Insider Report October 2022
The Most Important Enterprise Communications News from October 2022
October is always a big month for events. It’s the perfect month for events other than the fact that there’s so much competition. Q1 is too sleepy. Q3 is good, but dominated by Enterprise Connect. Fall is a wonderful time of year, and October is the best. Then comes the holidays in Q4.
The big events this October included Microsoft Ignite and Google Next. We also had industry events such as UCExpo in London, GITEX in the UAE, and the Cloud Communications Alliance in Chicago. Nice, Cisco, and RingCentral hosted analyst events. I don’t fully understand why Five9 canceled its event, but I’m not complaining.
As far as I can tell, Covid (or, more accurately, the fear of Covid) is over. The airports and flights are full. Which is why the economy is so confusing. Most public enterprise comms companies are seeing extremely low valuations despite decent numbers. Everything seems to be going down. How can everything (real estate, inflation, stocks, bonds, cryptos, cars, and more) be down?
We are near full employment, or at least we were until the layoffs started. (Note: The Great Resignation is over as layoffs continue — even at high-growth firms such as Microsoft and Salesforce.) Inflation is indeed stabilizing, and most stock indexes ended the month in positive territory. I am sure the Fed has perfectly good reasons to make it harder for me to sell my home.
The economy is putting a lot of focus on profitability. Since it has become hard to raise funds, companies operating at a loss may struggle to make it through this period. Running a non-monopoly, profitable comms business is hard and appears to be getting harder. That’s in part because one vendor is sucking the air out of the room. The enterprise comms sector has never had a vendor with so much market share. One by one, competitors become complicit by trading their support for an elusive slice of shared share. But alternatives are limited.
General Industry News
Leadership Changes: Rowan Trollope announced he would be leaving Five9 in November. His new gig remains unknown, but he’s assured me it’s not in enterprise comms (or crypto). He will be the CEO of a pre-IPO company (pre-IPO? Everything is pre-IPO suddenly). His departure does not surprise me, and everyone knows equity in pre-IPO companies is like Double Jeopardy — where the scores can really change.
Olga Kibler, Chief People Officer at Five9, departed after only six months on the job.
Steven Spears is no longer CRO at Avaya.
Meetings and Messaging
New BFFs, Cisco and Microsoft: There’s a popular misconception that hardware is a bad business and software is where the money is. There are a few problems with this logic.
First, there’s Apple and its continued demonstration that hardware and software together make the best products. We’ve seen this multiple times. We saw it with the Mac vs. PC, iPod vs. other music players, and iPhones vs. general smartphones.
If that isn’t enough, look at the hardware the greatest software companies are building. Why did Microsoft get into the PC business? Why is Google making chips and Chromebooks? Why is Amazon making chips and Kindles? Sure, there’s money in software-only and even hardware-only solutions, but differentiated experiences tend to require both.
Video is a different matter, and that’s why this month’s news that Microsoft and Cisco are working more closely on endpoint interoperability is so significant. The announcement is both totally predictable and shocking at the same time.
During the pandemic, Cisco discovered video interoperability. Cisco’s room systems were notoriously proprietary, but over the past few years, the company announced interoperability with Zoom, Teams, G Meet, and Amazon Chime. Strengthening/bolstering its interop with MS was reasonably predictable.
Microsoft loves to add partners. Teams is not open. Partners are invited and agree to some lengthy terms. Microsoft started with Polycom. I remember CEO Andy Miller desperately trying to convince his shareholders that partnering with MS was a good thing. And it was, but then Microsoft added more partners. Over the years, Microsoft has added Crestron, Logi, Yealink, and Neat. This month, it added DTEN and Cisco. Somewhere between Neat and DTEN, Poly was acquired by HP.
The surprising part is that Cisco got a better deal. Microsoft’s MTRs are tightly controlled by Microsoft. The partners are very restricted regarding innovation to ensure that each product delivers a consistent Teams experience. One of those limitations is that each MTR runs Microsoft’s software. Even if the same hardware can support Zoom, loading said software requires a reboot.
Cisco’s room system will run Microsoft’s software, but will also run Webex — without a reboot. Microsoft has not allowed this before. This little wrinkle is the WTF? part of this announcement. Why would Microsoft allow this? Will Microsoft allow this with other partners? Is Cisco committed to Webex?
Good questions. I’m not sure anyone knows the answers, but here’s my take: The news is great for Microsoft, Cisco, and most importantly, their joint customers. Both have very strong enterprise market share. The partnership makes a lot more sense when we accept that most enterprises will have at least two solutions for online meetings. Comms is generally a zero-sum game, but it appears that multi-vendor is becoming very common, and these two companies have a long history of successfully sharing accounts.
Google Next: Several updates from Google at its annual Next conference. Chat got a significant upgrade, with an expansion of the number of members that can join a space from 400 to 8K. More significantly, direct replies are now supported with in-line threading. Google previously added a Location field in its calendar, but now it’s allowing administrators to require its use. Google Calendar is also now part of the client-side encryption (CSE) program that Google announced last year. This means customers can secure/encrypt employee calendars with their own encryption keys. CSE now extends to Google Meet, Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides, with support for multiple file types, including Office files, PDFs, and more.
News from Pexip: Pexip made several announcements this month, starting with a new partnership with Hippo Technologies for wearable healthcare that allows first responders and others to livestream with specialists. The solution leverages Pexip’s Infinity backbone, which offers interoperability to Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Google Meet, and Cisco Webex. Pexip Marketplace is a new hub showcasing Pexip-powered integrations and solutions. The provider also launched a new Developer Portal and Developer Community. These resources provide access to Pexip SDK, plugins, and code snippets.
Teams at Ignite: As usual, Teams got plenty of attention at Ignite. Microsoft announced way too many features to list here. I will say it’s nice to see them continuing to innovate. It’s an indication that they still perceive viable competition. Teams Mobile Phone is covered below in the UC section.
One of the bigger surprises at Ignite was a new Teams Premium license. It adds advanced new features, but it’s a strange collection of features, and I’m not clear why a new license was required.
The usual way is for providers to add features for no additional cost. This pits the vendors’ innovation against ROI. That’s why I like usage-based licensing models that reward provider innovation with increased usage (and revenue).
This new Teams Premium bundle is an add-on to Teams. Zoom did something similar with its advanced telephony pack, but that’s tied to UCaaS. Microsoft’s premium pack offers a variety of unrelated advanced features. The new addition complicates the Teams pricing model: a base Teams license, the Teams E5 upgrade or other licensing requirements for calling, and now Teams Premium. It costs $10/user/mo and replaces Advanced Communications. Example features include meeting branding, intelligent recap, advanced virtual appointments, and advanced webinars. It’s previewing in December with expected GA in February.
Microsoft also announced a new Intelliframe capability for MTR and center of room active speaker tracking. The center of room solution requires a specialized camera. One or more of these cameras will likely be placed down the center of the meeting table. New cameras are available from Yealink and Logi.
The idea is to use multiple video streams to see each person in the room in their own video frame. The cameras use AI active speaker tracking to help remote attendees identify who in the room is speaking. Speaker recognition is coming, too.
Although Owl Labs proved there’s a market for this offering, I’m not convinced it will have broad market appeal. The Logitech Sight camera runs $2k and defies the smaller/invisible camera trend. Spectacular new features keep coming from smaller, cheaper, and existing cameras. Resolutions and features are getting higher as cameras continue to shrink. After all, virtual backgrounds once required 3D cameras. Now, several vendors have enabled multiple video streams from a single camera. Do we really need to plop one or more sees-all $2k cameras on the table? In theory, the solution will improve the remote experience, but honestly, the remote experience is pretty good; the priority now needs to be the in-room experience.
Telepresence Redux: This month, we got a glimpse into the future of meetings from Meta, Google, and Cisco. Perhaps unintentionally, one thing about Meta and Google’s view of the future is that it doesn’t involve the enterprise comms media as they reached out to broader IT media.
All three are embracing 3D but doing so differently. Meta sees the future in VR, requiring each participant to wear goggles. Goggles mean no traditional eye contact. Google solves that with two halves of a room. Each participant obtains half a room. After connecting, they appear in a single virtual room, sitting face to face. It’s magical but currently limited to one-on-one meetings with those that have the hardware. Cisco’s approach is to leverage Webex for regular meetings and then switch to augmented reality for interactions and discussions of 3D content. It has created a Hologram panel with multiple cameras to capture the shared object’s data.
I’ve covered these in more detail on NoJitter. However, a few additional thoughts:
- The underlying constraint for all of these solutions is the cost of the hardware. Each of these companies is creating the experience and know-how to do this, but they all admit that the tech is just too expensive for broad adoption. Of course, the tech will get cheaper, so the investments and know-how will pay off eventually.
- Meetings are indeed a great use case for whatever comes next. A few decades ago, high-resolution video meetings were expensive. Video is essentially free and pervasive now, not to mention the hero of the pandemic. 3D meetings will become affordable, and the collaborative business meeting is likely the tech that will drive its development.
- While I don’t really think Microsoft cares much about the metaverse yet (does anyone besides Zuck?), they made a great move aligning with Meta. Essentially, Microsoft agreed to bring Teams to Meta. This gives Meta a top-tier ally and costs Microsoft nothing. Even better, Microsoft gets full access to Meta’s huge investments, including the Quest headsets.
Amazon Glow: Amazon will stop supporting its Glow video calling device at the end of the year. Glow is a projector-powered videophone for kids. It was launched about a year ago, and sales only discontinued last month. Amazon will be offering partial refunds to some customers.
Google Meet Android: A few years ago, I would have given anyone 10:1 odds that Google Meet would support Android-based room systems before Microsoft. #GoFigure. Better late than never, Google has discovered that Android works in rooms. Google had been favoring ChromeOS (for good reason), but Chrome is far more proprietary. Google has now certified products from Poly (Studio X family video bars) and Logi (Rally Bar and Rally Bar Mini) on Google Meet.
One needs to separate Android the Google mobile OS from Android the Linux for mobile chips. The latter is far more successful than the former. Android has become very popular as an embedded OS. Certainly for meeting rooms, but well beyond that … cars, TVs, industrial machines, etc.
Poly and Google have a strong partnership. Poly’s phones are the only endpoints certified for Google Voice. Google Voice also recommends Poly headsets, speakerphones, and the Poly Studio P5. Many of Poly’s headsets are certified on ChromeOS, particularly relevant for browser-based contact center solutions. Beyond basic device support, the entire Poly family is managed by Poly Lens.
Google Meet Zoom: It is fascinating how quickly interop has become so important in video. Google and Zoom have agreed to improve video interop. While it seems a bit “me too” after the Cisco/Microsoft announcement, it is an important alliance. They each announced bi-directional interoperability, meaning that customers can call across from one platform’s room devices to the others’ devices. This is a systems interop, not a device interop. In other words, a Meet room can’t host a Zoom meeting or vice versa, but the meetings can interoperate.
DTEN Teams: Microsoft has now agreed to certify DTEN products for Microsoft Teams Rooms. DTEN expects its new D7X 55” all-in-one (Android) system for Teams soon. The new D7X has a built-in, 4K wide-angle camera, 129° FOV, smart framing, a 15-mic array, and a touchback-enabled touchscreen.
WebexOne: Cisco hosted both an analyst event (in person) and its annual WebexOne user conference (virtual). Webex initiatives are organized into four pillars: reimagined workspaces, flexible workstyles, customer experience, and security and manageability. The company shared some usage metrics, including 120B+ meeting minutes annually, 7M+ Webex calling subscribers, and 1.9M+ webinars hosted per year.
The big news at the event was its device arrangement with Microsoft (covered above), the new Room Kit EQ for large spaces, a new whiteboard app, improved iOS support for rear-camera content-sharing (see what I see), and an improved Webex Calling and Teams integration.
Cisco also announced an improved/expanded integration with Cisco Spaces. This is a separate app (not included in the Webex Suite) designed to provide users and facilities managers with a real-time digital view of office space. Microsoft announced a similar concept called Places that’s expected next year.
Cisco is leaning heavily into a suite play. It wasn’t long ago that messaging, meetings, and telephony were totally separate. Today, Cisco is pushing the Webex Suite, starting at $11.95/user/mo, for calling, meetings, events, webinars, polling, whiteboard, messaging, async video, and whatever else they add. As a bonus, suite customers get 50% off Webex devices. This is aggressive pricing.
The last Cisco in-person analyst event was just before the pandemic. Although it was hosted in the same location (Building 10 at Cisco WHQ), it was a very different experience. Almost the entire leadership team has changed. Back then, Cisco room systems had zero interoperability. The portfolio of products and services was much smaller. It didn’t have personal systems, didn’t support events, didn’t have CPaaS, and its CCaaS was still a concept. Evidently, remote work does work at Cisco.
Slack Indicators: I think there should be world legislation that requires read receipts and typing indicators in chat apps. Slack has always had these, but this month expanded typing indicators to work in threads.
Customer Engagement
Genesys Multicloud: Genesys decided to kill Engage. At least, I think so. It’s a very confusing announcement. First came “we will no longer sell Genesys Multicloud CX on AWS/Azure (Engage Cloud AWS or Azure) and Genesys Multicloud CX private edition to new customers.” But “the Genesys Engage premises-based solution is not affected … Genesys will continue to provide maintenance and support for Genesys Engage on-premise.” Hmm. So, new sales and maintenance and support only sound similar enough. I put these statements together and concluded Genesys is now a pure-cloud play (Genesys Cloud), which aligns with what CEO Bates posted: “Going forward, we’re … focusing all of our innovation, investment and resources on accelerating … Genesys Cloud CX.”
Makes perfect sense, almost. Had they come up with this a year ago, I would have applauded. Had they announced this a year from now, I would applaud. But doing so in October 2022 seems odd. Many pre-cloud incumbents (Avaya, Nortel, Mitel, ShoreTel, Toshiba, etc.) struggled to find the right balance of protecting current revenue streams, driving upgrades, and investing in the future. Most erred by protecting their old business for too long. So, I appreciate this being a bold move. However, not all large enterprises are sold on CCaaS.
Avaya is currently in turmoil. Its huge installed base may be more willing to change platforms this time around, and Genesys MultiCloud was heir apparent. Gartner has effectively advised Avaya customers to limit their exposure (run!). The base is now between the proverbial rock and hard place. They can attempt to stay on prem/private cloud. That works for Cisco, Mitel, Unify, and a few others. Or, they will finally embrace CCaaS which works particularly well for Nice and Five9 as well as several others (see this post on NoJitter).
Nice FluenCX: Nice announced FluenCX, a suite of digital customer experience tools. Brands and consumers want to interact over digital channels. We all know this, yet we still find ourselves using toll-free numbers. Why? It’s because omnichannel wasn’t enough. FluenCX, the cure from Nice, intends to help brands do digital right. FluenCX delivers insights, perspective, AI, and the data to implement digital CX. The suite can be used as a standalone or in conjunction with an existing CCaaS implementation.
Avaya and Uniphore: Avaya announced a partnership with Uniphore for its Conversational AI & Automation solutions. It already has its own technology, plus a partnership with Cognigy, but this one is for its nascent CCaaS solution. I am a little surprised they didn’t turn to Nuance as so much of Avaya’s CCaaS value proposition is tied to Microsoft Azure.
Because Avaya has renamed all of its products OneCloud, it can be hard to distinguish its proven legacy products from its new CCaaS solution. Avaya has been building the new solution internally, and it’s impressive how far it has come on such a small budget. Avaya CCaaS can be purchased from Avaya and ALE partners.
Invoca Updates: Invoca announced some updates to its conversational AI solution and its integration with Salesforce. Invoca now offers automated QA scorecards that score calls based on agent performance. A new set of 11 insight packages provide visibility into vertical-specific conversations (including automotive, healthcare, home services, insurance, and senior care industries). For example, Invoca can now report on new policy inquiries for insurance providers and “appointment discussed” for automotive service companies. The updated integration with Salesforce can automatically match “closed-won” revenue in Salesforce with the digital campaign, ad placement, or paid search keywords that may have closed it.
Cogito Expands its AI Coaching: Cogito is excellent at listening to conversations and offering improvement advice, but its services have been fairly generic. That changes with its new AI Coaching System that provides personalized coaching. The technology analyzes various cues and topics to create coaching plans for agents and teams.
Nice Summit: I’ve only been to two Nice events, but each has been spectacular. Yes, they are interesting locations, but that doesn’t get points from me. I’ve been in such a crazy mode this year that I prefer airport hotels. I tend to arrive late and leave early; too hip, gotta go.
What I like about Nice events is the focus on education (and relationships). CEO Barak Eilam really got my mind into #DeepThoughts mode. Why is digital so hard? What is more important, cloud or digital? What is a contact center? What is cloud scale? He opened the event, and the answers arrived later — not just from presentations but from casual interactions.
Nice also introduced a new term, suiteform. The term is new, but the concept is not. Several providers (Twilio, Amazon, Vonage, and more) have been struggling with the right mix of application vs. DevOps. The standard line has been “we are a platform,” but it’s so overused that it’s becoming meaningless. Suiteform puts more emphasis on pre-integrated modules, but APIs and extensibility too.
I like suiteform (as well as sweetform). It refers to Nice’s ecosystem of cloud-native applications, tools, and infrastructure. Customers can expand their use of the suite without the typical headaches associated with configuring and integrating systems. “Sell the suite” works. It has worked for Microsoft and Google for years. Several providers are playing up their solution as a suite, including 8x8, Cisco, Dialpad, and RingCentral. Nice is onto something with a CX suite play.
Bandwidth: Bandwidth announced Call Assure, a toll-free disaster recovery solution. It’s actually nice to write about something/anything to do with voice calling. Voice is where we turn when the shit hits the fan, and I’m concerned that its great reliability of the past will disappear. That said, I can’t tell what exactly Call Assure does. The press release touts features I’ve heard for years, including end-to-end management (on the Bandwidth platform), 24x7 monitoring, and near-instantaneous re-routing.
Amazon Connect: Another month, another set of announcements for Amazon Connect. This month, Amazon issued four Connect press releases: a new tool for real-time scheduling, an ML upgrade for Wisdom, reduced minute pricing in LATAM, and the GA of Cases.
Amazon Connect Cases is designed to allow agents to create, collaborate on, and quickly resolve cases requiring multiple conversations or follow-up tasks. It offers a unified timeline for all case-related activities. Case information can also be used with automated chatbot interactions.
WebexOne CCaaS: Cisco spent the last day of its Analyst Event on its Webex Contact Center. The good news is that Cisco has made significant progress in features and sales traction. For example, it saw more than 25 deals worth $1M or more in Q4 alone.
A big part of its feature enhancements came from its acquisition of IMImobile. The digital channels and CPaaS stack are now known as Webex Connect, and a lite version is included in the Webex Contact Center. At WebexOne, the company announced several new features and capabilities packaged as Webex CX. Features include noise mitigation, 16 digital channels, compatibility with Teams, and more. Earlier this year, Webex Contact Center made its first appearance on the Gartner CCaaS MQ (Niche).
Cisco put on a good event, and many of us left with a greater appreciation for the progress they have made. Cisco has recovered from its leadership fumble and is back in the game. However, it’s less clear if that corporate commitment and support equally extends to CCaaS. Maybe.
Chrome Desk Connector: Chrome is the preferred desktop for most CCaaS solutions, and the ChromeOS Desk Connector is its first feature specifically designed for contact center agents: It enables the CCaaS provider to control ChromeOS virtual desks, and initial partners include Dialpad, Edify, Nice, and RingCentral.
Desk Connector takes aim at the elusive promise of a single pane of glass. The problem is that agents open multiple tabs (screen pops and third-party systems) to resolve an issue. These tend to accumulate over a shift, impacting human productivity and desktop resources. This problem gets compounded when agents handle concurrent interactions.
With the ChromeOS Desk connector, CCaaS providers can launch a new ChromeOS Desk (multiple tabs for CCaaS, CRM, and other apps) with every interaction. When agents end the interaction, they can keep the Desk and all associated apps/tabs or close all of the interaction’s tabs with a single click. In theory, simplifying app/window/tab management will increase agent productivity.
Unified Communications
Teams Phone Mobile: For me, the biggest news out of Microsoft Ignite was the general availability of Teams Phone Mobile. The service is now available in Sweden from Telia and Canada from Rogers. Verizon and the US should not be far behind.
The announcement surprised me. We last heard about this mobile solution at Enterprise Connect in March. Back then, it was called MS Teams Operator Connect Mobile, and Microsoft didn’t yet have a target date for trials or GA. I assumed we would get our next update at EC23. Yet, just seven months later, the product is both available and renamed.
Teams Phone Mobile is what I call a UCaaS Mobility 3.0 solution, and I covered it along with others in this research note. UCaaS Mobility 3.0 will change things far more than most people realize. In a nutshell, cellular providers are about to inherit the UC/UCaaS channel. The reason is simple: One solution for UC/mobility is better than two.
The key to UCaaS Mobility 3.0 is that the UCaaS number becomes the native number of the cellphone (smartphone not required). This is not an OTT solution. The smartphone is also a UCaaS extension. It works with both the native dialer and the UCaaS app.
The disruptive potential is that Instead of an organization selecting one provider for UCaaS (calling, meetings, and messaging) and another for cellular, they can now choose one for both. Or, in the case of Cisco Webex Go, it can be a single provider globally. It allows an organization to centrally manage numbers across softphones, smartphones, and hard phones. They use the native dialer and also work with the app for advanced services such as directory access and messaging.
If you have any doubts about how significant this is, consider that Microsoft went from a concept to GA in about half a year. The three vendors with GA solutions today are Cisco, Microsoft, and RingCentral. None of them have been particularly vocal about the benefits (or disruptions), but this UCaaS 3.0 will take over the UCaaS conversation in 2023.
Microsoft and RingCentral took similar approaches and launched with carrier partners. Cisco took a different approach by creating its own Webex MVNO. Both approaches have merit, but key differences exist. Microsoft’s approach requires no specific/additional MS licensing besides a Teams calling-enabled account. Microsoft’s roadmap promises number porting, 5G, integrated SMS, and multiple identities.
Microsoft Teams will support SIP-enabled overhead paging devices next year. Microsoft also improved its Branch Office Survivability solution to allow the use of chat or call history to make outbound PSTN calls.
RingCentral/Vodafone: The biggest announcement at the RingCentral Analyst Summit was its expanded partnership with Vodafone. The CEO of Vodafone Business, Vinod Kumar, attended remotely to share that the provider is expanding its Unified Communications with RingCentral partnership to include native mobility. This is another example of UCaaS Mobility 3.0, and it’s RingCentral’s second such partnership (AT&T [email protected] in the US).
The Vodafone offer means that its RingCentral UCaaS offer now spans softphones, hard phones, and cellular phones. The cell phone becomes a native RingCentral UCaaS extension. Personal and business use can be separated with dual sim phones. The service is being launched in the UK and Germany, with plans to expand across Western Europe in 2023.
As of November 2022, RingCentral and Cisco Webex are the only top-tier UCaaS providers with native, cellular mobility available in the US. Microsoft has launched in Sweden and Canada (see above). UCaaS Mobility 3.0 is expected to be significantly disruptive as it impacts both the customer value proposition and distribution channels.
Avaya Back in UCaaS? One of the announcements out of GITEX was that Avaya is back in the UCaaS business, sort of. Avaya announced a partnership with Wavenet, a UK-based wholesale UCaaS provider. Wavenet is enabling UK partners and resellers to sell their own branded UCaaS service powered by Avaya. Effectively, Avaya has cleverly found a way to sell its own UCaaS despite selling RingCentral exclusive UCaaS rights to its customer base. Wavenet initially launched this offer in Mexico and just announced availability in the UK.
Practice Safe Teams Calling: The Poly CX350 is its first Microsoft Teams-certified desk phone with integrated Microban technology.
RingCentral Summit: RingCentral hosted its analyst event this month. The formal theme of the event was “intelligent connected experiences.” The informal theme was doing more with less. Both worked. The first theme was about how its components all work together. The second is about efficiency for users and administrators.
RingCentral broke out of the UCaaS mold in several ways. Its suite goes beyond Meetings, Phone, and Video to include CPaaS, analytics, and CCaaS. It has developed strong channels, verticals, and partners. All of its apps are fully accessible via a browser, and most features are accessible and manageable from a mobile. They also shared an impressive roadmap.
Carrier
Lumen ILEC: Lumen offloaded its ILEC business in 20 states to Apollo-owned Brightspeed, a brand-new company, for $7.5B. This helps Lumen transition from its Bell past to its enterprise future. Lumen shared its plans to sell its ILEC business last year. The business includes its consumer, small business, wholesale, and mostly copper-served enterprise customers and assets in 20 states.
CPaaS from BICS: BICS jumped into the CPaaS space, giving enterprises a customizable toolbox to easily integrate communications services like Voice, SMS, and WhatsApp messages into their services and workflows, via APIs. While the demand for CPaaS services is expected to grow to $10B globally over the next five years, it’s unclear whether these latecomers can effectively compete. BICS believes its global network gives it an opportunity, and that fewer providers equates to increased reliability.
Acquisitions
Crexendo/Allegiant Networks: UCaaS solutions provider Crexendo will acquire Allegiant Networks, LLC to expand Crexendo’s business and footprint in the midwest U.S., particularly in Kansas and Missouri. Crexendo will acquire 100% of the membership interests of Allegiant for $2M in cash and 2,461,538 shares. The transaction is expected in Q4 2022.
This Month’s Goodreads
- Airplane Wi-Fi Might Get Even Worse A potential merger between two of the largest satellite communications companies that dominate in-flight Wi-Fi.
- Oops, we forgot to fix the supply chain Shortages may be easing, but the structural problems that led to delays, price hikes, and shortages over the past few years haven’t gone away.
- Equifax surveilled 1,000 remote workers, fired 24 found juggling two jobs Equifax used one of its own products, The Work Number, to identify who was holding down multiple jobs, and then fired them.
- Microsoft leaked 2.4TB of data belonging to sensitive customer. Critics are furious Microsoft contacted affected entities through Message Center, an internal messaging system that Microsoft uses to communicate with administrators.
- How to Make Slack Look and Feel Like Discord Discord is fun. Slack usually isn’t.
- The First Minute of Every Phone Call Is Torture Now Often, it’s wireless earbuds that won’t reconnect or are connected to the wrong device. Sometimes it’s the connection to the car speakers.
- Welcome to hell, Elon The problems with Twitter are not engineering problems. They are political problems.
- Facebook’s Monopoly Is Imploding Before Our Eyes Competition, miscalculations, and regulatory scrutiny have all but killed the advertising giant’s dreams of diversifying its business.
- Big Tech falters on dreary earnings and forecasts for Q4 Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft combined have lost over $350B in market cap. The tech giants find themselves in an unfamiliar position after unbridled growth over the past decade.
- Ways to think about a metaverse Your boss wants a metaverse strategy, but what would that be, and what does metaverse even mean?
Other stuff
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