News & Viewson Unified Communications & Collaboration

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Volume 15 Issue #12 11-June-14

Unify Restructures

Last week Unify announced a major “restructuring” that will eliminate about 3,800 jobs. That’s nearly a 50 percent cut, leaving 3,900 employees. The cuts will occur over six quarters. CEO Dean Douglas says the cuts, a difficult decision, are necessary to make way for innovation and transformation. In an analyst briefing, Douglas explained that the new leadership team intends to transform Unify into a software-first, channel-oriented company that leverages industry transitions such as cloud and virtualization. Douglas believes that the current Unify is disproportionately focused on TDM, hardware, and direct sales.

What Dave thinks: A 50% layoff seems drastic. I can’t recall anything like

this in UC. Unify’s headcount has been in a steady

decline for years. In 2006-2008, when Siemens AG was looking to sell the unit, it had reduced staffing by 6,800 employees. In 2008, Siemens Enterprise was created with a 51%

ownership stake by Gores Group. At

that time, the new firm had 15,000 employees (including

Enterasys). The Enterasys division was sold last September (with 900 employees) to Extreme Networks.

Dave Michels, dmichels@wainhouse.com

Half of the cuts will be in “Central Europe” — presumably Germany. The company also wants to evaluate moving its headquarters from Munich to the U.S. Neither of these is a trivial undertaking based on the issues related to organized labor and Germany’s protective legislation. Yet while a 50% reduction is huge (and painful), 3,900 employees may be a reasonable target. Mitel/Aastra, for example, has about 3,600 employees and according to data from T3i held slightly higher world enterprise market share in 2013.

Unify has gone through significant recent change. Six months ago it rebranded from Siemens Enterprise to Unify. Last September it sold off Enterasys. Last January it got a new CEO. Today, its leadership team consists of 11 executives, of which only one has been there more than seven months.

The new Unify strategy uses the same terms we have heard from most of Unify’s competitors over the past five years: Software-based, virtualization, channels, OpEx, cloud, social, WebRTC, collaboration, intuitive, experience-focused, and SaaS. Central to the strategy is Ansible, which Bill Haskins has covered thoroughly in past issues of the Bulletin and in WR’s subscription services. I suspect at this point the entire back-room is working on Ansible.

Focusing on the channel makes a lot of sense — and four new executives from Westcon will help. Unify had a good channel, but things got screwed up a few years back when Unify introduced direct sales (channel conflict) and blew up its verticals. Channels are very difficult to build when the product doesn’t exist or isn’t proven. Yet the leader-ship team and owners, like Wall Street, doesn’t seem to be valuing the core business. The primary leverage that will improve valuation is software and scalable services.

Jabber XCP, as well as Unify OpenScape, OpenFire, and virtually any other UC platform. This development comes on the heels of NextPlane’s marketing partnership announced last month with InterCall.

• Conference call provider Speek has selected Voxbone to connect its cloud conferencing services to the global PSTN. Speek provides simple conference calling with no dial-ins, PINs, or downloads, and instead uses a personal or business link (i.e., speek.com/YourName). By adding Voxbone’s inbound SIP trunking service, Speek users can now join a conference call when Internet connectivity is not available, or when the PSTN is needed to optimally route the call.

• Lindenbaum, a German-based manufacturer of conferencing solutions for carriers and conference service providers, has introduced some new RESTful APIs to support integration capabilities into carrier, conference service provider, and end user customer infrastructure and software. The goal is to make the Lindenbaum audio, web, and desktop video conferencing system an integral part of a provider’s provisioning system or even an enterprise customer’s internal productivity tools. Several Conferencing Service Providers (CSPs) have their own provisioning systems or other productivity tools. The new, RESTful web services enable these CSPs to use their systems and tools when using the Lindenbaum Conferencing System.

• Blackboard has unveiled a professional profile designed specifically for students and embedded directly in Blackboard Learn, the company’s flag-

The other predictable play we can expect is aggressive fear / uncertainty / doubt — FUD — from its competitors, especially for the rest of this year because Ansible isn’t yet shipping yet (only 300 beta users). That means even Unify’s own dealers will be upselling competitive solutions into the base. Expect some OpenScape-targeted incentives and promotions.

Will this work? Every-thing that Douglas is doing is right, but it’s a bit late and subsequently a bit drastic. It’s virtually impossible at this point to “get ahead” of Cloud / So-cial / Mobile (Clo/So/Mo) and software transitions. On the positive side, Ansible is getting highly favorable responses. The bigger problem for Unify, however, is that Ansible is targeted to enterprises,

which can be slow / reluctant to adopt new technology. That means it could take years for Ansible to build accep-tance and momentum. During that time, competitors will imitate its most beloved capabilities.

If Douglas maintains profitability, sheds the hardware, reduces headcount to shape a nimble organization, and develops a truly innovative communications platform — I can see big firms (Google, Oracle, HP, IBM) swooning to acquire — that could be good for customers, Unify execs, and investors.

News in Brief• NextPlane, a provider of B2B UC Collaboration

and Federation Services, announced that the company has extended its UC federation solution, UC Exchange, to include federation with small and medium businesses and enterprises hosted by BroadSoft’s UC-One Unified Communications platform. UC-One users will be able to connect, communicate, and collaborate with over 250 federation-ready (and growing) organizations and over 600 UC domains around the world. NextPlane provides the “glue” to connect UC-One with IBM Sametime, Microsoft Lync, Cisco’s three plays: WebEx Messenger, Unified Presence Server (CUPS) and

If Douglas maintains profitability, sheds the hardware, reduces headcount to shape a nimble organization, and develops a truly innovative communications platform – I can see big firms (Google, Oracle, HP, IBM) swooning to acquire

PAGE 2Volume 15 Issue #12 / 11-June-14

Blackboard MyEdu integration

ship Learning Management System. Leveraging the MyEdu experience (acquired about 5 months ago), the profile, along with a redesign of the company’s student portfolio tool, creates a holistic learning en-vironment that enables students to more readily and professionally tell their academic story and connect them to job and internship opportunities. An En-hanced Cloud Profile allows students to capture and showcase a wide range of information including skills, competencies, academic achievements, and degree plans to peers, instructors, and potential employers.

• MindLink has announced support for custom Add-Ins with its newest release of MindLink Tablet. Custom Add-Ins let users view and work with contextual data from their line-of-business systems right from within their MindLink chat rooms. Examples of what users can build and integrate: the ability to view and discuss CRM, ERP, or project management data straight within their chat channels in real-time, the ability to use whiteboards for team brainstorming sessions, and the ability pipe social media feeds into chat channels and view them contextually via #TagCloud.

• ClearOne has opened an India Authorized Support Center in partnership with Bangalore-based Midas Digital Services Pvt. Ltd. The new support center

will serve the Indian market and initially focus on service for ClearOne’s audio products only.

• Clary Icon has introduced a cloud-based collabora-tion hub, OneScreen SoftServe, meant to provide instant access to video, audio, and web conferencing, with whiteboarding and more. The software deploys with OneScreen Connect video conferencing service and provides unlimited multi-party calls for up to 99 participants on OneScreen Connect or WebRTC and up to four calls using SIP and H.323.

PAGE 3Volume 15 Issue #12 / 11-June-14

MindLink Tablet

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Audio Technologies

Introducing one of the WR Bulletin Sponsors

Established in 2010, the Unified Communications Interoperability Forum

(UCI Forum) is a non-profit alliance of worldwide communications technology

leaders working together to realize the full potential of unified communications

(UC) by increasing efficiency, decreasing implementation costs, and improving

the interoperability experience for UC customers. Our vision is to enable

interoperability of standards-based UC solutions across enterprises, service

providers, and consumer clouds. In turn, our efforts will speed the adoption of

technologies and services and increase the business opportunity for everyone

in the UC ecosystem. To realize our vision, the UCI Forum creates interoperability

profiles and certification tests, implementation guidelines, and best practices

for interoperability between UC products and existing applications.

Learn more about us at www.ucif.org

• Like Clary Icon and many others, Vidyo will be showing at InfoComm next week its latest, in Vidyo’s case the VidyoRoom SE (Soft Edition) and Ultra HD (4K) rendering capabilities for its VidyoRoom HD 230 and VidyoPanorama 600 solutions. VidyoRoom SE is meant to make it possible for an enterprise to outfit collaboration spaces with up to 4K solutions using off-the-shelf computing platforms and low cost USB-based peripherals. Vidyo’s 4K capability allows native Ultra HD rendering on the local display so there is no sacrifice in detail and quality, instead of upscaling to 4K from lower resolutions, as done by legacy devices and MCUs. Vidyo is offering 4K as a free upgrade for VidyoRoom HD 230 and VidyoPanorama 600 systems on a current maintenance and support plan, and making 4K available as an option for new VidyoRoom SE customers.

• Denmark-based ADDASOUND is entering the U.S. headset market (see People and Places below). ADDASOUND is a global manufacturer and provider of intelligent voice and unified communication devices, focusing on headsets for call centers, office workers, and mobile workers.

• Yorktel, provider of UC&C, cloud, and video managed services, has announced its plans for continued growth through the acquisition of Expedite VCS and MultiSense Communications Limited. In May Yorktel entered into an asset purchase agreement with Expedite for an undisclosed amount. Expedite provides a suite of managed services to meet the voice and video needs of a multinational customer base. In addition, Yorktel LTD (Yorktel’s EMEA operations) reported its acquisition of UK-based MultiSense for an undisclosed amount. With offices across the UK, MultiSense is a fully accredited, award-winning Polycom Partner.

People & Places Know someone in the industry who changed jobs? Jump into a new role yourself as vendor, end user, or channel partner? Email us at wrb@wainhouse.com to share the good news.

• ADDASOUND Denmark A/S, Dave Petricig, Sales Director-North America

• Clemson University, Jill Gemmill, Chief Technology Officer, Middleware

• Oracle Communications, Kevin Pitts, Director, Product Marketing

• Polycom, Mark Arman, VP Worldwide Channel Sales

• Qumu, John Page, VP Professional Services

• Radware, Ward Wrzenski, Analyst Relations

• Salesforce.com, Eric Bensley, Senior Manager, Product Marketing

• Thinking Phone Networks, Caitlin Driscoll Sullivan, Business Development Manager

• Williams Sound, Joe Manning, Asia Rep; Patty Manning, Latin America Rep / Marketing; Horacio Morales, Latin America Rep

Upcoming WR Speaking Appearances & EventsWhen & Where Who & What

15-16 July, 2014 Santa Clara, CA

Wainhouse Research UC&C Summit Agenda and registration now available.

Industry Events of NoteWhen & Where Who & What

14-20 June, 2014, Las Vegas, NV, USA

InfoComm

Jill Gemmill, Clemson University

Eric Bensley, salesforce.com

Caitlin Sullivan, Thinking Phone

Networks

Dave Petricig, ADDASOUND

Mark Arman, Polycom

Kevin Pitts, Oracle Communications

PAGE 4Volume 15 Issue #12 / 11-June-14

Clarification on ZTE and StarLeaf

In our last issue we incorrectly stated that ZTE has launched a VCaaS offering based on a revenue-sharing agreement with StarLeaf. We should have stated that ZTE Cloud Services (ZCS), a subsidiary of ZTE, has launched the service.

WR Bulletin Readers Speak OutIn May, 2014 we ran our annual survey of video conferencing customers. This year we added four open-ended questions about market perceptions. Survey participants were asked to fill in the names of the vendors (unaided) they believe are leaders in different categories. We make no claims other than these responses reflect the opinions of WR Bulletin readers who completed the survey. The complete survey documents are available at wainhouse.com. Winners of $50 amazon gift cards chosen at random from the list of survey respondents are Leron B, Thomas Coburn; Shane H, Norton Rose; Hector B, UCAL; Robert Z, St. Dominic; and Rebecca F, Smithsonian. Thanks to all of you who completed the annual video conferencing and unified communications survey.

Microsoft

45%

40%

30%

20%

10%

35%

25%

15%

5%

0%Cisco Polycom Avaya

Which company do you believe is the market leading vendor for unified

communications? (205 responses)

Calibrate: Tune in for Video Research HighlightsNot all executives share the same perspective when it comes evaluating whether online video technologies generate value in their business. In this week’s edition of Wainhouse Research’s video journal Calibrate, Senior Analyst Steve Vonder Haar uses executive survey data to quantify the metrics that individuals prioritize when gauging the value of online video. It turns out that active users of online video have quite a different world view from those with scant video experience.

This edition of Calibrate is sponsored by VBrick, who invite you to visit www.vbrick.com/calibrate to view WR’s insights in Calibrate’s quick-hit five-minute doses of market research

PAGE 5Volume 15 Issue #12 / 11-June-14

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Collaboration in the Evolving Corporate Space

Find out What’s Coming at the Wainhouse Research UC&C Summit

With all of this talk about Unified Communications, we’ve got two speakers lined up to inject a bit of

collaboration into the conversation at the WR UC&C Summit July 15-16 in Santa Clara, California.

What is collaboration? How is it different from communication? Hear SMART Technologies’ Jeff Lowe review SMART’s take on — including data from a custom research project — UC&C business value. Jeff will discuss a way for organizations to benchmark and measure the value of the myriad of UC&C solutions available on the market today. And hear Prysm’s Amit Jain describe a new generation of collaboration solutions that move beyond the dedicated use case model to provide the flexibility of a multipurpose space, supporting use cases from small team meetings to big data analysis. Learn how to raise team productivity to a whole new level.

Jeff LoweVice-President Sales & Marketing, Enterprise,

SMART Technologies:Collaboration — the Missing C in UC&C

Amit JainPresident and CEO, Prysm:

The Evolution of a Corporate Collaboration Space

PAGE 6Volume 15 Issue #12 / 11-June-14

Steve Cogliano, SPS

Mark Litchford, EarthLink Business

Christina Johnston, Jack in the

Box, Inc.

Mike Taylor, SPS

Andrew W. Davis, Wainhouse Research

June 12, 2014 • 11:30 AM ET

FREE REGISTRATION

Unified Communications, Telephony, and the Collaboration Dilemma: an Interactive Video Discussion

While UC&C solutions lead to improved produc-tivity, cost savings, and business continuity, the challenge becomes clear when looking at how to integrate all the applications to make them work together seamlessly. It can be a confusing mess. So, where do you start? And how do you build an open, integrated collaboration archi-tecture that works with both new and legacy technologies?

Join us for a video webcast on June 12, 2014 and learn from your peers!

In this video-enabled roundtable discussion, panelists from SPS, EarthLink, and Jack in the Box will discuss their approaches to defining their respective UC&C strategies, leveraging advanced applications to deliver a quality customer experi-ence, and share lessons learned, best practices, and accrued benefits.

Moderator: } Andrew Davis, Sr. Analyst & Partner, Wainhouse

Research

SPS Panelists:} Mike Taylor, Chief Technology Officer, SPS} Steve Cogliano, Senior Director, Video &

Collaboration Solutions, SPS

Guest Panelists:} Mark Litchford, Sr. Infrastructure Engineer,

EarthLink Business} Christina Johnston, Telecommunications Manager,

Jack in the Box, Inc.

MODERATOR SPS PANELISTS GUEST PANELISTS

AN INNOVATE! WEBINAR

PAGE 7Volume 15 Issue #12 / 11-June-14

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Want MoreConferencing &Collaboration?

New Studies from Wainhouse ResearchFor information on WR studies and subscriptions, visit www.wainhouse.com or contact sales@wainhouse.com

4Audio Conferencing

Conferencing Service Provider Statistics (SpotCheck) – Q1 2014 Data is provided for audio and web conferencing services.

2014 Asia Pacific Audio Conferencing Services Market Sizing & 5-Year ForecastDescription of the current state of the local Asia Pacific audio conferencing markets, assess current trends, identify risks and opportunities, and provide assistance on market approach, services and prices

4Video Conferencing

2014 Video Conferencing Survey Report #2Standards-based Video Conferencing Usage

Video Conferencing Industry Statistics (SpotCheck) – Q1 2014Quarterly report providing statistics on video conferencing sales revenue, units, and market share

4Streaming & Webcasting

Factors in the Streaming Purchase DecisionUnderstanding Issues Influencing Platform Investments

Trends in Enterprise Video ArchivingUsage and Perceptions of On-Demand Online Business Video

4Personal & Web-Based Conferencing

2014 Asia Pacific Web Conferencing Services ForecastMarket Sizing & 5-Year Forecast of 7 Asia Pacific Web Conferencing Service Markets

Adobe SystemsProfile and analysis of Adobe and its web collaboration offerings

4Unified Communications

MitelProfile and analysis of Mitel from a Unified Communications perspective

Enterprise Unified Communications Platforms 20145 Year Market Presence Study of the 10 Leading Suppliers

4Distance Education & e-Learning

Sonic Foundry in Education and TrainingCompany profile with overview and analysis of what’s new in Release 7.0

Education Networks of America Company profile providing information and insight into a data, voice, and video service provider that focuses on educational markets in the U.S.

PAGE 8Volume 15 Issue #12 / 11-June-14