Summary Bullets:

• 8×8 is positioning the new video meeting features well in the age of GenAI.

• The introduction is tarnished somewhat by the late arrival to market.

8×8 has announced the addition of AI-generated transcriptions, summaries, and action items for video meetings to its experience communications-as-a-service (XCaaS) platform. XCaaS melds communication/collaboration (UCaaS) and contact center (CCaaS) capabilities. 8×8 introduced the ‘XCaaS’ platform nearly three years ago in May 2021. The platform is noteworthy having served as a blueprint since then for competitors to offer their own integrated UCaaS/CCaaS offers, and customers have come to expect these as part of vendor portfolios. In this regard, 8×8 has been a trend-setter.

Summary Bullets:

• Unify provides Mitel a larger, more heterogeneous customer base, additional markets and offers, and stronger routes to market.

• Of several drawbacks the largest is that Mitel’s core strategy remains unchanged.

Mitel completed the acquisition of the unified communications and collaboration (UCC) and communication and collaboration services (CCS) services unit of the Atos group (Unify) announced in January 2023. The acquisition inflates and diversifies Mitel’s customer base, extends its geographic coverage, broadens its offer portfolio, and enhances its go-to-market capabilities.

Summary Bullets:

• The positioning of new Slack capabilities at the Dreamforce keynote was underwhelming, lacking cohesiveness and clarity.

• Slack will land on more solid footing if it can craft an AI message as compelling as its productivity message.

During the keynote of last week’s ‘Dreamforce’ event sponsored by Salesforce, Slack CEO Lidiane Jones updated the audience regarding new and forthcoming capabilities on the Slack platform. With a portion of the capabilities saturated with game-changing AI technology and Dreamforce serving as Salesforce’s showcase event, the update was no doubt intended to tantalize but instead was underwhelming.

Summary Bullets:

• RingCentral DaaS is an acknowledgement that competing successfully requires a broad platform encompassing both software and hardware capabilities.

• If RingCentral keeps innovating on its current path, it should maintain a presence among top players in the cloud-based collaboration market.

RingCentral has recently broadened the appeal of its ‘RingCentral DaaS’ device-as-a-service offer by adding desk and conference phones to the available portfolio. The offer aligns with recent device trends in the cloud-based collaboration market and makes RingCentral a more formidable player.

Summary Bullets:

• Microsoft is capitalizing on two key contact center trends: the pivot from a multi-channel orientation to an omni-channel orientation and the emergence of AI.

• Microsoft must rationalize its contact center portfolio and establish integration with Teams.

This month Microsoft launched a limited preview of ‘Microsoft Dynamics 365 Copilot’. The offer features Microsoft’s new Copilot generative AI and natural language processing (NLP) engine built natively into various Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM and ERP apps. Employees in functions such as sales, customer service, marketing, operations, and supply chain leverage the Copilot capabilities in the apps to create content faster, complete complex tasks, and gain insights into their work.

Continue reading “‘Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service’ Marks a Big Step Forward for Microsoft’s Contact Center AI Capabilities” →

Summary Bullets:

• The restructuring agreement is the beachhead of Avaya’s go-to-market strategy and brings significant benefits.

• Avaya faces challenges at multiple levels as it conducts its metamorphosis.

In August 2022 Alan Masarek was appointed CEO of Avaya, replacing Jim Chirico, who had led the company since 2018. Masarek has been charged with reversing disappointing financial results, rightsizing the company, and improving the cloud product portfolio.

Continue reading “Avaya is Making Bold Moves to Rebuild, but Differentiation Remains Key” →