Stardust Global Ventures

Gartner released their Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications report the other day. Here’s a snip, with some comments below:

Unified communications (UC) offers the
ability to significantly improve how individuals, groups and companies
interact and perform. UC also enables multiple communication channels
to be coordinated. In some cases, separate servers may be consolidated,
but, more frequently, UC adds functionality to existing communication
applications. Key technologies include Internet Protocol (IP)-PBX,
voice over IP (VoIP), presence, e-mail, audioconferencing and Web
conferencing, videoconferencing, voice mail, unified messaging (UM),
instant messaging (IM), and various forms of mobility. Another key
capability of UC is that it offers a method to integrate communication
functions directly with business applications; Gartner calls this
capability “communication-enabled business process” (CEBP).

Although there is significant interest in
UC from many enterprises, it remains a daunting and confusing topic. As
a result, many enterprises find it difficult knowing where and how to
start. One approach is outlined in “Developing an Enterprise Unified
Communications Road Map.” This research advises enterprises to review
their inventories of communication equipment and business partners,
then develop a vision for where their communication could be in five
years. This plan can be accompanied by developing a UC center of
excellence; this group brings individuals together from multiple areas,
including IT operations, business applications and the line of
business. This group then provides broad guidance and direction for the
plans.

No vendor product adequately addresses all
of an enterprise’s UC needs. As a result, planners should not expect
their UC requirements to be met by one vendor’s products: UC solutions
require vendors’ products to be interoperable. This evaluation focuses
on enterprise premises solutions, and considers how well vendors can
work with other vendors and with hosted solutions. Enterprises should
consider interoperability as an important criterion. Gartner publishes
separate research that reviews UC-as-a-service (UCaaS) solutions.

The term “unified communications”
sometimes is misused. This results in confusion. Users should be aware
that some products that are labeled as “unified” cannot be integrated
with other vendor products into a full portfolio. These mislabeled
products are capable of being used only in a stand-alone and
nonintegrated manner.

I’ve often called Gartner’s reports the Magic Quadrant of Mediocrity and for me, this one is no different. First they point out in the report that:

The term “unified communications” sometimes is misused. This results in
confusion. Users should be aware that some products that are labeled as
“unified” cannot be integrated with other vendor products into a full
portfolio. These mislabeled products are capable of being used only in
a stand-alone and nonintegrated manner.

They follow this by highlighting several companies that snip describes perfectly. Plenty of representation of companies that deliver solutions that integrate seamlessly with their own products, but not universally.

But that’s not my biggest beef with Gartner. It never is. Look at the companies listed. Gartner calls out the need for solutions that integrate with the full portfolio, but consider the size of the companies and the real impact on unified communications they’re having.

The only companies there I’d call real innovators are Shoretel And Mitel. For at least three years I’d have included Siemens in that list, but I feel like their leadership and innovation has slipped. I haven’t seen anything exciting from Siemens in over a year now, but maybe they’re just not getting their message where I see it. They’re a question mark.

Unified communications as an industry is fueled by, driven by, and revenue generated by a set of companies Gartner just never sees. Just as small and mid-sized business drive much (I believe most) of our economy, they drive much (or most) of this industry.

Where’s Truphone? MaxROAM? Calliflower? Tungle? IfbyPhone? Junction Networks? Voxeo? Jaduka?

For me, this is another example of Gartner hitting 30% of the mark. Their assessment of the industry is reasonably 30% on target for the fairly obvious players. Yet they completely miss the more important 70% of the industry. Fortunately Nortel, while listed as a leader under visionary, didn’t score above the line on ability to execute. Then again, why is a company in the throes of dismemberment listed here at all? Visonaries who cannot execute are not leaders.

It begs the question, what’s the value in pointing out the 30% obvious in any industry segment really? I’ve grown very skeptical of Gartner’s value to the tech sector, and reports that miss the mark like this one does don’t help Gartner or the industry as a whole. I see it as noise myself/