Vonage held their analyst and user group meeting this past week in San Francisco at the Four Seasons Hotel and made some moves that foreshadow what's to come. Beyond putting on a new brand look, one that is designed to move their business efforts more squarely into the enterprise market, they also are clearly breaking ranks from Broadsoft with the mention of Vonage Meetings.
Now, nothing that I've seen says this, but it's pretty clear when you read between the lines in the news release copy, where they stated, "Vonage is the only cloud communications company that can deliver a truly unified, end-to-end communication experience because it owns the entire stack."
Let's break that down as "owns the entire stack" is the key as Broadsoft licenses, it doesn't offer ownership.
- Vonage bought Nexmo-some of those API's, like those of Twilio, provide video communications capabilities
- Vonage acquired TokBox-WebRTC was at the core of TokBox. Add that to the Nexmo pieces and parts and you can make that claim.
Now, is the "only" claim, 100 percent true? I would say that 8×8 can also make that claim with some of their recent moves, like the Jitsi purchase, and the fact that 8×8 runs almost entirely on tech they have patented. But it doesn't really matter whose claim is bigger, as the unmentioned part of the story is how Vonage wants to be masters of their own destiny, and have been putting a team together NJ and Israel under their Chief Product Officer, Omar Javaid and Sagi Dudai, their Chief Technology Officer.
The feeling is now with Broadsoft owned by Cisco, and Cisco, that Cisco's own systems and services compete with Vonages in the channel. That was a driver to craft their own future, something I feel is a far better strategy than being dependent on Cisco/Broadsoft for next generation services today and in the future. This move also allows Vonage to look at various open source technologies (i.e. Kamailio, FreeSwitch/SignalWire) and be able to orchestrate and create the new solutions that meet their business customers changing needs. This is a very smart move, and basically follows the lead of others like 8×8, RingCentral, Dialpad, OnSip, and Telzio who all chose to never be tied to Broadsoft from the start.
It's actually a brilliant move, and one that really makes Vonage the master of their own destiny. Add to how they are looking to position away from their consumer business, something I think will get sold off at some point, and you have the makings of a company that clearly knows what it wants to be, and how it's going to get there.