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Topic: Collaboration
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Issue: Who are the collaboration
vendors and how are they evolving?
Authors: David Mario Smith, Jim Lundy
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The Aragon Research Globe™ for Web and Video Conferencing, 2015:
Focus On Platforms And Outcomes
Summary: The 2015 Aragon Research Globe™ for web and video conferencing examines 22
major providers in the market. Emerging use cases make real-time collaboration a strategic
imperative that requires proper planning and execution.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Collaboration Focused On Outcomes .......................................................................................... 2!
Cloud and Mobile Cause Convergence in Real-Time Collaboration ........................................ 2!
Digitizing Workspaces ............................................................................................................... 3!
The Market is Consolidating ..................................................................................................... 3!
The Race to 4K and High Quality HD Video ............................................................................. 3
How to Use This Globe ............................................................................................................. 3!
Aragon Research Globe Overview................................................................................................ 6!
Dimensions of Analysis ............................................................................................................. 6!
The Four Corners of the Globe ................................................................................................. 7!
Inclusion Criteria ....................................................................................................................... 7!
The Aragon Research Globe™ for Web and Video Conferencing, 2015 ............................................. 8!
Leaders ..................................................................................................................................... 9!
Contenders ............................................................................................................................. 15!
Innovators ............................................................................................................................... 18!
Aragon Advisory ......................................................................................................................... 22!
Bottom Line ................................................................................................................................ 22!
Copyright © 2015 Aragon Research Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Aragon Research and the Aragon Research Globe are
trademarks of Aragon Research Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. This publication may not be distributed in
any form without Aragon Research’s prior written permission. The information contained in this publication has been obtained from sources
believed to be reliable. Nevertheless, Aragon Research provides this publication and the information contained in it "AS IS," without warranty of
any kind. To the maximum extent allowed by law, Aragon Research expressly disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or
adequacy of such information and shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in such information.
This publication consists of the opinions of Aragon Research and Advisory Services organization and should not be construed as statements
of fact. The opinions expressed here-in are subject to change without notice. Although Aragon Research may include a discussion of related
legal issues, Aragon Research does not provide legal advice or services and its research should not be construed or used as such. Aragon
Research is a private company and its clients may include firms or financial institutions that have financial interests in entities covered by
Aragon Research. Further information about the objectivity of Aragon Research can be found at aragonresearch.com
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Collaboration Focused On Outcomes
Enterprises are increasingly looking to focus collaboration investments on specific business
outcomes. This has led to an ever-increasing emergence of lines of business buyers making
collaboration investment decisions. These buyers are, in many cases, bypassing IT to make
significant procurement decisions for web and video conferencing amidst other collaboration
capabilities. Whether the buyers are in sales, marketing or HR, they are looking for support of real
business use cases from sales communication, marketing webinars/webcasts, and virtual training.
Sometimes buyers are also seeking out support for industry-specific use cases, such as
telemedicine, for example, or video collaboration in industries such as manufacturing.
Business requirements and outcomes are driving collaboration technology investment decisions.
Innovative, newer players in the web and video conferencing space are recognizing the shift and
challenging traditional hardware-based providers in going after lines of business buyers. In reaction
to this trend, traditional providers are trying to change strategy and cater to the overwhelming push
towards cloud software-based offerings.
When it comes to investing in collaboration, the growing requirement is for video enabled business
applications. In addition, real-time collaboration is being integrated into existing business
applications, and also merging with social into the contextual fabric of business processes.
Collaboration providers that fail to support business process and application integration will miss this
wave and be left behind.
Cloud and Mobile Cause Convergence in Real-time Collaboration
Web and Video conferencing has undergone major upheaval as newer players emerge with lower
cost cloud-based offerings, which in turn challenges existing providers to innovate. Cloud and mobile
has become the convergence point that impacts the collaboration market on a whole.
There continues to be an ever-tighter synergy between web and video conferencing. No longer can
companies look at these capabilities separately. All of the providers in this Globe offer both web and
video conferencing. Traditional web conferencing vendors now combine desktop and mobile web
conferences with video. Similarly, traditional room-based video conferencing providers now also offer
web conferencing, with screen and application sharing. VoIP is also included as part and parcel of
these offerings.
Many emerging cloud-based collaboration service providers now offer lower-priced software-based
video conferencing rooms that require minimal equipment investment. Google has gotten into this
space with Hangouts and Chrome. Fuze, along with other newer players such as Zoom and Acano,
also offer video room systems, including Lifesize and Vidyo, although much of their business remains
to be more of an infrastructure play.
Mobility and the cloud are democratizing who can provide web and video services, and also who can
access them, from anywhere and on any device. The multitude of providers now emerging is driving
a race to the bottom in pricing. Lower-cost solutions now have substantial capabilities, and basic
web conferencing features are now essentially table stakes.
© 2015 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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Digitizing Workspaces
The increasing trend is to digitize not only conference rooms, but open workspaces and smaller
huddle areas. What we are seeing is a fivefold growth in video-enabled conference rooms from 2015
to 2020.
Prediction: By YE 2020, 50% of conference rooms will be video-enabled.
This digitization is causing the workplace to get closer in many respects. Real-time
collaboration tools like video make the world flatter, thus making it seemingly smaller. This
shrinkage is dramatically evident in the workplace, where enterprises find themselves in a
much broader and more diverse ecosystem of organizations that are enmeshed in a dense web
of interactions.
Even more noticeably, the people within these global enterprises find their teams expanding to
include co-workers in many other organizations and in different geographies and time zones.
My co-workers are no longer in the same building or department as me. The new worker has to
be much more collaborative across groups, distances, and affiliations.
The Market Is Consolidating
Since collaboration providers have to support a wider range of use cases, we are seeing tremendous
market consolidation occurring. Traditional providers are acquiring adjacent technologies and
vendors to round out their portfolios and offerings. This also becomes evident in larger players
acquiring smaller providers, such as in the case of Cisco acquiring Acano and ThinkingPhones
acquiring Fuze.
We believe the vendor makeup even on this Globe could potentially change dramatically in the next
12 months. The pace of consolidation is accelerating. Larger providers are making a play towards
platforms and an ecosystem of partners to extend their capabilities into business applications and
processes. With a PaaS approach to collaboration services, we will see web and video conferencing
capabilities opened up via APIs and SDKs so that developers can embed it into other applications.
The Race to 4K and High Quality HD Video
Currently, due to its availability on mobile devices, we are seeing increasing interest in 4K video.
While enterprise adoption is at a low rate now, the availability of mobile devices such as the iPhone
6s and 6s Plus are democratizing access to higher quality video. Consumer trends usually dictate
what happens in enterprises. While there are bandwidth limitations in supporting 4K for video
conferencing rooms, major providers such as Polycom and Vidyo do offer support now. In fact Vidyo
supports 5K in some deployments. The immediate and larger opportunity will be in mobile video use
cases.
How to Use this Globe
From a buyer’s perspective, this Globe represents a wide assortment of vendors that have expertise
in different parts of the web and video conferencing spectrum. Within this converged market, there
© 2015 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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are different levels of convergence. At one level, web and video converge on desktops and mobile
devices as evidenced by many traditional web conferencing offerings, such as Adobe Connect and
Citrix GoToMeeting. At another level, convergence has happened where traditional room-based
video conferencing providers include the necessary content, application, and screen sharing
capabilities in conjunction with HD quality video room systems and multiple different endpoints,
including desktop and mobile. Our advice to enterprise buyers is to first consider what your core
requirements are in regards to web and video conferencing. We encourage buyers to go beyond just
the positions on the Globe graph: consider which capabilities and products best fit the required use
cases that pertain to your enterprise. For example, if the requirements are for basic online
collaborative meetings with screen sharing and basic video, then a web conferencing product and
provider will suffice.
For buyers looking specifically at standalone web conferencing for use cases such as small group
meetings or webinars, we recommend the following for consideration:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Adobe
AT&T
Citrix
Cisco WebEx
Fuze/ThinkingPhones
Google
IBM
join.me
Microsoft
PGi
Saba
Zoom
For buyers looking specifically for HD quality video conferencing that may include content sharing,
room systems, and multiple endpoints, we recommend the following for consideration:
• Acano
• Avaya
• Blue Jeans
• Cisco
• Fuze/ThinkingPhones
• Highfive
• Huawei
• Lifesize
• Pexip
• Polycom
• Unify
• Vidyo
• Zoom
UCC providers such as Avaya, Cisco, and Unify, provide a full platform by offering a portfolio of realtime collaboration services, including web and video conferencing. Enterprise planners making UCC
© 2015 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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infrastructure decisions should consider those providers. Standalone web conferencing decisions are
typically departmental and are made many times to complement existing capabilities from UCC
infrastructure providers. Let the use cases guide how you create your short list of providers using this
Globe.
As market convergence continues with web and video conferencing, we are seeing buyers
increasingly look for solutions that encompass high quality video with content sharing capabilities.
This will bode well for those providers who can offer a converged experience. While use cases such
as webinars are still in the expertise and domain of specialist web conferencing and online meetings
providers, we will see those capabilities increasingly become part of converged web and video
conferencing offerings.
© 2015 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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Aragon Research Globe Overview
The Aragon Research Globe graphically represents our analysis of a specific market and its
component vendors. We use a rigorous analysis of each vendor using three dimensions that enable
comparative evaluation of the participants in a given market.
The Aragon Research Globe looks beyond size and market share, which often dominate this type of
analysis, and instead uses those as comparative factors in evaluating providers’ product-oriented
capabilities. Positioning in the Aragon Research Globe will reflect how complete a provider’s future
strategy is, relative to their performance in fulfilling that strategy in the market.
A further differentiating factor is the global market reach of each vendor. This allows all vendors with
similar strategy and performance to be compared regardless of their size and market share. It will
improve recognition of providers with a comprehensive strategy and strong performance but limited
or targeted global penetration, which will be compared more directly to others with similar
perspectives.
Dimensions of Analysis
The following parameters are tracked in this analysis:
Strategy reflects the degree to which a vendor has the market understanding and strategic intent
that are at the forefront of market direction. That includes providing the capabilities that customers
want in the current offering and recognizing where the market is headed. The strategy evaluation
includes:
•
Product
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Product strategy
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Market understanding and how well product roadmaps reflect that understanding
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Marketing
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Management team, including time in the job and understanding of the market
Performance represents a vendor’s effectiveness in executing its defined strategy. This includes
selling and supporting the defined product offering or service. The performance evaluation includes:
•
Awareness: Market awareness of the firm and its product.
•
Customer experience: Feedback on the product, installs, upgrades and overall satisfaction.
•
Viability: Financial viability of the provider as measured by financial statements.
•
Pricing and Packaging: Is the offering priced and packaged competitively?
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Product: The mix of features tied to the frequency and quality of releases and updates.
•
R&D: Investment in research and development as evidenced by overall architecture.
Reach is a measure of the global capability that a vendor can deliver. Reach can have one of three
values: national, international or global. Being able to offer products and services in one of the
following three regions is the third dimension of the Globe analysis:
© 2015 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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Americas (North America and Latin America)
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EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa)
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APAC (Asia Pacific: including but not limited to Australia, China, India, Japan, Korea, Russia,
Singapore, etc.)
The market reach evaluation includes:
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Sales and support offices worldwide
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Time zone and location of support centers
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Support for languages
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References in respective hemispheres
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Data center locations
The Four Corners of the Globe
The Aragon Research Globe is segmented into four sectors, representing high and low on both the
strategy and performance dimensions. When the analysis is complete, each vendor will be in one of
four groups: leaders, contenders, innovators or specialists. We define these as follows:
•
Leaders have comprehensive strategies that align with industry direction and market demand,
and perform effectively against those strategies.
•
Contenders have strong performance, but with more limited or less complete strategies. Their
performance positions them well to challenge for leadership by expanding their strategic focus.
•
Innovators have strong strategic understanding and objectives, but have yet to perform
effectively across all elements of their strategy.
•
Specialists fulfill their strategy well, but have a narrower or more targeted emphasis with regard
to overall industry and user expectations. Specialists may excel in a certain market or vertical
application.
Inclusion Criteria
This Globe looks at the overlapping categories of web, video conferencing and unified communication
and collaboration. It will help clients navigate the intersection of web, video meetings and UCC to
look at the overall set of capabilities that support critical business use cases.
The inclusion criteria for this Aragon Research Globe are:
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Revenue: A minimum of $7 million in primary revenue for web and videoconferencing, or $15
million in revenue in a related market, such as collaboration or UCC.
•
Shipping product: Product must be announced and available.
•
Customer references: Vendors must provide customer references in each region where they do
business.
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Support for web conferencing or video conferencing.
•
Support for mobile devices.
© 2015 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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The Aragon Research Globe™ for Web and Video Conferencing, 2015
(As of 12/28/2015)
Figure 1: The Aragon Research Globe™ for Web and Video Conferencing, 2015. Note: no
providers have been named Specialists in this Globe.
© 2015 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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Leaders
Avaya
Avaya’s conferencing suite of products is an über UCC solution that provides web, audio, and video
conferencing capabilities. It is composed of a combination of Avaya Aura UC Conferencing and
Scopia Videoconferencing inclusive of mobility and BYOD, HD room systems and support for
content sharing and browser access with firewall traversal for voice, video, and content.
Avaya has put a stake in the ground with its acquisition of Esna, to move into the emerging
collaboration PaaS space. This will enable Avaya to extend its collaboration capabilities into business
applications. It will also give them a strategy for enhancing the developer ecosystem around its
offerings. This is part of a string of acquisitions that includes Persony for web conferencing and
Radvision for video conferencing. The combination of these acquisitions positions Avaya as a more
complete collaboration suite and platform.
Strengths
• High quality interoperable video
• Strong desktop and mobile offerings
Challenges
• Messaging and awareness around its full suite of
offerings
• Highly reliable telephony and UC
• Support for open standards
• Partner network and ecosystem
© 2015 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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Cisco
Cisco WebEx continues to be the most recognizable brand in web conferencing. With enhanced
VoIP capabilities, it has addressed the audio issues that some customers have brought to attention.
Alongside WebEx enhancements, Cisco has released its Spark Mobile Collaboration product, which
utilizes users’ WebEx login. Cisco has tried to merge the new mobile offering with traditional WebEx
Integration with the rest of its portfolio; this is still ongoing, as overlaps remain with offerings such as
Cisco Jabber.
WebEx is also integrated with Cisco’s video conferencing and UC portfolio, which allows Cisco to
support a myriad of web and video conferencing use cases that span internal and external
collaboration and enables users to easily join meetings from the device or location of their
choice. Cisco’s collaboration portfolio enables HD video across mobile, phone (8800 series),
desktop (DX solution), room (MX and SX systems), and immersive video systems. Cisco’s integrated
portfolio allows seamless conferencing options across phone, video conferencing system, WebEx,
and now expanded cloud collaboration options with Spark.
As another step in the ongoing industry consolidation, Cisco is in the process of acquiring Acano, a
rival video conferencing provider known for its ability to integrate disparate video conferencing
systems. The acquisition, once complete, potentially enhances its capabilities to extend conferencing
and collaboration services to any device or endpoint.
Strengths
• Cisco and WebEx brands
• High quality Video across devices, including
mobile
• Video Endpoints
• Support for multiple use cases
• Mobile Collaboration Platform
Challenges
• Multiple brands can make it complex for
© 2015 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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Citrix
Citrix is another popular web conferencing product that over the past few years has added deeper
support for video. The Citrix collaboration team responsible for its GoTo line of products has
undergone tremendous turnover during the past couple of years; however, the conferencing
products themselves support many use cases and users have praised their ease-of-use. Citrix GoTo
is in the process of being spun out of Citrix Corporate and will be a separate publicly traded
company in 2016.
Citrix has made a play towards a fuller collaboration portfolio with the addition of the Podio social
offering and other real-time collaboration capabilities such as instant messaging and audio and
video chat. Along with news to spin out the collaboration portfolio, we believe Citrix’s strategy is
to bring a laser focus on enterprise collaboration. That said, the GoTo collaboration family of
products still lack deeper integration with enterprise UCC offerings such as Skype for Business.
Also, we are still seeing less focus on the Podio offering from a messaging perspective and less
direction and guidance on its roadmap.
Strengths
• Freemium to premium model
Challenges
• Lacks integration with enterprise UCC offerings
• Ease of use
• Phone bridge integration
join.me
LogMeIn and its join.me product have risen in popularity as an easy-to-use tool for online
meetings and webcasts. join.me has had viral success in enterprises, where it has been
adopted predominantly for specific departments and teams. LogMeIn’s join.me has also been
a driver for the downward price pressure in the web conferencing space. The freemium offering
of join.me has been effective as a pull strategy to increase adoption of the paid version. It also
offers recording options and integration with its Cubby file-sharing tool. With the addition of
video capabilities, join.me is now a more complete offering with visual collaboration.
The join.me architecture offers a truly lightweight but still scalable option for starting meetings.
We’ve seen technology vendors – even in the collaboration space – use join.me for briefings
and product demos. Given its ease of use, we have seen join.me start to replace competing
products in a number of accounts.
Strengths
• Ease of use
Challenges
• Messaging to strategic enterprises buyers
• Scale
• Broader collaboration capabilities
© 2015 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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Lifesize
Last year, Lifesize launched its Lifesize Cloud video service, which was a clear sign of the industry
evolution towards cloud software-based video. What is interesting about the Lifesize service is the
ability for external collaboration with users on disparate video platforms. While Lifesize is a video
infrastructure company, it needed to embrace full delivery of video services via the cloud, which it
has accomplished with Lifesize Cloud.
With the added flexibility, Lifesize can offer cloud and hybrid delivery models for video. Lifesize is also
focusing efforts on video-enabling business applications in key verticals, such as healthcare and
manufacturing. The pivot towards cloud will enable Lifesize to reach new audiences within the
business.
Strengths
• Ability to integrate disparate systems
• Hybrid capabilities with on-premises and cloud
Challenges
• Continued message about the capabilities of
Lifesize Cloud
• Video quality
Microsoft
Microsoft’s Skype for Business product is the current name for its complete unified communications
and collaboration offering. Microsoft has improved scalability and now offers Skype Broadcast for
webcasting and webinar use cases. The Skype for Business ecosystem is huge, with Microsoft
depending on partners to offer advanced group video conferencing capabilities. With the launch of
the E5 edition of Microsoft Office 365, we expect to see larger adoption of Skype for business.
Microsoft has tremendous traction in enterprises with its Office, Outlook, and Exchange franchises.
The Skype for Business decision usually follows investments in those offerings, including SharePoint.
The move to the Skype for Business was strategic; from a brand perspective, it was the most popular
offering. Microsoft still supports the free Skype offering for up to 25 people and will use it as a pull
strategy for the paid offering.
.
Strengths
Challenges
• Microsoft brand
• Dependence on partners for multipoint video
• Azure Cloud
• Lack of a Mac OS X Client
• Partner ecosystem
• HD video quality on point-to-point calls
© 2015 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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Polycom
Polycom is a premiere brand in video conferencing. It recently announced a set of new products in its
RealPresence portfolio to enhance and improve group video collaboration use cases. The new
offerings include RealPresence Trio, RealPresence Centro, RealPresence Debut, RealPresence
Medialign, and Polycom Concierge; all of these offerings indicate a new strategic focus on peoplecentric collaboration.
Polycom is solutions focused, and this enables multiple verticals to be supported, from
manufacturing to healthcare. Polycom’s renewed focus on user experience and new,
innovative collaboration offerings are welcome changes and signal a redirection in strategy.
With these new solutions, Polycom now has a more compelling story for enterprise
collaboration. Cloud and mobile will need to be a continued focus as the workplace becomes
more dynamic with the increasing number of mobile workers.
Strengths
• High-quality video
Challenges
• Competing against emerging cloud and software
video conferencing providers
• Innovation
• Support for open standards
• Revamped RealPresence product line
Vidyo
Vidyo has been growing via its partner ecosystem and via its entering of multiple verticals with
software-based video conferencing. The company has also seen a renewed strategy around vertical
solutions and around video-enabling business processes and applications. As a video infrastructure
provider, Vidyo has a platform play, which we believe the rest of the market is moving towards. Vidyo
can be deployed, on premises, in the cloud or in a hybrid setting. Its recent OEM agreement with
Mitel and other enterprise UC integrations gives it more traction in enterprises.
Recent wins, such as in The DoD among major competitors, has boosted Vidyo as a strong provider
of secure software-based video. Solutions for multiple telemedicine use cases also displays
innovation in a critical industry. Additionally, Vidyo recently received a strategic investment from
Kaiser Permanente Ventures for 10 million dollars.
Strengths
• HD video quality with low multipoint latency
• Flexible deployment options
Challenges
• Limited brand and market awareness due to
infrastructure strategy
• APIs and SDKs
• Scale
© 2015 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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Zoom
Zoom has emerged primarily as a videoconference provider, and is increasingly being used for
video webinars. Zoom supports up to 200 video participants for audiences of up to 3000
attendees. This is useful for events with multiple presenters or panelists. There are host
controls for managing participants, Q&A, Group IM/Presence, and cloud and local MP4 and
M4A recording. Both presenters and presentations can be shown at the same time. Its
dashboard of real-time and historical analytics is essential for webinars and account
management.
Zoom has an effective mobile-enabled video conferencing capability, which stands out in the
market. Mobile was not an afterthought, but a design requirement for Zoom. It also integrates
with H.323 and SIP room systems as well as collaboration and business applications such as
Slack and Salesforce. Zoom appeals to organizations looking for an affordable video
conferencing solution.
Strengths
• Scalable HD Video Conferencing and Webinars
• Software-defined video conference room system
with video, audio, wireless content sharing, and
integrated calendaring
Challenges
• While adoption is typically viral, Zoom has to
continually craft effective messaging for enterprise
buyers.
• Mobile enabled video conferencing
• Growing Partner network
© 2015 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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Contenders
Adobe
Adobe Connect has been a staple in the web conferencing space and was one of the first offerings
to enable hosting of video meetings from a mobile device. As the market has evolved, Adobe has
embraced HTML 5 and while still supporting Flash, we believe it will eventually become obsolete. We
still see learning as a primary use case for Adobe Connect with webinars as an additional, significant
use case.
Adobe Connect has one of the most customizable solutions because of its ability to be enhanced via
pods. We believe that Adobe has greater opportunity for deeper integration between Adobe Connect
and its Adobe Experience Manager platform. There is some integration now with learning; however,
multiple communications and collaboration use cases in sales and marketing abound from a
customer experience perspective.
Strengths
•
•
•
•
Customizability of the Adobe Connect platform
Hosting meetings with video from mobile devices
Support for multiple online meetings use cases
Security
Challenges
• Leveraging fuller integration with the rest of the
Adobe ecosystem
AT&T
AT&T is a service provider that resells multiple conferencing services along with its own AT&T
Connect offering. The Connect product is backed by the vast set of AT&T services and network,
which speaks to scale. From a billing perspective, this lends itself to convenience.
Connect is a viable solution for cloud-based web and video conferencing. Since AT&T sells other
conferencing services, it does compete with itself as far as Connect is concerned. The AT&T portfolio
spans telepresence and full UCC along with being a major provider of Microsoft communications and
collaboration services.
Strengths
• Brand awareness
Challenges
• Competing with conferencing products AT&T resells
• AT&T global network and services expertise
• Converged conferencing capability with web,
video and audio
© 2015 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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Huawei
Huawei is a global brand in the communications and collaboration space. It has developed multiple
technologies for converged voice, data, video, and service flow. Its UCC and real-time portfolio
includes its traditional UC and telephony products along with multimedia conferencing.
Huawei is known for its cross-vertical industry expertise and solutions. It has leveraged its
implementation of the WeChat mobile messaging solution to support video calls, group chat, and
file sharing on Huawei mobile devices. Huawei’s enterprise collaboration solutions encompass video
conferencing, telepresence, and its eSpace UC platform.
Strengths
Challenges
• Global network
• Market awareness in North America
• Full UCC platform
• Ecosystem
• Vertical solutions
IBM
IBM has been streamlining its collaboration portfolio and differentiating this portfolio by infusing it
with Watson analytics. Its Connections portfolio includes its flagship web conferencing offering
Sametime, which supports on-premises deployments as well as Cloud Meetings. With a full portfolio
including email, IM, meetings, and social, IBM has a strategic platform for unified collaboration in
context.
IBM’s recent partnership with Box will enable further content collaboration in real-time. This is useful
for mobile users on the go that need to share content in real-time via web meetings. Sametime
continues native mobile support for iOS, Android, and delivers a solid mobile experience. A
differentiating ability with IBM will be integration of its Watson analytics capabilities throughout its
portfolio.
Strengths
• Sametime brand
• Multiple cloud deployment options, including
SaaS, on-premises and hybrid
Challenges
• Messaging its broader portfolio outside of current
IBM customers
• Integration of full IBM Connections portfolio
• Integration of Analytics
© 2015 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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PGi
PGi is a global service provider of communications and collaboration services. PGi develops and
markets GlobalMeet along with iMeet as their primary conferencing services. It has also released
iMeetLive, which supports webinars and webcasts for up to 10,000 people. As more evidence of
collaboration market consolidation, PGi has been on an acquisition spree to round out its
collaboration portfolio. Besides the UK-based Powwownow for conferencing services, it also
acquired Central Desktop, which is a cloud-based team collaboration and project management
platform. Central Desktop supplements PGi’s real-time collaboration solutions with an asynchronous
workspace environment.
PGi has overlapping products besides reselling conferencing and collaboration services from other
providers. It needs to provide clear guidance to customers on use cases where GlobalMeet, iMeet, or
iMeetLive is most appropriate.
Strengths
Challenges
• Service provider expertise
• Overlapping real-time offerings
• Global Market reach
• Integration with enterprise UCC systems
• GlobalMeet brand
Unify
Unify has undergone significant changes this past year, which has culminated in a proposed
acquisition by Atos from Gores and Siemens (which still owns a 12% stake in Atos). The acquisition
positions Atos to have a stronger collaboration platform and services business. The Unify brand, as
far as we know, will live on. Innovative moves with Circuit, the Mobile Collaboration offering, will
require Atos to refine the roadmap with Circuit and OpenScape customers. OpenScape was the
primary offering for converged web and video conferencing.
The Circuit Team Collaboration solution, which is built on WebRTC, offers multi-modal collaboration
for up to 200 participants using a browser or mobile device app, has become a collaboration PaaS
play for Unify. This play democratizes access to both real-time & persistent textual messaging
collaboration services starting from a freemium model all the way to a Enterprise wide ‘for pay’
model. This is a good starting point for enterprises wanting rich communication and collaboration
capabilities that extend across multiple devices. With its existing enterprise penetration with
OpenScape, Unify will have to define the upgrade roadmap for existing users.
Strengths
• UCC expertise with OpenScape
• Ease of deployment and use
• Vertical industry solutions
Challenges
• Gaining enterprise traction in the saturated
North American market outside of Unify
customers
• PaaS platform with Circuit
© 2015 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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Innovators
Acano
Acano was just recently acquired by Cisco in November of 2015. As one of the young emerging
video conferencing providers, we noticed Acano was emerging on many enterprise shortlists for
video conferencing. We see many organizations, both large and small, looking to outfit smaller and
huddle rooms cost-effectively with video conferencing.
Acano was known for interoperability, as it played a connector role in connecting disparate
video systems. With the recent acquisition, Cisco can now assume this role and even enter
proprietary Microsoft environments. So enterprises, regardless of size, can still use their
existing video infrastructure investments. Acano also supports the emerging WebRTC protocol,
so the depth and breadth of its interoperability should increase with the expansion of that
evolving architecture.
Strengths
Challenges
• Long term integration plans with Cisco acquisition
• High quality video
• Interoperability
• Cost
Blue Jeans Network
Blue Jeans emerged on the scene as a cloud-based video conferencing provider, promising to
integrate disparate video conferencing systems. Its functionality still includes the ability to combine
traditional business-grade videoconferencing systems from Cisco, Polycom, and LifeSize with UC
clients such as Microsoft Lync and Cisco Jabber.
Blue Jeans has helped to pioneer other cloud-based video conferencing providers to challenge larger
providers; thus, it has been instrumental in the ongoing consolidation in this space, evidenced by
mergers and acquisitions. Blue Jeans enables a broad range of third party solutions to be supported
with good HD video and content sharing capabilities. It’s Primetime offering now enables large scale
webcasting and webinars to larger audiences.
Strengths
• Broad range of third-party solutions and
integrations
Challenges
• Deployment options, besides cloud
• Lower cost
• HD video and content sharing
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Fuze/ThinkingPhones
Fuze is one of the smaller video conferencing providers that has caused some market
disruption due to price and capabilities. In May of 2015, Fuze put a stake in the ground in the
expanded collaboration market by converging video and meetings with project- and teambased collaboration with its Live Minutes acquisition. As web and video conferencing
converge, other collaboration capabilities also join to add persistence, content, and context for
distributed teams.
This acquisition made Fuze a broader enterprise collaboration provider and put it in the growing
mobile collaboration market. However, Fuze was just acquired themselves by ThinkingPhones, a
UCC provider. ThinkingPhones now gains the Fuze technology and becomes a broader
communications and collaboration provider. There will still be the need to focus on messaging
around business outcomes, and to be equally proficient at speaking to IT and business leaders.
Strengths
• Video Rooms offering
Challenges
• Integration of acquired technologies
• Broader collaboration capabilities as Thinking
Phones
• Video conferencing integration options
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Google
Google Hangouts has evolved to be the cornerstone of Google's real-time collaboration
offering. Google has united all of its collaboration functions under the Hangouts umbrella.
Integration with Gmail ensures that Google for Business enterprise users now have a fuller
range of collaboration capabilities, from asynchronous to real-time. Google has also gotten into
software-based room video conferencing with Chromebox.
Google continues to enhance its UCC offerings so that they meet more of the needs of the
enterprise. Although Google does not yet offer a complete enterprise UCC suite, its web and video
conferencing capabilities are sufficient for a wide range of enterprises. Cloud has allowed Google to
reduce the barrier to entry in larger enterprises where we see them competing heavily with Microsoft.
Partnerships with Blue Jeans and Vidyo now enable cloud-based interoperability between legacy
H.323, SIP-based videoconferencing room systems with Hangouts and Chromebox, for meetings
and interoperability with legacy room systems on-premises and in the cloud, respectively.
Strengths
Challenges
• Enterprise penetration with Google Apps for Work
• Lack of a fuller UCC offering
• Partner ecosystem, including interoperability with
SIP and H.323 systems via partners
• Ease of use
Highfive
Highfive is one of the newer players contributing to the downward pricing pressure in the web and
video conferencing space. Based in Redwood City, CA, Highfive positions itself as simplifying video
conferencing so anyone can easily configure and manage it. With a simple, compact design, Highfive
video and web conferencing mounts on top of any monitor or TV screen.
The complete system, including camera, costs only U.S. $1200. Many other systems cost
thousands more, making this pricing point by Highfive one of the more disruptive plays in the market.
Enterprises can put video into both conference and smaller huddle rooms and open workspaces with
the Highfive solution. We believe the ease of use and the all-in-one camera/microphone design make
it a good value that will continue to disrupt the current video and web conferencing market.
Strengths
• Ease of use
• Cost is relatively affordable for outfitting rooms
Challenges
• Market awareness and messaging
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Pexip
Pexip is a new emerging videoconference service provider, started by former Cisco and
Tandberg executives. It brings an open, virtualized software-based approach to video
conferencing with its Infinity product, which runs on any standard off-the-shelf server. One of
Infinity’s major promises is that it can scale to an unlimited number of users in any size
organization, providing visual collaboration infrastructure for every employee.
Pexip has browser-based support for joining virtual meetings with various endpoints and
communication systems. Infinity joins legacy videoconferencing solutions from the likes of
Cisco, Polycom, and Lifesize with any other software or hardware UC solution, such as Skype
for Business (Lync), as well as web browsers and audio callers via its Virtual Meeting Rooms.
Infinity’s virtual meeting room capability can connect an unlimited number of endpoints and
communication tools to complement or replace both videoconferencing and telephone
conference services.
Strengths
Challenges
• Market awareness and messaging to enterprises
• Interoperability
• Scale
• Virtual Meeting Rooms
Saba
Saba’s conferencing platform is Saba Meeting, which is very popular with universities, governments,
and enterprises for training and virtual classroom use cases. Saba Meeting is being leveraged to
bring real-time collaboration to the complete Saba Talent Management suite in Saba Cloud.
Saba Meeting supports Voip and video, which works very well in low-bandwidth environments due to
its infrastructure. Unique in the Saba portfolio is its predictive analytics that work in conjunction with
its collaboration and Talent capabilities. Saba Meeting is not sold standalone, so enterprises will have
to be thinking about the total Saba portfolio to leverage it.
Strengths
• Virtual classroom
Challenges
• Awareness outside of corporate learning
• Predictive analytics
• Real-time cloud and recording support with
playback on mobile
• H.264 SVC video optimized for low bandwidth
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Aragon Advisory
•
Make procurement decisions about web and videoconferencing around business use cases that
support specific business outcomes.
•
Require detailed roadmaps from providers that match your company’s technology and business
direction.
•
Evaluate providers in this Globe on the best fit for your organization, not just their position.
•
When evaluating videoconference products, plan for the network impact and get guidance from
providers on network requirements.
Bottom Line
The web and video conferencing market has been significantly impacted by cloud and mobile. Video
conferencing is evolving away from traditional hardware systems as infrastructure costs prevent
many organizations from making those investments. Cloud and software-based offerings that
integrate with existing investments are more attractive. Enterprise planners responsible for UCC or
real-time collaboration infrastructure should look at overall direction for voice, web, video, social
networks, and content. The focus has to be on business outcomes as enterprises experience a
complete digital business transformation.
© 2015 Aragon Research Inc. and or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
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