The Web Conferencing Blog

Gartner Magic Quadrant for Web Conferencing 2016

Gartner Magic Quadrant Web Conferencing 2016 provided by Cisco Systems

Gartner Magic Quadrant for Web Conferencing 2015

 

Magic Quadrant

 

Figure 1. Magic Quadrant for Web Conferencing

 

Source: Gartner (December 2015)

Full Report

28 December 2015 | ID:G00273007

Analyst(s): Adam Preset, Whit Andrews

Fuze Acquires Team Collaboration Platform LiveMinutes; Raises $20M

SAN FRANCISCO, May 20, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Fuze, the cloud video conferencing company reinventing how distributed teams work, today announced the acquisition of LiveMinutes, an online team workspace platform, as well as $20 million in additional funding from Hermes Growth Partners. With LiveMinutes, Fuze will expand its platform to include a persistent project workspace for distributed teams to stay connected, create and share content, meet together live and maintain context across the lifecycle of a project.

More than 100,000 companies use Fuze today to make meetings more meaningful, including Groupon, Starbucks, Macy's.com and Thoughtworks. Fuze helps distributed teams work across distances through HD-quality voice and video conferencing and content sharing across devices, desktops and meeting rooms. The acquisition of LiveMinutes will advance Fuze's mission to create the ultimate collaborative workspace for teams -- one that connects the ongoing conversations, content and context around projects, including meetings.

Building on Accelerating Momentum
Today's news comes on the heels of a banner year for Fuze. Specifically, the company reported the following momentum over the past year:

• 100 percent growth in the number of companies using Fuze, which now exceeds 100,000 organizations and users in over 185 countries.
• 6.5 million people used Fuze, a 100 percent increase year over year.
• Nearly two million minutes of meetings are run through Fuze every workday. Fuze has facilitated more than 1.2 billion meeting minutes since inception.

"Customers tell us they are frustrated by outdated conferencing tools and the multiplication of the new breed of team messaging apps that create even more fragmented streams of conversations," said Bobby Yerramilli-Rao, Fuze CEO. "Distributed teams are the new norm, but many of these new technologies make it harder to collaborate in any kind of meaningful way. Integrating LiveMinutes is our first step in giving teams all the tools they need to stay in touch and collaborate -- in and out of meetings -- on one unified platform, which is something not available with any product today."

"Currently the processes that occur before, during and after meetings are not very connected or collaborative. Tasks such as organizing the content, the participants, the agenda, the notes and the follow-ups occur across a variety of tools with very little context," says Alan Lepofsky, VP and principal analyst at Constellation Research. "Customers are looking for ways to seamlessly bring together communication, collaboration and conferencing to enable people to work effectively together."

Making Virtual Meetings More Productive
The synergy of the combined Fuze and LiveMinutes teams will be felt almost immediately. Starting today, the company is piloting an initial integration of the two products with a select group of key customers. Next month, Fuze will add Collaborative Notes, a new feature based on LiveMinutes to help teams track discussions and tasks beyond meetings. The fully integrated product experience is planned for general availability later this year.

The two companies combined already integrate with commonly used applications including Box, Dropbox, Google Calendar, Google Drive and others, ensuring teams can collaborate in real-time in one space-- rather than multiple channels-- without giving up what already works.

The LiveMinutes co-founders, Kemal El Moujahid (CEO) and Alexis Dufetel (COO), have joined the Fuze leadership team and Kemal will now lead product strategy for Fuze.

"Providing an awesome HD meeting experience as a seamless piece of the LiveMinutes platform was always on our roadmap, but building a globally scalable real-time platform like Fuze is a hard problem to solve," says Kemal. "With our joint resources, Fuze can now deliver what distributed teams really need - a platform that brings all of their project collaboration together, including what happens in meetings."

More information on the integration of Fuze and LiveMinutes can be found here.

About LiveMinutes
Founded in 2011 by Kemal El Moujahid and Alexis Dufetel, LiveMinutes is a cloud-based platform for collaborative team workspaces. With persistent group chat, project workspaces, and integrated document sharing and collaboration, it fills the gap between traditional web conferencing, project management (Basecamp) and document sharing (Google Docs, DropBox, Box, Email). The LiveMinutes team members in San Francisco and Paris, France have joined the Fuze team.

About Fuze
Fuze is solving the collaboration challenges of today's highly distributed teams and mobile workforce by reinventing visual communication and collaboration in the workplace. Available across multiple platforms, Fuze offers high-definition video conferencing across desktop web app, tablets, iPhone and Android, or Fuze Rooms. Fuze also connects with legacy video conferencing systems and offers a significantly lower total cost of ownership compared to traditional conferencing products and services. Leading organizations such as Thoughtworks, Groupon, Macys.com, Starbucks, Evernote and University of California Office of the President are standardizing on Fuze because of its seamless voice, video and content capabilities across devices, desktop and meeting rooms. Try Fuze free at www.fuze.com.

Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Web Conferencing 2014

9 December 2014 ID:G00262772

Analyst(s): Adam Preset, Whit Andrews

VIEW SUMMARY

Web conferencing is a foundational capability for accelerated decision making and a strategic requirement for real-time collaboration and communications in the digital workplace. This Magic Quadrant assesses 13 significant vendors to help enterprise buyers select the right solution for their needs.

Market Definition/Description

Web-conferencing products are real-time collaboration tools that support interactions over a network between participants in multiple meeting formats. Types of meetings and communications that fall into the category of Web conferencing include collaborative meetings, learning and training, and webinars. Some vendors segment their product lines to target and scale to each of those use cases, while others offer a broad solution that can be fitted to each purpose. A separate telephone bridge is sometimes used for the audio portion, with a callback feature desirable, but voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) in the browser or client is often available and simple to use. Video between desktops, smartphones or tablets is essential to meetings. Vendor offerings are increasingly enabling users not only to participate in, but also to host meetings from mobile devices with video. For VoIP and video support, accessories such as headsets and webcams should be included in the purchasing decision, because wise investments here will improve the quality of the user experience and foster adoption. Company laptop PCs and mobile devices with built-in video cameras are common.

The Web-conferencing market consists of offerings that are predominantly cloud-based, although buyers still need hybrid, on-premises, managed and dedicated deployment options. Web conferencing is still a stand-alone market, but is more frequently becoming a key requirement in purchasing decisions for unified communications and collaboration (UCC). Capabilities span a range from low-end freemium to high-end premium services. Historically, enterprise buyers have been from lines of business (LOBs) where support for specific use cases (such as training, and sales and marketing webinars) is needed. Strategic decisions involve enterprise IT around broader UCC initiatives.

Web conferencing benefits businesses in various ways. It can help to reduce geographic barriers for teams that need to work on projects or specific business processes. Training can be rolled out virtually, to employees in multiple locations. There are potential productivity increases and cost reductions from reducing business travel. Because of worldwide economic trends, Web conferencing has become not only a way to cut expenses, but also the preferred method of communication (ahead of travel) in many organizations. Organizations often make conscious decisions that separate Web conferencing for internal use — for collaboration and learning — from external use for marketing, and will run products from more than one vendor. With Web-conferencing tools, enterprises can also benefit from engaging with external constituents, such as business partners and customers, to continually build those relationships.

Magic Quadrant

Figure 1. Magic Quadrant for Web Conferencing

 

 

Source: Gartner (December 2014)

Vendor Strengths and Cautions

Adobe

Adobe Connect (www.adobe.com) is offered as SaaS, hybrid, on-premises or managed service deployments.

Strengths

• Adobe offers a portfolio of solutions that accommodates key use cases, from collaboration to training and webinars, along with a sophisticated set of prebuilt integration pods and APIs for customization.
• Features such as breakout rooms and an engagement dashboard (leveraging Adobe's analytics platform) speak to its suitability for training, and its hybrid and on-premises deployment options appeal to government customers wishing to control services themselves.
• Presenters hosting meetings from devices will find that the Adobe Connect mobile apps have controls that are nearly equal to the desktop applications.

Cautions

• Adobe's focus on its Creative Cloud and Marketing Cloud portfolios results in less visible emphasis on horizontal offerings such as Adobe Connect — which integrates with other products such as Adobe Experience Manager, Adobe Analytics and Adobe EchoSign.
• Adobe Connect on the desktop relies on Flash Player — distributed with Google Chrome, Internet Explorer 10 and with Windows 8, but also a necessary download for other browsers and operating systems (OSs) — in order to function.
• Adobe Connect may be preferable for specific advanced use cases, rather than general basic collaboration, as suggested by its reference customers.

Arkadin

ArkadinAnywhere (www.arkadin.com) is offered as SaaS.

Strengths

• ArkadinAnywhere runs directly in the browser with no necessary downloads or plug-ins.
• Arkadin offers live chat, phone and in-meeting support by local personnel in 32 countries and 18 languages, which may be advantageous for global enterprises.
• ArkadinAnywhere is easy to use and low-cost, as reported by references.

Cautions

• Arkadin was acquired by global network service provider NTT Communications during 2014. This extends its footprint beyond Europe and North America, Arkadin's main markets, and justifies its re-examination by buyers looking for a global offering.
• ArkadinAnywhere lacks advanced features such as HD video and HD audio, and its APIs for integration are limited to provisioning and call control. Buyers with those requirements will have to review other vendors' Web-conferencing products that Arkadin resells as a channel partner (Adobe and Cisco, for example).
• Administration of the ArkadinAnywhere service needs improvement in areas such as upgrade process and notifications, and tools to delegate administration and account provisioning to local internal support; all issues cited by reference customers that Arkadin proposes to address in new end-user and administrator portals by the end of 2014.

AT&T

AT&T Connect (www.att.com) is offered as a SaaS, hybrid, on-premises or managed service.

Strengths

• AT&T has a flexible deployment model that allows blending of premises-based cloud services, enabling consolidation of load at high-volume sites and failover to cloud for usage spikes.
• AT&T's Hybrid Virtual Desktop will appeal to enterprises that must deliver Web conferences over virtual desktop infrastructure.
• AT&T's understanding of business needs and strong management of account relationships are key reasons why its reference customers select its products.

Cautions

• AT&T Connect does not offer HD video or HD audio.
• AT&T's range of pricing options, from per-minute usage with no commitment to per-host flat rate monthly subscriptions, may require close management for cost-efficiency.
• AT&T's user interface, product customization, accounting and reporting features are limited and need improvement, according to customer references.

Blackboard

Blackboard Collaborate (www.blackboard.com) is offered as SaaS.

Strengths

• Blackboard accommodates key use cases, from collaboration to training and webinars with up to 1,000 participants.
• Blackboard Collaborate includes a rich set of accessibility features, including multiple streams of closed captioning, enlarged video, scaling of content area, an activity window for screen readers, auditory event notification, keyboard navigation and accelerator keys for menus, navigation and common functions.
• References indicated that Blackboard's understanding of the needs of users in education and training, including integration with learning management systems and ease of use, were key influences in their product selection.

Cautions

• Blackboard's focus on learning use cases may make it less tenable for enterprise collaboration, which requires features such as Outlook integration, feature parity for presenter controls between desktop and mobile clients, or browser-only options for meeting guests.
• Blackboard's products and licensing are in transition, which may call for some buyers to migrate from Wimba Classroom and Elluminate Live products to Collaborate (now cloud-only with no on-premises option), or from legacy per-user licensing to cloud subscription based on organization size.
• Client setup and resolving issues with Java can be more time-consuming than expected, according to Blackboard's reference customers. Blackboard proposes to integrate a browser-only experience, enabled by its 2014 acquisition of Requestec.

Cisco

Cisco WebEx Enterprise Edition (www.cisco.com), which includes Meeting Center, Training Center, Event Center and Support Center, is offered as SaaS.

Strengths

• WebEx includes a portfolio of solutions that accommodates key use cases, together with a rich set of enterprise communications and conferencing service integrations.
• Mature global infrastructure has contributed to driving high-volume usage of the WebEx platform among organizations with varying technology adoption profiles — from conservative to mainstream to aggressive.
• WebEx integrates with enterprise telecommunications, telepresence and group video systems through Cisco Collaboration Meeting Rooms, which, together with ease of use, are the key reasons why reference customers select WebEx.

Cautions

• Cisco is in the process of transitioning its video and Web-conferencing business units into one that is aligned to develop and support converged conferencing products. This will force IT planners to re-examine whether Cisco's integration will be sufficient for their needs, or if third-party integrators are a better fit for price and functionality.
• Voice can be handled in a variety of ways — including VoIP in the browser, WebEx Cloud Connected Audio, and third-party conferencing providers — and selecting the best-fit option for price and functionality is complex.
• WebEx customers have cited support, licensing models and leveraging resellers effectively as challenges for Cisco.

Citrix

Citrix (www.citrix.com) GoToMeeting, GoToTraining, GoToWebinar and GoToAssist are offered as SaaS.

Strengths

• Citrix offers a portfolio of solutions that accommodates key use cases, from collaboration to training and webinars, along with strong integration with CRM and APIs for customization.
• Citrix's GoToMeeting offering has kept pace with enterprise collaboration needs such as Outlook integration, feature parity for presenter controls between desktop and mobile clients, HD video, and support for compliance.
• GoToMeeting is easy to use, a key influencing factor in product selection according to its references.

Cautions

• Attendees using GoToMeeting Web Viewer should be aware that it requires Flash Player (distributed with Google Chrome, Internet Explorer 10 and Windows 8, but also a necessary download for other browsers and OSs) and will not be able to share video unless they install the full desktop application. A browser-only experience, no plug-in and zero download, is currently achieved in GoToMeeting Free.
• The Citrix offering is a cloud-only deployment, and the vendor reports that a cloud-based recording service is on its road map. Currently, however, all recording of meetings, training sessions and webinars can be captured only with the rich desktop client.
• GoToMeeting reference customers expressed concern over sporadic issues with stability and an impression that capacity issues are handled reactively. Citrix reports that it has transitioned to a dynamic capacity model during 2014, to improve performance and scalability.

Fuze

Fuze (www.fuze.com) is offered as SaaS.

Strengths

• Fuze has a simple, cost-effective subscription pricing model for meeting hosts and rooms.
• Fuze has kept pace with enterprise collaboration needs such as Outlook integration, feature parity for presenter controls between desktop and mobile clients, HD video and voice, and support for compliance.
• Reference customers for Fuze emphasize ease of use, integration with videoconferencing, high-quality voice, federated single sign-on, and continuous engagement and support from the vendor as sources of satisfaction.

Cautions

• Fuze may be dismissed due to its initial focus on Europe and North America (its main markets), but recent partnership with BT justifies re-examination of its services and costs for buyers in global organizations.
• The Fuze client is not as feature-rich, nor does the platform have as many mature integrations and APIs, as its competitors.
• Areas for improvement include a fully functional browser-only client and an increase in the current meeting attendee limit of 250, both concerns raised by Fuze's reference customers.

Google

Google Hangouts (www.google.com/work/apps/business/products/hangouts/) is offered as SaaS.

Strengths

• The bundling of Hangouts and its tight integration with other collaboration tools within the Google Apps for Work suite is compelling in functionality and pricing for those organizations already invested in Google.
• Chromebox for Meetings (introduced in February 2014) leverages the Hangouts software and infrastructure, can be managed as part of a Google Apps domain and is an accessible entry point for Google customers who want to extend collaboration into meeting rooms.
• References emphasize the ease of use and cost-effectiveness of Hangouts.

Cautions

• While the current limit of 15 video endpoints may meet users' needs for internal collaboration, enterprises may not find Hangouts tenable for larger internal learning and training sessions or confidential large-scale internal meetings such as town halls.
• Guests joining a Web-conferencing session are required to authenticate via a Google Apps customer account or Gmail account.
• Enterprises that require private or internal meeting recording (as essential to their business processes or for compliance) will need to investigate third-party desktop capture, because Google's option, Hangouts On Air, publishes recordings publicly on its YouTube platform and restricting privacy to a domain is possible only after the fact.

IBM

IBM (www.ibm.com) offers Sametime Conference in on-premises or managed service deployments, and IBM Connections Meetings Cloud as SaaS.

Strengths

• IBM Sametime Conference and IBM Connections Meetings Cloud are offerings suitable for key use cases, from collaboration to training and webinars, with mobile meetings that are close in parity to the desktop experience.
• IBM's solutions are well-suited to global enterprises due to the rich ecosystem of sales, technical and implementation partners.
• Sametime's strong integration with other collaboration tools and IBM cloud services, and IBM's strength in managing account relationships, are key influencers in the choices of its reference customers.

Cautions

• The transition of the branding of IBM's collaboration portfolio (from IBM SmartCloud for Social Business to IBM Connections Meetings Cloud), as well as the options to buy Meetings Cloud unbundled or to license and run Sametime on-premises, calls for potential buyers to seek clarity on the exact fit for their needs.
• Video support is available only in Sametime, not in the Meetings Cloud offering, although IBM reports that video is in its product road map.
• References express concern that the service architecture is complex and would benefit from simplification. They have also experienced issues with client software, plug-ins and the requirement for Java, which IBM proposes to remove from the browser experience by the end of 2014.

InterCall

Unified Meeting (www.intercall.com) is offered as SaaS, hybrid or a managed service.

Strengths

• InterCall has a rich partner ecosystem that allows extension of its platforms via federation, unified communications, collaboration and integration providers.
• Unified Meeting leverages many of InterCall's significant audioconferencing features, notably hybrid audio over the public switched telephone network or VoIP, tunneled VoIP, detailed accounting and billing, and project codes.
• Unified Meeting has attractive pricing and total cost of ownership as well as strong integration with audioconferencing — according to its references.

Cautions

• Unified Meeting lacks features such as HD video and integration with room video systems, so buyers with those requirements will have to review other vendors' Web-conferencing products that InterCall resells as a channel partner (Adobe and Cisco, for example).
• InterCall's mobile app, MobileMeet, allows joining only the audio portion of a Web conference; participants cannot see the screen-share or video. However, InterCall's road map proposes to add screen sharing and video during 2015.
• Unified Meeting's user interface, pace of offering new features and the stability of its Outlook plug-in are potential concerns, according to its reference customers, although InterCall has performed significant refreshes in these areas since our survey.

Microsoft

Microsoft (www.microsoft.com) offers Lync Server for hybrid and on-premises deployments, and Lync Online as SaaS.

Strengths

• Lync Online's tight integration as part of the Microsoft Office 365 suite is compelling in functionality and pricing for those organizations looking for an integrated cloud collaboration solution from Microsoft.
• Lync Server and Lync Online features, such as Outlook integration, offer parity for presenter controls between desktop and mobile clients, plus HD video and voice. Rich APIs match the needs of the enterprise.
• Lync integrates with videoconferencing services and is easy to use, which are key reasons for product selection by reference customers.

Cautions

• There is no integrated cloud or server-based recording, and meetings can be captured only with the rich desktop client; this may be a concern for organizations that require recordings for certain business processes or compliance.
• Lync Online does not support meetings of more than 250 participants, and those customers planning to transition from hosted Live Meeting (which allows 1,250 participants) must plan to wait, and hold to existing contracts and enterprise agreements, until Microsoft provides an alternative option with comparable scalability — Lync Broadcast Meeting, which was publicly announced during 2014.
• End users may find that the video and presenter controls, user interface and video quality in the Lync client need improvement — according to Microsoft's reference customers.

PGi

PGi's (www.pgi.com) iMeet and GlobalMeet are SaaS offerings.

Strengths

• PGi has simple, cost-effective subscription pricing models for all-you-can-meet and per-minute audio, for both simple face-to-face Web video meetings with iMeet (125-attendee limit) and more complex collaborative meetings and webinars with GlobalMeet (325-attendee limit).
• PGi's services leverage its significant audioconferencing capabilities, notably HD audio, dial-out and connect-me functionality, and detailed reporting.
• Both iMeet and GlobalMeet are easy to use and have attractive pricing, and PGi's customer service focus has been a key influencer in its selection by reference customers.

Cautions

• iMeet and GlobalMeet lack advanced features such as HD video and integration with room video systems, so buyers with those requirements will have to review other vendors' Web-conferencing products that PGi resells as a channel partner (Adobe and Cisco, for example).
• iMeet and GlobalMeet on the desktop rely on Flash Player — distributed in Google Chrome, Internet Explorer 10 and with Windows 8, but also a necessary download for other browsers and OSs — in order to function.
• Feature parity between the desktop and mobile experiences, and a lack of availability in certain geographies are limitations identified by PGi's customer references.

Vidyo

Vidyo (www.vidyo.com) is offered as a SaaS, hybrid, on-premises or managed service.

Strengths

• Vidyo's solutions are well-suited to scenarios in which video is the main component of the collaboration, and client stability and adaptation to low-bandwidth, high-latency conditions are concerns.
• VidyoDesktop Virtual Edition (VE) is worth examining for those enterprises challenged to deliver Web-conferencing services to a Citrix virtual desktop infrastructure.
• Vidyo's integration with third-party videoconferencing systems — such as its VidyoH20 product that connects Google Hangouts to Polycom, Lifesize and others — and its video quality and delivery optimization capabilities were key reasons for product selection by references.

Cautions

• VidyoWeb, needed for guests to join via a Web browser, is a necessary plug-in download.
• Vidyo's focus on video collaboration use cases may make it less tenable for learning and training and webinar scenarios, which require features such as polling, Q&A management, engagement indicators and analytics.
• Meeting recording requires VidyoReplay, a hardware appliance. A software approach was expressed as desirable by Vidyo's reference customers.

Vendors Added and Dropped

We review and adjust our inclusion criteria for Magic Quadrants and MarketScopes as markets change. As a result of these adjustments, the mix of vendors in any Magic Quadrant or MarketScope may change over time. A vendor's appearance in a Magic Quadrant or MarketScope one year and not the next does not necessarily indicate that we have changed our opinion of that vendor. It may be a reflection of a change in the market and, therefore, changed evaluation criteria, or of a change of focus by that vendor.

Added

• Arkadin now meets our inclusion criteria and has been added.
• Google now meets our inclusion criteria and has been added.
• Vidyo now meets our inclusion criteria and has been added.

Dropped

• Dialcom was removed following its acquisition by ClearOne, because it no longer meets the inclusion criteria for revenue.
• Saba was removed because its market focus has narrowed to providing Web conferencing in support of its talent management and HR software.

Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

We applied the following criteria for inclusion in this Magic Quadrant:

• The product must provide at least the following minimal functionality:
  • Presentation delivery. All participants can see an online presentation (usually delivered by Microsoft PowerPoint), which is under the control of one participant who is designated the presenter.
  • Desktop or application sharing. All participants can see, but not necessarily directly interact with or modify, the presenter's desktop or a specific application on the presenter's system.
  • Text chat. Participants can exchange real-time textual messages with other participants or the presenter using an IM-like interface.
  • Shared whiteboard. A meeting participant can add annotations — viewable by all — by typing or drawing on a whiteboard application, or on top of a presentation or shared application window.
  • Basic security. Encrypted data transfer and password-protected meetings.
  • Remote control. Useful for technical support, this gives one participant control of applications or the desktop on another system.
  • Integrated VoIP audio. To remove or reduce the need for telephone-based audio, qualifying products must use a speaker and microphone (or a headset) to enable participants to listen and speak.
  • Video. Qualifying products must show live video feeds of participants or the presenter from a desktop webcam or mobile device camera.
  • Mobility. Qualifying products must have specific support for mobile devices and tablets.
• The product must support at least five participants. Products that support one-to-one interaction or small groups are generally aimed at the consumer market or at other specialized markets not covered by this Magic Quadrant.
• The vendor must have at least $7 million in annual revenue from sales of Web-conferencing products.
• The vendor must provide at least one reference with more than 1,000 seats of internal users.
• Sales and marketing efforts connected with the product must not be limited primarily to a particular vertical or horizontal process (such as training).
• The vendor must develop and market the primary Web-conferencing product, not resell a white-label product produced by another company in an OEM relationship. The product can be the result of an acquisition.

Service providers such as Arkadin, AT&T, InterCall and PGi are included in this Magic Quadrant because they market and develop their own Web-conferencing offerings. They also resell other vendors' products, but those are not considered in this evaluation.

Evaluation Criteria

Ability to Execute

Several factors contribute to the vendors' ratings for Ability to Execute:

• We evaluated the capabilities of the vendors' products separately for basic and advanced functionality.
• Because this market includes many small vendors with uncertain futures, financial viability was an important factor.
• We evaluated pricing in terms of comparative pricing levels and the vendors' flexibility in supporting the kinds of pricing models that customers want (such as concurrent user, named user, per minute and flat rate).
• We judged the customer experience by speaking to Gartner clients that use the products and by surveying users identified as reference customers by the vendors.

Table 1. Ability to Execute Evaluation Criteria

Evaluation Criteria	Weighting
Product or Service	High
Overall Viability	High
Sales Execution/Pricing	High
Market Responsiveness/Record	Medium
Marketing Execution	High
Customer Experience	High
Operations	Medium

Source: Gartner (December 2014)

Completeness of Vision

We evaluated the vendors' Completeness of Vision by examining customers' requirements for usage and purchasing, and by assessing how the products aligned with these requirements:

• To evaluate vendors' marketing and product strategies, we looked at how they position their products and whether their products adequately address the chosen positioning.
• We rated the vendors' flexibility in supporting both SaaS and on-premises deployment models more highly than a strategy of concentrating on a single deployment model.
• We also evaluated vendors' product innovation and ability to address the trends we expect to see in the Web-conferencing market.

Table 2. Completeness of Vision Evaluation Criteria

Evaluation Criteria	Weighting
Market Understanding	High
Marketing Strategy	High
Sales Strategy	High
Offering (Product) Strategy	High
Business Model	Medium
Vertical/Industry Strategy	Medium
Innovation	High
Geographic Strategy	Medium

Source: Gartner (December 2014)

Quadrant Descriptions

Leaders

Vendors in the Leaders quadrant have achieved significant market share, while demonstrating an ability to respond to customers' needs. Leaders have robust, scalable products with a wide range of features, a large installed base, acceptable financial performance and good distribution. Leaders are doing well today and are prepared for the future.

Challengers

Vendors in the Challengers quadrant are characterized by operational excellence and good standing in the market. Compared with vendors in the Leaders and Visionaries quadrants, either they do not have long-term road maps or their products lack some features.

Visionaries

Visionaries typically have important, unique and/or well-developed technical capabilities and provide key innovations that illustrate the future of the market. However, they have not yet developed the sales and support capabilities to address or influence the whole market.

Niche Players

Niche Players may have good technology, but are limited by their size, breadth of product line, track record in the market, vertical or horizontal focus, geographic niche, and/or financial circumstances. Some have chosen a niche strategy (for example, regional vendors with a local focus or targeted functionality intended to run on top of, or alongside, other technologies).

Context

Web-conferencing services are still purchased mainly by departments and LOBs. IT leaders responsible for collaboration, real-time technology and infrastructure should:

• Assess and inventory existing real-time assets.
• Engage technical architects to map out future architecture with respect to real-time technologies.
• Influence sourcing/procurement officers to ensure that future investments in real time are aligned to, and can be integrated with, the architecture.

More than ever, Web-conferencing decisions need to be made together with other decisions about communications and collaboration infrastructure. Mobility and video support have also emerged as core decision criteria when buyers evaluate Web-conferencing offerings.

Market Overview

Web-conferencing services are deployed via several different delivery models, with SaaS as the most prominent — although there are options for on-premises, hybrid and managed services, and there are buyers for all. The vendors in this market consist of service providers (such as Arkadin, AT&T, InterCall and PGi), UCC vendors (such as Cisco, Google, IBM and Microsoft), collaboration and training vendors (such as Blackboard), best-of-breed Web-conferencing vendors (such as Adobe and Citrix), and vendors that blend video and Web-conferencing capabilities (such as Fuze and Vidyo). Buyers gravitate toward one of these focus areas as they select vendors to investigate.

Trends

There are several trends affecting the market, from pricing to pervasive video and mobility support. Smaller and lower-cost vendors continue to disrupt pricing dynamics, resulting in downward-facing pricing pressure that is causing changes in licensing models to justify charging a premium for Web-conferencing services. In addition to vendors offering free trials, many offer freemium models — usually with modest functionality for small meetings. These are intended to hook users and then influence LOBs, or even central IT and procurement, on an upsell to premium services with more enterprise features. Of particular note are two distinctly different approaches to the topic: Adobe discontinued its freemium offering during 2013, and Citrix introduced GoToMeeting Free in 2Q14 following its successful experiment (Hutt) in browser-based video rooms.

Interest in contextual collaboration continues to rise, adding real-time communications capabilities such as Web conferencing into office collaboration, social networking and CRM applications. It is becoming more common to see those capabilities a single click away within a business application, either within the software packages themselves or via integrations and middleware meant to improve responsiveness, time to market or partner collaboration.

The integration of Web-conferencing capabilities with UCC infrastructure gives UCC vendors strong leverage in enterprises. Best-of-breed vendors must ensure integration with UCC offerings to gain further traction into enterprises beyond an individual LOB. Democratization of video by leveraging mobile endpoints — through bring your own device (BYOD) or corporately owned, personally enabled (COPE) programs — is complicated by requirements to support multiple form factors, mobile OSs and browsers. Deployments of inexpensive room video systems backed by Web-conferencing technology seem to be favored above new builds of expensive telepresence.

Large-scale webcasting is the purview of specialist vendors such as ON24 or TalkPoint (acquired by PGi in 3Q14), but at the more modest scale of a few hundred or thousand attendees for a company town hall or quarterly shareholder meeting, it is increasingly common to see high-end Web-conferencing vendors or enterprise video content managers handle the use case for live streaming.

Rich client applications on the desktop and native mobile apps continue to offer the most features and functionality for presenters; however, the common expectation is for a reasonable experience for guests in a browser-only mode with no plug-ins. An emerging area of interest and investment for vendors is HTML5 and its related protocols, such as Web Real-Time Communication (WebRTC). The promise of WebRTC is that real-time communication, such as video, can occur in the browser and between browsers. While still early in its development, this has the potential to disrupt current conferencing delivery models — where a majority of offerings require users to download a client. The more recently a vendor has entered the space, the more likely it is to have less legacy code to pull forward and therefore to prefer an approach with WebRTC — although this limits its potential markets as not all browsers support the standard equally. We expect WebRTC to initially affect consumer use of real-time capabilities in browsers, and then to affect the enterprise.

Deployment Models

Users have four basic deployment options for Web-conferencing applications:

• SaaS — Web-conferencing software runs on the vendor's (or a partner's) system on a multitenancy basis, and the user accesses the capabilities over the Internet (see Note 1).
• On-premises — Installs software on systems owned and operated by the enterprise.
• Hybrid — Combines the SaaS and on-premises models by allowing segmentation of users across both environments, or failover from on-premises to SaaS (either automated or manual) in high-load conditions or during a disaster.
• Managed services — IT management of the Web-conferencing solution is completely outsourced and managed either directly by the Web-conferencing vendor or by a third-party provider.

$53B Market Opportunity for Collaboration

According to research by Frost & Sullivan, Gartner, Synergy Research, and Wainhouse Research, the Collaboration Market opportunity is expected to grow to $53B by 2017!

These research firms still predict Hosted UC to represent over 20% of the total available market opportunity at $11.6B.

• Hosted Audio Conferencing ($5.3B)
• UC Infrastructure ($4.8B)
• UC Endpoints ($2.8B)
• Hosted Web Conferencing ($2.2B) round out the Top 5 categories

Cisco continues to dominate worldwide in Enterprise Voice, Telepresence, and Web Conferencing. For Contact Center, Cisco has given up some market share while Avaya grew market share. However, collectively across Enterprise Voice, Telepresence, Web Conferencing, and Contact Center, Avaya continues to lose market share. Interesting to note that when Microsoft added MSFT Lync for IM and presence, they actually captured some market share.

Three Biggest Misconceptions About Cisco/WebEx

The web conferencing industry has been around a long time, starting in the late 1990's with the likes of Starlight Networks, Groupware by Lotus Notes and Placeware which was later bought by Microsoft in 2003. Having been in the web conferencing industry since 2004, I've heard a ton of misconceptions about WebEx.

Here are the three most common misconceptions I have heard about WebEx over the past 10 years:

1. All web conferencing solutions are equal.

2. WebEx is the most expensive web conferencing solution.

3. WebEx is the global market leader because it was first to market.

Misconception #1: All Web Conferencing Solutions are Equal:

No other web conferencing solution comes close to Cisco/WebEx:    

• 50% global market share in web conferencing
• 95% of the Fortune 500 are using Cisco Collaboration
• 200,000 Cisco Collaboration customers worldwide
• Over 450,000 WebEx meetings per day across 231 different countries
• Over 2.6 billion meeting minutes per month which equates to almost 5,000 years worth of 24/7/365 meetings collapsed into one month
• 46 million WebEx attendees per month
• Over 5.5 million WebEx mobile app downloads
• World class security and over a $500M cloud infrastructure investment
• Safe Harbor Certification
• SSAE 16 Certification
• ISO 27001/2 Certification
• End-to-End (E2E) encryption with AES, 256-bit key
• 100% enterprise-ready collaboration platform
• Suite of enterprise collaboration solutions: Meeting Center, Training Center, Event Center, Support Center, Cisco Jabber, WebEx Cloud Connected Audio, Collaboration Meeting Rooms
• Integrates with Cisco UC infrastructure: voice, video, IM/presence
• Integrates with 3rd party standards-based video endpoints. Read more about Cisco/WebEx Collaboration Meeting Rooms

Misconception #2: WebEx is the Most Expensive Web Conferencing Solution:

WebEx Meeting Center:

• $24 per month or $19 per month on an annual plan (Supports 8 people per meeting)
• $49 per month or $39 per month on an annual plan (Supports 25 people per meeting)
• $89 per month or $69 per month on an annual plan (Supports 100 people per meeting)
• Meeting Center includes video conferencing, application sharing, VoIP, markup tools, whiteboard, record and playback, mobile meetings, Outlook integration, cross-platform support, world class Cisco security and reliability
• WEAKNESS: WebEx is part of a much larger company, Cisco, which means innovation, strategic vision and execution, and technology priorities could take a back seat to the core business. 

Citrix GoToMeeting:

• Pro: $49 per month or $39 per month on an annual plan (Supports up to 25 attendees)
• Pro Plus: $69 per month or $56 per month on an annual plan (Supports up to 100 attendees)
• GoToMeeting includes video conferencing, desktop and application sharing, integrated phone and VoIP, mobile apps
• WEAKNESS: Limited integration with Unified Communication clients like Microsoft Lync and IBM Sametime. Challenges in penetrating enterprise IT departments that have higher expectations and complex requirements. GoToMeeting is part of a much larger company, Citrix Systems, which means innovation, strategic vision and execution, and technology priorities could take a back seat to the core business. 

Adobe Connect Pro: 

• $45 per month or $35 per month on an annual plan (Supports 25 people per meeting)
• $55 per month, no commitment, cancel anytime
• Adobe Connect Pro includes video conferencing, application sharing, mobility, VoIP
• WEAKNESS: Adobe Connect Pro is part of a much larger company, Adobe, which means innovation, strategic vision and execution, and technology priorities could take a back seat to the core business. Customer support for Adobe Connect Pro is also below average with customer support reps asking "Can you tell me what the product serial number on your CD is?"

As mentioned earlier, WebEx has a full web conferencing solution called Enterprise Edition which includes Meeting Center, Training Center, Event Center and Support Center. WebEx Enterprise Edition is highly differentiated and the most popular WebEx solution deployed across a company at a enterprise-wide level.

Misconception #3: WebEx is the Global Market Leader because it was First to Market:

WebEx was NOT first to market in web conferencing.

In 1999, Placeware was the market leader with a 45% market share and approximately $4.2M in revenue. Evoke and WebEx were up and coming companies but were not considered market leaders. Within a year, WebEx surpassed Placeware and became the #1 web conferencing solution. In 2003, Microsoft acquired Placeware and then rebranded the product to Microsoft Live Meeting. Today, Microsoft has about a 10% market share in web conferencing.

1999, was a pivotal year for web conferencing as that's the year when many players entered the market:

ExpertCity entered the market in 1999 and was later acquired by Citrix Systems in Dec 2003. Products included GoToMyPC, GoToAssist and GoToMeeting. Today, Citrix GoToMeeting has about a 20% market share in web conferencing.

Adobe Connect, originally known as Presedia Breeze in 1999 was acquired by Macromedia in 2003. Macromedia Breeze remained in the market until it was acquired by Adobe in 2006. Presedia was founded in 1999 in Sunnyvale, CA. Today, Adobe Connect has about a 5% market share in web conferencing.

Intercall, which resells a variety of different web conferencing solutions, including WebEx, Adobe Connect, and Microsoft, also has about a 5% market share in web conferencing.

2014 Web Conferencing Market Share (Synergy Research):

• Cisco/WebEx: 50%
• Citrix GoToMeeting: 20%
• Microsoft: 10%
• Adobe Connect: 5%
• Intercall: 5%

 

IDC MarketScape Positions Leaders, Major Players and Newer Entrants in the Worldwide Enterprise Videoconferencing Equipment Market for 2014

International Data Corporation (IDC) has published its 2014 analysis of the worldwide enterprise videoconferencing equipment vendors. The IDC MarketScape report utilizes a rigorous scoring methodology that produces a graphical assessment of each vendor’s current market capabilities and strategies for competing in the future. IDC ranked two vendors – Cisco and Polycom – in the “Leaders” category for 2014, with four others recognized as “Major Players”, including Avaya, Huawei, Lifesize and Vidyo. The “Contenders” category features newer video equipment market entrants, such as Acano, Google, Magor, Pexip, and StarLeaf.

“The worldwide enterprise videoconferencing equipment market has been experiencing some downs lately – with consecutive quarters and two years of declining revenue growth in 2012 and 2013. This is mostly attributed to the impact of delayed customer buying decisions, lower-cost systems, more software-centric solutions, and the rise of cloud-based video services offerings for business,” said Rich Costello, Senior Research Analyst, Enterprise Communications Infrastructure at IDC. “But most or all of the videoconferencing equipment vendors are now offering cloud-based video alternatives for customers, in addition to their own lower cost, premises-based systems. We are also seeing the increasing uptake of video collaboration by small workgroup, desktop and mobile users; new video deployment options expanding the market to mid-size and small companies; more B2B and B2C video use; and interest in browser-based video collaboration.”

The study, IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Enterprise Videoconferencing Equipment 2014 Vendor Analysis (IDC #249953), discusses both quantitative and qualitative characteristics that explain a vendor’s success in the marketplace and helps anticipate vendor ascendancy. This IDC MarketScape examines key criteria that contribute to a successful enterprise videoconferencing solution, such as vendors who can clearly demonstrate a robust product portfolio, including the ability to support a range of HD video endpoints and clients in collaborative applications that can help transform how organizations conduct business today.

Covering a variety of vendors participating in the enterprise videoconferencing equipment market, this evaluation is based on a comprehensive framework and set of parameters that assess vendors relative to one another and to those factors expected to be most conducive to success in this market, for both the short and the long term. There are a total of 11 vendors included in this analysis.

Organizations considering deploying videoconferencing solutions need to take more of a strategic look at how implementing this technology will impact the current networking infrastructure, as well as how well it can integrate with their environment and business-critical applications now and in the future. “IDC MarketScape Leaders and Major Players are well positioned to meet the needs of enterprise users in both the near and long-term, while the Contenders bring new choices, strategies, and agilities to the market,” Costello said.

About IDC MarketScape

IDC MarketScape vendor analysis model is designed to provide an overview of the competitive fitness of ICT (information and communications technology) suppliers in a given market. The research methodology utilizes a rigorous scoring methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria that results in a single graphical illustration of each vendor’s position within a given market. IDC MarketScape provides a clear framework in which the product and service offerings, capabilities and strategies, and current and future market success factors of IT and telecommunications vendors can be meaningfully compared. The framework also provides technology buyers with a 360-degree assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current and prospective vendors.

For more information about IDC MarketScape, please contact Karen Moser at [email protected].

Apple Invents Multi-Participant Video Conferencing Architecture

On February 20, 2014, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals a new architecture relating to Multi-Participant Conference Setup. The sophistication of Apple's architecture as noted in their patent pending invention, could suggest that Apple is contemplating a FaceTime Pro version of their application for the enterprise that might one day compete with the likes of Cisco's WebEx. Apple's push for iWork on iCloud would definitely make future video conferencing at the enterprise level in the future much easier for sharing documents in real-time. This is definitely a future service to watch for down the road.

Apple's Patent Background

In recent years, users of local and wide area networks (e.g., the Internet) have upgraded to increasingly higher bandwidth connections. The common user also has access to greater computer hardware processing power. At the same time, the coders and decoders (codecs) for video transmission over a network connection have seen improvements such that an individual user has the capability to stream and receive real-time video over the Internet with off-the-shelf components. All this has allowed individual users to begin chatting, sharing, and videoconferencing with point-to-point technologies on their computers.

However, bandwidth remains a constrained resource that must be shared over many users. Likewise, processing power is typically shared by the operating system and several applications in a typical user's computer hardware. These factors have been barriers to the use of personal computers in establishing a conference with more than two participants. Such a conference will be referenced below as a multi-participant conference.

Several approaches are possible for multi-participant conferencing. One such approach is the full-mesh topology, which is the extension of two-participant point-to-point methods to multi-participant conferencing. Under the full-mesh topology, each participant sends all of its audio and/or video (A/V) data to all other participants in the multi-participant conference. However, the full mesh topology requires a high amount of processing power and broad bandwidth at and between each participant of the multi-participant conference. Even with just a few participants, the full-mesh topology quickly becomes untenable because each participant and each network connection is responsible for sending and receiving a burdensome amount of data. Moreover, the weakest connection or hardware point determines the maximum capability of a conference for all participants in the full-mesh topology.

The star topology is another possible approach for multi-participant conferencing. In prior art this approach uses a central server to receive data from all participants in the conference and send all that data back out to each participant. The required server needs high bandwidth and processing power. The server requirements scale with the number of conferences to be hosted, making this approach unusable for wide scale deployment.

Thus, there is a need in the art for a better architecture for multi-participant conferencing. Ideally, such an architecture would allow the participants to use off-the-shelf computers and typically available bandwidth and not require the deployment of dedicated servers.

Apple's Solution

Apple's invention generally relates to an architecture for establishing a multi-participant conference. This architecture has one participant's computer in the conference act as a central content distributor for the conference. The central distributor receives data (e.g., video and/or audio streams) from the computer of each other participant, and distributes the received data to the computers of all participants.

In some embodiments, the central distributor receives A/V data from the computers of the other participants. From such received data, the central distributor of some embodiments generates composite data (e.g., composite image data and/or composite audio data) that the central distributor distributes back to the participants.

The central distributor in some embodiments can implement a heterogeneous audio/video conference. In such a conference, different participants can participate in the conference differently. For instance, different participants might use different audio or video codecs. Moreover, in some embodiments, one participant might participate in only the audio aspect of the conference, while another participant might participate in both audio and video aspects of the conference.

Subject Matter Found in Apple's Patent Filing

For those in IT that are interested in Video Conferencing, Apple's patent filing provides you with a number of focused sub-chapters as follows:

Focus Point Architecture; Setting up a Conference; Setting up a Multi-Participant Conference; Invitation and Acceptance; Overview of Switching from a Two-Participant Conference to a Multi-Participant Conference; Participant Computer after Acceptance; In-Call Adjustments due to Actual Available Bandwidth and Loss/Delay; In-Call Loss Detection; Examples of What to do about Loss, Four Cases; An Example of the Three Bandwidth Adjustments for a Conference; SIP Messaging and Encryption; Operation: Example of Focus-Point Video Conference; Focus-Point Module's Video Codec Section; Non-Focus Point Module's Video Codec Section; Focus-Point Module's Audio Codec Section; Non Focus Point Module's Audio Codec Section; and finally, Heterogeneous Multi-Participant Video Conference.

Frost & Sullivan: Embedding Video Conferencing in Workflows Essential for Optimal Returns on Investment

LONDON, July 10, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Conferencing and collaboration solutions surrounding video conferencing and unified communications (UC) have been in the spotlight for a while now. Although the market excitement is not reflected in the deployment figures, the technology has lived up to its billing in a different way. VC has helped slash costs significantly and now, the market is seeing strong demand for a variety of endpoints and hosting services.

"While the primary reasons for deploying video conferencing are eliminating travel expenses and facilitating meetings with remote participants, its full benefits will be apparent only when it is embedded in everyday work practices," noted Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst, ICT, Mark Hickey. "The regular use of video conferencing facilitates productivity gains through enhanced user participation, the inclusion of visual components like document and multimedia sharing and enabling specialist use cases like medical examinations."

Video conferencing is more conducive to collaborative work than simple audio conferencing. For instance, it is easy to become a distracted listener on a conference call since body language is irrelevant. Virtual presence, however, keeps one alert.

Further, the ability to share and annotate a document during a video conferencing session, rather than after, streamlines the workflow and keeps everyone on the same page. The solution also allows users to store documents in the same accessible place, such as a cloud, thereby pre-empting the need to exchange several versions of the same document or work off different sheets.

As the number of remote workers and the amount of business being performed on mobile devices is increasing, conferencing will be vital to companies' operations, as it can help expand the number of tasks that can be performed out of the office. Document annotation, multi-party conferencing, and business to business or business to customer conferencing make it possible for workers to closely match their out-of-office productivity with in-office productivity.  Facilitating conferencing on mobile devices also reduces the need for office space, helping companies save on expensive real estate.

"Despite its many advantages, users have valid concerns about video conferencing security and interoperability, especially as the bring your own device (BYOD) trend adds to the number of devices that systems must sync with. To assuage these fears, system vendors are creating interoperable solutions and software vendors are offering UC platforms that connect different systems, such as Microsoft Lync 2013," observed Hickey. "Many solutions also work with free services such as Skype, offering breadth of scope to companies looking to connect with those that do not have enterprise-ready solutions."

However, high-grade bandwidth as a pre-requisite for investment will continue to be a restraint for the video conferencing market because infrastructure and network design affect video quality. As a result, remote locations – the very places where video conferencing could provide the greatest benefits – still remain underserved.

Companies with disparate operations and headquarters, such as the oil and mining sectors, are the ones that can make the most of video or UC solutions, but their investment decision will largely be based on infrastructure quality. As such, the roll out of high-quality infrastructure in rural and remote locations is of increasing importance to video conferencing providers that wish to break out of the boundaries of the dense urban markets.

"For now, cloud computing offers flexibility and increased productivity gains by combining video with file sharing as part of a UC solution," concluded Hickey. "Although it will be a while before video becomes as easy to use as a phone, the lower costs and increased functionality of video as part of UC solutions will boost adoption rates in 2013."

WebEx and Telepresence: Better Togther

Great video that summarizes the marriage netween the world's #1 web conferencing solution with the world's #1 businessvideo/telepresence solution.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=15iz-f8OIv8