaching. See: The Climate is Right for Industry Change.

Amazon’s RTO mandate of five days a week in the office was delayed because the giant didn’t have enough office space for all of its employees. Amazon, like many other tech companies, made significant commitments to reduce carbon emissions. Now, these goals are being threatened by the allure of AI — which brings its own environmental challenges. 

We have simultaneous yet contradictory narratives playing out: that WFH is over and that a financial crisis is upon us. We must embrace the inevitable reality of distributed and remote work. RTO and WFH are not absolutes. Some positions and activities within positions can best be performed remotely. The question is the right mix. See: Hybrid Office Space Management.

Meetings

2024 was the year when the video interoperability wars all but ended, but not as expected. Many Microsoft CVI vendors exited the space. Alternatives like Direct Guest Join, which addressed basic interop, fell short of delivering the premium experience many users expected, lacking advanced features and seamless integration. Instead of the vendors agreeing on video interop protocols, many just agreed to use Pexip (for now).

2024 (finally) teed up Microsoft’s Device Ecosystem Platform (MDEP). MDEP will shake up collaboration by standardizing Microsoft’s Android-based devices for meeting rooms. While it promises streamlined updates, enhanced security, and consistent user experiences, the platform has also sparked division among manufacturers. Some have fully embraced MDEP to simplify development and Microsoft’s ecosystem. Others hesitate over concerns about losing their early-mover (sunk cost) advantage with Android. Either way, we will see MDEP-based solutions in the market in Q1-25. As MDEP evolves, the drama will expand from meeting rooms to wherever else Microsoft intends to deploy its mobile-ready operating system. The upcoming Enterprise Connect conference in March will feature a TalkingPointz-led session exploring the pros and cons of MDEP and how the various industry players are expected to react. See: Make Android Great Again.

2024 also saw machine learning revolutionizing meeting room environments by redefining traditional microphone and camera requirements. Advanced AI-driven systems can now automatically adjust audio capture and camera angles in real-time, enhancing participant visibility and sound quality without requiring manual configurations. This shift is leading to the replacement of costly-to-install hardware with software-driven solutions, resulting in improved room performance and reduced costs. These technologies will evolve rapidly, further transforming meeting and collaboration spaces. Enterprise Connect will also feature a TalkingPointz-led session titled “AI-Driven Meeting Rooms: Are We Cutting Costs and Boosting Performance — Or Losing Quality?” This session, which opens Enterprise Connect on Monday, will specifically examine these issues.

Several “big tech wobbles,” like Meta’s quiet retreat from the metaverse and Google Search being declared a monopoly, underscore industry giants’ challenges. Cisco devices for Microsoft Teams Rooms reshaped the MTR landscape. Google’s handoff of its Starline video project to HP likely ends the grand Starline vision with a whimper. 

Messaging

Another big reset is RCS. SMS 2.0 is much bigger than SMS or iPhone-Android interop. OTT messaging apps became popular because SMS was so limited, but SMS fragmented communications with each OTT app island. Even SMS is an island because it requires a mobile phone number. RCS offers a brave new world for messaging. There are now approximately 1B RCS users. 

Despite Apple’s 2023 announcement that it would (and did) support RCS in 2024, no major UCaaS or CCaaS provider has natively enabled RCS yet. Some UCaaS services never enabled SMS. 

Webex joined Teams and Zoom, so now all three have Team Chat video messaging in the client. 

Financial Pressure

Wall Street has imposed much shorter timelines. Investors want their returns, which evidently required significant changes at Twilio and a new board seat at Five9. It also appears Avaya’s inventors wanted faster results. Shorter timelines have eliminated moonshots in enterprise comms (like Microsoft Teams and Cisco Spark once were). Starlink is (literally) a moonshot. What other vendors (will) see opportunities in comms?  

Cisco Webex, RingCentral, and Zoom have excellent platforms for digital events, but they are likely relying on word-of-mouth for awareness. These solutions can significantly improve physical events with their hybrid and digital solutions. It’s a logical expansion of UCaaS but a heavy lift for education and awareness. See notes above on Climate. See: Digital Events. 

Financial pressure and no moonshots put more pressure on staffing. We saw a lot of layoffs in 2024. The good news is that 2024 layoffs were fewer than in 2023 (Layoffs.fyi). The tech sector eliminated 150k jobs in 2024 (down from 264k in 2023). Intel was the biggest loser, and Cisco came in second with 10.5K cuts.  

However, it’s not like telecom is a major employer anyway. When the Bell System was split in 1980, it was the largest employer on Earth with 1 million employees — almost all focused on US communications. Today’s comms leader is arguably Microsoft, employing only 228K people. The numbers are not directly comparable: Microsoft doesn’t have employees stringing poles, and Teams is global. Also, note that Teams is only a small sliver of Microsoft’s total employee count. The world’s largest private employer today is Walmart, with 2.1M “associates,” ironically followed by Amazon. 

The industry can get by with so few employees due to efficiency gains in tech. Layoffs occur when tech promises to give employees more time (careful what you wish for). If generative AI does half of what many expect, there will be more time for many more tasks (such as trainspotting). Prior to AI, innovative tools helped us do work. Agentic AI combines creation with execution and will do the work without us. Watch and listen to Dave and David’s Year In Review.

AI

AI Hype Realities: The sheen of AI-driven innovation is starting to show cracks as major players face setbacks. GM is scaling back its self-driving ambitions after Cruise reported staggering losses of $5.8 billion between 2021 and 2023, compounded by a $2.1 billion buyout of SoftBank’s stake last year. Meanwhile, NVIDIA’s stock is regaining some ground, despite the broader AI sector feeling less invincible. Apple is grappling with regulatory hurdles in China as it attempts to launch “Apple Intelligence,” struggling to adapt Baidu’s models to meet government approval. Adding to the chaos, Elon Musk has lobbed his thoughts into the OpenAI debate, raising more questions about the sustainability of AI’s meteoric rise.

I’m an AI: Zoom has launched a new ad campaign for its AI Companion, inspired by the iconic “Mac vs. PC” ads. The campaign highlights Zoom AI Companion’s strengths by referencing notable AI missteps like Google Gemini’s pizza-with-rocks suggestion. Danto believes this is a refreshing return for Zoom to some of its previous swagger. Michels liked the humor but feels the minor claims are irrelevant since the models are changing so rapidly.  

Dial-a-Joke Is Back: OpenAI is pulling out all the stops to drive ChatGPT adoption, introducing a new way to access the AI chatbot: by phone. Users can now dial 1-800-CHATGPT to interact with the chatbot, blending retro charm with modern AI. Each caller gets 15 free minutes per month (like a pusher). Still searching for ideal use cases. 

OpenAI for Profit: Zuck and Musk disagree on most things but stand united on keeping OpenAI a nonprofit. Zuck and Musk have filed separate actions to prevent OpenAI from transitioning into a for-profit company. Meta requested that the California AG halt the change, arguing that OpenAI shouldn’t be allowed to use assets built as a nonprofit for potential private gains. Musk claimed that OpenAI and Microsoft are collaborating to create a for-profit monopoly that engages in anti-competitive practices against xAI and others. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman believes his for-profit arm (a Delaware Public Benefit Corporation) will better support its mission of ensuring that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.

ChatGPT Pro: OpenAI has introduced ChatGPT Pro, a $200 per month subscription tier that includes access to its most advanced models, such as the o1 reasoning model, o1-mini, GPT-4o, and Advanced Voice mode. While the new o1 pro mode delivers improved benchmark performance, particularly in data science and programming, the incremental nature of the updates has sparked debate over the value of such premium services.

Google AI: Google had a remarkable month of announcements, starting with the introduction of Veo, a new video generation model, and Imagen 3, an updated version of its image generation model. Additional breakthroughs included advancements in quantum computing with its Willow chip, the release of Gemini 2, a Project Astra update, and news about upcoming agents Mariner (a web browsing agent) and Jules (a coding assistant). Moreover, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis received a Nobel Prize for his work in AI.

Veo 2 is an AI-powered video generator that enables “directors” to create realistic 4K videos from text prompts, offering adjustable camera angles and filming options. Currently, access is limited to select partners and developers. Danto believes that this concept is still not nearly ready for prime time, as Google’s exact quote only claims to mess up less frequently: “While video models often ‘hallucinate’ unwanted details — extra fingers or unexpected objects, for example — Veo 2 produces these less frequently, making outputs more realistic.” Michels is happy about reduced hallucinations because it’s a rare claim. 

Google first showcased a demo of Astra in May at its developer conference, and it generated significant excitement. Google has been striving to compete with ChatGPT, and its latest advancements in Astra appear to give Google an edge. Willow, Gemini, Astra, and Veo were all impossible a few years ago; now, they constitute a good month. 

Google ChromAgentic: Google’s DeepMind division introduced its Project Mariner prototype, an AI agent powered by Gemini that can interact with websites like a human. This prototype agent can control a Chrome browser, move the cursor, click buttons, and fill out forms, demonstrating Google’s vision for a future where users may no longer need to interact directly with websites.

The Overall AI Competition: Amazon has finally entered the competitive AI foundation model space, launching its own offerings that, while varied in benchmark performance, hold their ground among the pack. This leaves Microsoft conspicuously without a direct entry into the fray. The surge in models and benchmark comparisons feels reminiscent of the “feeds and speeds” era of the PC industry in the late 1980s and 1990s, where performance metrics like megahertz and kilobits dominated discussions. Just as those specs eventually gave way to commoditization, AI models’ proliferation seems to follow a similar trajectory toward indistinguishable utility.

Meetings and AV

Neat Update: Neat’s latest firmware update (24.6) brings users the promised dynamic microphone switching between the Neat Pad, Center, and the Bar in the front of the room.

Teams on VDI: Microsoft announced the general availability of the new Microsoft Teams optimization for Citrix environments.

NYE MS Update Announcement: On December 31st, Microsoft notified Microsoft Teams Rooms on Android (MTRoA) users that all certified Android devices must receive a required update in February to change “session flows.” After June 2025, MTRoA devices not updated within five months will cease functioning. The notice said that while this won’t affect user experiences, it applies to all phones, room systems, panels, and anything else running Android for MS Teams.

CoPilot Chaos Clarified: Microsoft is renaming its free enterprise chat tool, Microsoft Copilot, to Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat starting January 2025. The tool will remain ad-free, accessible to all Office/Microsoft 365 users, and offer optional agent functionality for metered consumption without requiring a full M365 Copilot license. Additionally, the Microsoft 365 app will be renamed Microsoft 365 Copilot, consolidating access to the chat tool across desktop, mobile, Teams, and Outlook. (If that’s too confusing, then ignore it; it will likely change again in a few months anyway.)

Audiocodes Announcements: At the recent MS Ignite conference, Audiocodes was highlighted as one of the new MDEP partners. That was quickly followed by an announcement that Audocodes’ non-MDEP phones and rooms are the first devices already certified and released to be compatible with Microsoft Teams Android Open Source Project (AOSP) Device Management (which is now GA).

MS Intune AOSP: With the above, the transition to the AOSP version of managing MS Android devices has begun. Here is your notice that this will be an extended and somewhat complex transition, with different OEMs moving at different times (see some details in the post here).

New Barco ClickShare Firmware: Barco has released a critical firmware update for its ClickShare wireless systems to address a new security vulnerability that could potentially allow unauthorized access to shared content. Users are strongly advised to update their devices immediately to ensure optimal security and performance. The firmware update is available for download on Barco’s official website.

Pexip Joins Zoom ISV: Pexip has joined Zoom’s Independent Software Vendor (ISV) Exchange program, enabling Zoom Rooms customers to access Pexip’s Microsoft Teams interoperability directly through Zoom. This integration allows users to join Teams meetings from Zoom Rooms with features like one-touch joining, in-room content sharing, and dual-screen support. 

New HP Insides: As HP showed off its new line of PCs, displays, and other devices before CES, some sported a “Poly Studio Inside” designation. In Danto’s opinion, this was and is one of the main reasons HP purchased Poly — to boast that Poly technology was inside the types of things they were already building — with likely no commensurate change. This is clearly very important to the HP leadership. HP also released a new version of its Poly single-ear Bluetooth headsets, reviving the “Legend” name for them.

Customer Experience

Five9 Integrates with Teams: Five9 launched an “industry-first” Microsoft Teams integration. The integration features a prebuilt, bidirectional presence solution, certified by Microsoft Teams. It is GA. 

AWS Reinvent Connect: At its Re:Invent conference, Amazon Web Services announced new generative AI capabilities for Amazon Connect, including automated segmentation for proactive outreach, dynamic self-service experiences, AI-powered agent evaluations, and intelligent contact categorization tools.

Amazon Connect also introduced new features to enhance contact center operations, including generative AI, advanced security, and streamlined bot management. These features aim to improve customer experiences by optimizing self-service, evaluating agent performance, maintaining data privacy, and simplifying AI bot management. Specific features include generative AI-powered customer segmentation, native WhatsApp Business messaging, secure sensitive data collection, and enhanced analytics.

8x8 and Krisp: Krisp Technologies and 8x8 have partnered to deliver Krisp’s voice AI applications to their joint customers. The partnership will expand the availability and accessibility of Krisp’s AI-powered applications, which include bidirectional noise and voice cancellation, AI Live Interpreter, and AI Accent Localization. With Krisp, 8x8 customers can boost call quality, productivity, and customer satisfaction. Krisp’s Voice AI drives real-time communication enhancements on the 8x8 platform, boosting AHT, CSAT, and ESAT scores.

UC and Messaging

An Ironic Message: Government officials in the US and abroad can’t seem to agree on encryption. Governments are often opposed to encryption because they want law enforcement to be able to access content when appropriate, but that’s a hard thing to define. Backdoor methods are tough to limit to the good guys. On the other hand, there’s increasing concern that Chinese state hackers have used legally compliant backdoors to access US live calls and texts. The government is now urging Americans to use encrypted apps, such as WhatsApp, FaceTime, iMessage, and Signal. SMS is not encrypted, and RCS is only encrypted between Android users (for now). 

GoTo Updates: GoTo has announced updates to its GoTo Resolve and LogMeIn Rescue products. GoTo Resolve now includes AI-powered help desk enhancements, the ability to link tickets, automated patch management, and other new features. Enhancements to LogMeIn Rescue include a redesigned device manager and privacy enhancements.

The Business Section

Verint and Cogito: Maybe Verint finished 2024 with four acquisitions. It’s hard to know, as the company doesn’t necessarily reveal its acquisitions — at least not at the time they happen. In December, we learned that Verint acquired Cogito last October. We now know that Verint spent $38.2M in cash (pocket change for Verint) plus $13.9M in “contingent consideration arrangements” on the purchase. Verint acquired the coaching bot tech and about 50 employees (acquihire). Cogito was founded in 2007 and had raised $155.7M. 

Cogito is fueling Verint’s new CX/EX Scoring Bot. Cogito relies on Acoustic AI for coaching (generative AI is causing us to name all the other AIs that came before it). Acoustic AI relies on pacing, silence, and other indicators for agent coaching. Verint intends to supplement it with generative AI. 

Alianza and Metaswitch: In Q1 2025, Alianza will acquire selected Metaswitch assets from Microsoft for an undisclosed sum. The deal includes all of Metaswitch’s legacy products, its intellectual property portfolio of 400+ patents, several office locations, and its entire team of 300 staffers. 

Microsoft’s 2020 acquisition of Metaswitch communicated that it was after tech for its mobility strategy, which appears to remain true (Microsoft retains Operator Nexus). The Metaswitch softswitch platform has been neglected over the years. A year ago, Microsoft had a significant RIF in its Azure for Operators and Mission Engineering units—an event that Alianza leveraged as FUD to encourage operators to upgrade. 

This is a big bet for Alianza. In one transaction, the company doubled in size (to 650 with 50 open positions) to serve a fivefold increase in customers. It expanded its purview from North America to global. More significantly, it added an installed base of thousands of legacy servers to its pure cloud modern vision. 

Unlike Cisco (and BroadSoft) or Microsoft (and Metaswitch), Alianza doesn’t need the tech. It’s after that base, but displacing/upselling won’t be trivial. Numerous vendors are targeting these legacy softswitch platforms. On the other hand, the timing is right. TalkingPointz believes that the pendulum is starting to swing back to businesses’ sourcing their voice services from service providers. This was true even before last week’s death of net neutrality, which will accelerate the shift. 

Grammarly Acquires Coda: Grammarly has announced plans to acquire productivity platform Coda, with Coda’s CEO and co-founder, Shishir Mehrotra, set to take over as Grammarly’s new CEO. The acquisition aims to transform Grammarly into a comprehensive AI productivity platform, integrating Coda’s tools for company knowledge management, generative AI chat, and enhanced productivity features. Coda is strong in collaborative work management, and Grammarly is strong in document creation. A new era is beginning in which collaboration blurs with creation. 

Five9 Puts Anson on Board: Five9 has experienced pressure from activist investors since the summer and recently appointed Sagar Gupta as its 10th board member, following demands from Anson Funds and with support from other activist investors like Scalar Gauge Fund. Gupta will receive $400,000 in restricted stock units, paid annually in three installments, and his term will expire at the company's 2026 annual meeting.

Anson Funds has a history of activism, having previously pushed for changes at Twilio, which led to the resignation of co-founder and former CEO Jeff Lawson. Twilio has since recovered, improving operational efficiencies and reducing quarterly losses through layoffs and leadership changes.

Five9’s stock is down 45% YTD despite consistently beating estimates, and its market cap is now significantly lower than Zoom’s 2021 bid to acquire the firm, which Five9 shareholders rejected. Five9 is ranked as one of the worst-performing growth stocks in 2024.

WWT Acquires Softchoice: World Wide Technology (WWT) has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Softchoice, a leading North American IT solutions and managed services provider. The transaction is expected to close in the coming months, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals. This appears to be a strategic move by WWT to diversify its portfolio beyond its traditional focus on ICT services.

Calabrio Acquires Echo AI: Calabrio has acquired Echo AI, a Gen AI conversation intelligence platform. This acquisition will provide Calabrio customers with customizable, automated quality management while increasing customer experience intelligence and agent performance coaching. Echo AI analyzes customer conversations in calls, tickets, surveys, and reviews to help improve bot and agent interactions. The platform also uses large language models (LLMs) to analyze data points and deliver insight into customer retention, operational efficiency, and growth.

Leadership Changes

After a reorg announced only on his personal LinkedIn feed, Dave Shull has taken on a new, larger role at HP that combines the Workforce Solutions division he was running with Hybrid Systems, the legacy Poly team, and Advanced Compute Solutions. The new group is called HP Solutions.

As announced last August, Scott Russell became the CEO of NICE, and Barak Eilam stepped down on January 1, 2025. 

Bandwidth announced Devesh Agarwal as COO. Agarwal joined the provider in July 2022 and has served as interim COO since July 2024.

Goodreads

1. Citibank Agrees to $29.5M TCPA Settlement Massive Sum Serves as a critical reminder to take the TCPA seriously. 
2. Amazon Delays RTO Mandate for Thousands of Workers Due to Space Amazon lacks office space in at least seven cities. Luckily, many of its competitors have extra space to sublet.
3. US Weighs Ban on Chinese-Made Router in Millions of American Homes This is and will be a recurring theme. The US doesn’t trust Chinese-made electronics, but they have huge market share. TP-Link has about 65% of the US home router market — many of which connect WFH employees to enterprise systems. 
4. Cisco: 40 Years of Connecting the World with Purpose Reflecting on Cisco’s 40th anniversary from a sustainability point of view.
5. How employees are embracing “coffee badging” as a soft revolt against office mandates The practice of badging in, having coffee to be seen, then heading back home to be productive.
6. Interactive AI Survey: Never Mind the Skeptics Bain’s quarterly survey of executives finds that companies are just as bullish on generative AI as they were a year ago.
7. Another New Beginning for Poly Dave Michels reflects upon two years of HP|Poly for Telecom Reseller. 
8. Microsoft Is Forcing Its AI Assistant on People—and Making Them Pay The tech company has made Copilot part of its 365 subscription service in several markets and raised prices.
9. FBI tells telecom firms to boost security following wide-ranging Chinese hacking campaign FBI urged telecommunication companies to boost network security following a sprawling Chinese hacking campaign that gave officials in Beijing access to private texts and phone conversations of an unknown number of Americans.
10. Meet Willow, our state-of-the-art quantum chip Google’s new chip demonstrates error correction and performance that paves the way to a useful, large-scale quantum computer. 
11. The AI Revolution and the Economy Have Killed My Highly Skilled Job This niche is a prime example of why AI isn’t qualified to do all the work that it’s replacing.
12. These companies innovate and collaborate without return to office mandates Firms focused on HOW work gets done, not WHERE, are reaping better results: more innovation, faster product development, higher productivity and more engaged employees. 
13. Hey, Maybe It's Time to Delete Some Old Chat Histories Your messages going back years are likely still lurking online, and there's no time like the present to do some digital decluttering.

Other Recent Stuff

• Dave and David review the big UC news of 2024 (Video)
• Another New Beginning for Poly Two years ago, HP acquired Poly. 
• Agentic AI Represents an IVR Revolution The promise of AI tools with the agency to make decisions has potential – but adopters would be wise to understand what AI agents can do well.
• The Leader in Wireless Conferencing Meets the Leader in Collaboration
• A chat with Five9 CTR JDR on the Future of agents (Video)
• Tom Arbuthnot joins Dave and David to analyze MS Ignite News (Video)
• TalkingPointz Research: Analysis of the 2024 CCaaS Magic Quadrant
• TalkingPointz Research: UCaaS Firms Move Into Hybrid Office Space Management
• David Joins AVWeek to discuss MS Ignite (Video)
• Unpacking the Relationship Between Customer Satisfaction Scores and Shareholder Value 
• rAVe webcast on audio advances in hybrid workspaces (Danto discusses ML)
• ClueCon Weekly Podcast on UC
• Discussion on Amazon’s RTO Mandate (Danto, Michels, and Irwin Lazar) 
• UCaaS is a Teams Sport We traded our Bell monopoly for MS Teams dominance.
• An Interview with Barry Cooper on AI and more (video). 
• Cisco WebexOne Keynote Excerpts, Summary and Discussions (UC Weekly News Video)
• Research note - Gartner 2024 UCaaS Magic Quadrant analysis

Recent Insider Reports (only new Insider Reports are behind the paywall) 

1. Insider January 2024
2. Insider Lite February 2024
3. Insider February 2024
4. Insider Lite March 2024
5. Insider March 2024
6. Insider April 20, 2024
7. Insider Lite May 2024
8. Insider May 2024
9. Insider June 2024 
10. Insider Lite July 2024
11. Insider July 2024
12. Insider Lite August 2024
13. Insider August 2024
14. Insider Lite September 2024
15. Insider September 2024
16. Insider Lite October 2024
17. Insider October 2024
18. Insider November 2024

TalkingPointz Insider Reports are available through a subscription service at TalkingPointz.com.

Any Questions?

Your paid enterprise subscription entitles you to a conversation on any of the topics covered above. 

About

Insider Reports offer timely, curated, and opinionated news. The Insider Report is published the first week of every month. Enterprise subscriptions also include TalkingPointz research notes. These reports are geared toward the industry itself, though some enterprises subscribe, too. Core subscribers are vendors, providers, consultants, and (financial and industry) analysts. TalkingPointz offers Enterprise-vendor, channel, consultant, and personal subscriptions. 

Meet Us

Dave Michels is Founder and Chief Protagonist at TalkingPointz and Editor in Chief of the Insider Report. [email protected]. David Danto is AV Aficionado at TalkingPointz. [email protected]. 

2025 - On The Road Again: The new year means a new season of conference travel for TalkingPointz.  Danto returns to CES. Dave and David will attend Integrated Systems Europe (ISE) and intend to publicize the best of the event. Danto will be at IMCCA’s Collaboration Week New York at the end of February, and Michels will attend Mobile World Congress and maybe CCW Berlin (need assistance). Both will be at Enterprise Connect in March, and we’ll definitely cover that and InfoComm in June.

CES: CES is an opportunity to look 18 to 24 months into the future of all technology - with more concepts than products in recent years.  (Preview webcast.) 

We get asked why we attend CES. In past decades new tech designed for the enterprise migrated into our homes. The iPhone flipped this trend. Danto has been a CES Innovations Award judge for 15 years and will once again be at the conference looking for that next enterprise-suitable trend. 

Innovation Showcase EC25: Michels continues to chair the Innovation Showcase at Enterprise Connect. The judges have been announced, and the theme is innovation with text-based communications. Watch NoJitter for more details. The deadline to apply is Feb 24. More details here.