Tag Archive for: Cisco

Microsoft’s Lync surging as PBX choice in North America

Orlando — Microsoft’s Lync communications platform is making big gains as the IP PBX of choice, particularly in North America and particularly among larger businesses, Enterprise Connect attendees were told.

Lync ranks 11th worldwide among IP PBX vendors, but comes in No.3 in North America among businesses with more than 100 phone extensions, according to Peter Hale, principal analyst with MZA, speaking at the conference.

“Microsoft has gone from nothing to third in two to three years,” says Jerry Caron, an analyst with Current Analysis. “It’s become a very significant player in a very short period of time.”

Cisco ranked first worldwide, edging out No.2 Avaya by just 1 percent, but in North America among large businesses, it blew away the field. Cisco sold 44 percent of the phone extensions, he says, with Avaya pulling down 20 percent. Microsoft landed 13 percent, Hale said.

The number for Lync represents phone extensions actually deployed, not those sold, he said. Because Lync comes bundled with other software and includes communications besides IP telephony, the number of licenses sold is actually higher, he said.

One problem Lync could face is the decline of the PC, Caron says. Part of its success so far may be that most corporate desktops run Microsoft software. As businesses use other devices, notably mobile devices, for their main computers, that could change, he says.

Cisco’s worldwide lead in phone extensions is slight and fragile. It holds 13 percent this year, down from 14 percent last year. Avaya is breathing down its neck at 12 percent, the same percentage it scored last year.

Cisco dropped 2 percent in its North American large-business sales from 46 percent to 44 percent from 2012 to 2013, Hale said. During the same period Avaya went from 19 percent to 20 percent. Microsoft went from 12 percent to 13 percent.

Author:  Tim Greene @ Networkworld

 

Mitel Takes Aim at Avaya With ShoreTel Bid

Anyone thinking about signing a deal with ShoreTel for unified communications gear might want to take a closer look now that Mitel has made public its hopes to buy the company.

Mitel says it’s prepared to pay 24% over the price last Friday of ShoreTel stock (about $540 million), but ShoreTel says no and won’t negotiate, according to a letter Mitel’s CEO wrote to the chairman of ShoreTel. Despite the rebuff, Mitel plans to persist and that means ShoreTel customers should be vigilant.

At the very least, businesses weighing whether to buy ShoreTel gear should find out the likely impact of a merger, says Ken Landoline, a principal analyst with Current Analysis. “Beat up your channel about what does this mean for me?” he says.

Likely it won’t be anything bad because Mitel wouldn’t want to alienate ShoreTel customers by shutting down products they have invested in and perhaps hope to rely on for years, says Jeremy Duke, CEO of Synergy Research group. “They’d be on thin ice,” he says, if they did that. “The market is too competitive. They have to keep the customer base happy.”

An unhappy customer base would leave the Mitel/ShoreTel entity open to poaching by the two big unified communications leaders Cisco and Avaya, he says.

Still, potential ShoreTel customers should make sure that the terms of ongoing support for products are spelled out in whatever contracts they sign, says Landoline, so they know they won’t be stranded if the company is acquired, and its product roadmap changes.

By making public Mitel’s offer to buy the company is putting pressure on ShoreTel’s board by bringing the proposal directly to the attention of shareholders. “[W]e have a proven track record of successfully completing and integrating transactions and are firmly committed to bringing the benefits of a combined organization to our respective customers, employees and other stakeholders,” says Mitel CEO Richard McBee in an Oct. 20 letter to Charles Kissner, chairman of the ShoreTel board.

If Mitel succeeds, it would move the combined company up the ladder of market leaders by revenue in unified communications – at least in the U.S., says Duke. If U.S. on-premises gear plus unified-communications as a service market share for Q1 2014 are compared Cisco (28.7%), Avaya (13.8%), ShoreTel (8.7%) and Mitel (7.1%) rank numbers one, two, three and four respectively, according to Duke. Post merger, that would put Mitel/ShoreTel in second place and bump Avaya third.

He says the prime motivation for the deal may be to boost Mitel’s share of the U.S. market, similar to the way its acquisition of Aastra in January gave it the number 1 ranking in unified communications for Western Europe, Duke says. The Aastra deal also pushed Mitel into the realm of billion-dollar companies by revenue.

Author:  Tim Greene @ Networkworld

Trends in UC and PBX

Unified communications market up 27% from a year ago; PBX market continues to take hits

—Market research firm Infonetics Research released its 1st quarter 2014 (1Q14) Enterprise Unified Communications and Voice Equipment report, which tracks PBX phone systems, voice over IP gateways, unified communications (UC) applications, and IP phones.

ENTERPRISE TELEPHONY AND UC MARKET HIGHLIGHTS

  • Worldwide PBX revenue (TDM, hybrid, and pure IP) is down 8% in 1Q14 from 1Q13, and down 8% from 4Q13
  • The unified communications (UC) segment is the lone bright spot, racking up a 27% worldwide revenue increase in 1Q14 from the same period a year ago
  • Although there are pockets of growth in parts of Europe and South America, along with strength down market, none of it is large enough to lift the overall PBX market
  • CALA (the Caribbean and Latin America) is the only region to notch positive year-over-year PBX revenue growth in 1Q14, as economic activity picked up in anticipation of the World Cup
  • Cisco, Avaya, and NEC are the PBX market share leaders; Mitel cracked the top 4 as a result of its merger with Aastra Microsoft, who leads the UC market, is the only vendor in the enterprise telephony segment to post year-over-year revenue growth in 1Q14

ANALYST NOTE
“The enterprise telephony market continues to struggle as businesses hold off new PBX purchases and invest instead in unified communications (UC) applications. Purchase cycles are getting longer, and competitive activity is putting pressure on the market with pricing all over the map,” notes Diane Myers, principal analyst for VoIP, UC, and IMS at Infonetics Research.