Do we need yet another communications platform in the seemingly crowded Enterprise Communications space? Microsoft has not only answered this question with a resounding YES but they have rapidly become a leader in the Enterprise Unified Communications (UC) space according to Gartner. Analysts cite Microsoft as a leader in the Unified Communications space, along with Cisco and Avaya. Among the key strengths identified by Gartner’s study are adoption rates for enterprises ranging from small to large organizations, integration with Skype, and integration with enterprise business processes and applications.
Microsoft Teams provides many key benefits as a UC platform that includes IM, Presence, Conferencing, Integration, etc… and enterprises are taking notice of Microsoft’s platform benefits.
Key statistics are noted as follows:
- Enterprise Adoption Rate grows, more than doubling year over year.
- Top two key drivers behind rise in adoption rates are 53.3% of Enterprises citing integration with Microsoft Applications and 33% of Enterprises citing ease in integrating licensing costs.
While the benefits exist for Teams adoption and as the newest leader in Unified Communications, enterprises that have existing competitive solutions in-place such as Cisco, Avaya, or legacy Nortel are choosing to employ an augment versus replace transition strategy for features such as instant messaging, presence, conferencing, etc…
Teams does provide many key benefits to organizations; however augmentation of features to existing communications platforms will inherently indicate a multi-vendor architecture to ensure seamless end-to-end communications. Teams is clearly gaining traction within the industry and as Microsoft further strengthens integration and continues the evolution of mobility enhancements, we will continue to see an increase of Teams adoption within the market.
However, a multi-vendor approach to Unified Communications will require monitoring and management strategies to provide seamless visibility over the disparate networks. Tone Software announced that ReliaTel provides Microsoft Unified Communications monitoring and management along with a vast portfolio of multi-vendor service assurance capabilities. As we continue to see Microsoft evolve within the industry, we can anticipate interoperability will continue to drive client adoption and Tone Software will similarly adapt monitoring and management solutions to provide the industry with leading UC&C service assurance technologies.