Gartner has released its UCaaS Magic Quadrant 2023, which displays the UCaaS market leaders.
Vendors from across the UC industry seek a coveted top right-hand corner position of its “magic quadrant”; those leaders whose products and services make it an excellent option for potential customers.
Gartner also lists notable challengers for the leaders’ thrones, as well as those vendors who can be considered niche players and visionaries.
Changes from MQ 2022
As with last year’s Gartner report, most of the UCaaS providers and their positions are largely unchanged.
Again, Microsoft leads the way with its colossal Teams offering, followed by RingCentral, Zoom and Cisco respectively — identical to their positions for 2022. As with last year, too, 8×8 takes fifth place.
One of the two most notable changes from last year has been GoTo falling out of the “Challengers” quadrant, and dropping into the “Niche players” quadrant.
The other is that Windstream no longer features at all on the Gartner quadrant, having been removed from the niche players section.
Elsewhere, Google is considered by Gartner to be the only challenger now GoTo has dropped down, while Dialpad, who entered into the quadrant’s consideration last year, also preserves its place as the only “Visionary”.
Sangoma, Vonage and Wildix all keep their places as niche players.
UCaaS Leaders
- Microsoft
- RingCentral
- Zoom
- Cisco
- 8×8
Microsoft
It’s been another seismic year for Microsoft, which retains its leader crown. Microsoft Teams, its comprehensive solution encompassing telephony, messaging, and meetings, operates globally, serving businesses of all sizes and industries. Recent updates include pay-as-you-go calling plans for minimal external calling needs, the introduction of Teams Phone Mobile, and survivability tweaks allowing both internal and external calling.
Notable features include busy-on-busy support, music-on-hold for transfer scenarios, and federated group calling for federated tenants. The launch of Teams Premium earlier this year, with advanced features available as separate add-ons, positions Teams as a versatile choice for organizations desiring intelligent collaboration and advanced workplace experiences, refining its appeal across global business landscapes.
RingCentral
RingCentral keeps the silver medal as a leader, offering the RingCentral MVP platform featuring telephony, messaging, meetings, and contact centre capabilities. Tailored for customers of all sizes, RingCentral’s remit extends across North America, Europe, and Asia.
Recent enhancements illustrate RingCentral’s commitment to innovation, including RingSense AI for conversational summarization, speaker identification, and interaction analytics. The introduction of the RingCX contact centre, CRM integrations with Salesforce and Zendesk, SMS integration with RingCentral numbers, RingCentral Automator for business workflows, and RingCentral for frontline workers highlights the platform’s adaptability and varied capabilities, strengthening its leadership position in the UC space.
Zoom
Zoom keeps its place on the podium this year, with a third-place finish in the eyes of Gartner. The vendor provides a comprehensive suite including telephony, meetings, messaging, and contact centre functionalities. Operating globally, Zoom caters to organizations of all sizes, though possessing particular strength among large multinationals.
Recent advancements highlight Zoom’s commitment to innovation, such as the Zoom Intelligent Director for optimal camera framing, enhancements to Zoom Contact Center, support for Apple CarPlay in Zoom Meetings, survivability enhancements and telephony delegation in Zoom Phone, and improved features in Team Chat, including folders, filters, and bookmarks. The recent releases of Zoom Mail, Zoom Calendar, and Zoom Scheduler further underline Zoom’s status as a versatile UCaaS leader.
Cisco
Cisco remains a Leader in the quadrant thanks to its comprehensive Webex suite, which offers a thorough portfolio of services, including telephony, messaging, collaboration, meetings, and contact centre functionalities. Leveraging an impressive network of global partners, from MSPs and SIs to telecom operators, Cisco illustrates a robust collaborative ecosystem.
Recent enhancements showcase Cisco’s commitment to evolving technologies. These encompass Voice Queues integrated into Webex Calling, fortified survivability for Webex Calling Dedicated Instance, Thousand Eyes performance monitoring via Webex Control Hub, and Control Hub as a Coach for actionable admin insights.
AI has become critical to Cisco’s UC portfolio, spanning Meetings, Contact Center, and Admin Portal, while the addition of Webex Go, a mobile solution seamlessly integrated with carriers, strengthens Cisco’s focus on innovation and scalability. Gartner says that this positions Webex UCaaS as an ideal choice for organizations of varied sizes, particularly catering to the needs of midsize and large enterprises.
8×8
8×8 lands a fifth-placed finish, with the core of its offerings being the 8×8 XCaaS suite. This encompasses the 8×8 Work for telephony, meetings, and team messaging, a robust contact centre, and business-integrated analytics. Notably, its clientele spans diverse sectors, with a key focus on midmarket entities in North America and the UK.
The company’s latest enhancements illustrate 8×8’s commitment to innovation, including precise telephony SPAM blocking, Sales Workspace for streamlined CRM integration, a dedicated Phone app for Microsoft Teams, expanded global calling capabilities, and user-friendly Mobile Admin app. These innovations, complementing features like live meeting transcription and Salesforce integration, reaffirm 8×8’s position as a comprehensive and forward-thinking provider in the market.
UCaaS Challengers
Google is the sole challenger for this year’s quadrant. Google’s UCaaS offering, comprising Google Meet, Google Chat, and Google Voice, caters to a diverse range of clients, primarily midsize organizations in high-tech, academia, public sector, and nonprofit sectors.
Gartner notes Google’s latest enhancements as demonstrating its commitment to user experience, with CPU-intensive functions migrating to the cloud for PC load reduction. Notably, Google Voice now supports “bring your own carrier” PSTN connectivity through “SIP Link,” and Google Chat spaces see an increased user limit of 8,000. Gartner states that these updates strengthen Google’s position as an innovative player in the UCaaS space, addressing technical and collaborative needs for its varied customer base.
Visionaries
Dialpad
Dialpad’s position as a visionary is justified by its comprehensive suite, which integrates telephony, meetings, messaging, contact centre, and sales capabilities. Primarily active in North America and Asia, its clientele spans diverse market segments.
Recent improvements include AI Recap for meeting summaries, call summarization with transcripts, mobile device gallery view improvements, AI Scorecards for agent guidance, DialpadGPT for contact centre and sales, Coaching Hub tools for managerial intervention, AI CSAT for predictive customer service scores, and STIR/SHAKEN telephony attestation.
According to Gartner, Dialpad’s expansion to China and seamless mobile network handoff illustrate the vendor’s commitment to innovation and global reach, underlining its status as a forward-thinking solution provider.
Niche Players
- GoTo
- Vonage
- Sangoma
- Wildix
GoTo
GoTo has dropped down to being the leading niche player in the market, according to Gartner. GoTo Connect, offering telephony, meeting, messaging, and contact centre capabilities, targets small to midsize businesses primarily in North America and Latin America. Recent upgrades highlight GoTo’s focus on improving customer engagement with centralized communication capabilities across various channels.
The addition of call analytic enhancements offers critical insights into voice communications while meeting integrations with Miro Whiteboard and Google Workspace boost collaboration. The addition of a new softphone with deeper customisation and flexible features aligns with GoTo’s focus on user-centric solutions. These improvements ensure GoTo Connect is a reliable choice for businesses seeking streamlined and personalisable comms solutions in the North and Latin American markets.
Vonage
Vonage retains its niche player status for this year’s quadrant. It offers Vonage Business Communications (VBC), featuring telephony, SMS, messaging, and meetings. VBC integrates with Vonage’s CPaaS and CCaaS, building the Vonage Communications Platform. While primarily targeting the midmarket, VBC also complements larger enterprises. Vonage has over 90 percent of its users in North America and an expanding footprint in Europe, but its presence in Latin America and APAC remains limited.
Recent Vonage enhancements include VBC for Microsoft Teams, robust Robocall Mitigation with visual caller verification, and significant improvements in Vonage Meetings, such as features like virtual backgrounds, whiteboarding, and waiting room support. These updates affirm Vonage’s position as a niche player, according to Gartner, catering to specific market segments with a thorough suite of communication solutions and continuous innovation.
Sangoma
Sangoma also preserves its status as a niche player and distinguishes itself with the Business Voice platform supporting a spectrum of services: telephony, meetings, messaging, contact centre, SD-WAN, desktop as a service, and CPaaS. With over 90 percent of its UCaaS users located in the US and Canada, Sangoma excels in serving midmarket businesses, particularly retail companies wanting their UCaaS products bundled with contact centre and CPaaS.
Beyond communication services, Sangoma extends its offerings to include managed IT services, 5G, VPN, and data networking. Recent enhancements include the launch of Sangoma Suite for discounted bundled licensing, the addition of web chat to the Sangoma CX contact centre, and an increased participant limit of 250 in Sangoma Meet. These updates capture Sangoma’s status as a niche provider catering to specific market needs with a thorough portfolio of communication and IT solutions.
Wildix
Wildix also keeps its position as a niche player, according to Gartner. Positioned as a provider tailored for sales-focused organizations, Wildix specializes in telephony, meetings, and conferencing. The meeting products, Wizyconf and Wizyconf Conference Room, cater to effective collaboration, while Wildix Kite facilitates direct customer engagement through chat, audio, video, or screen sharing. Wizywebinar serves as Wildix’s webinar solution, and for SMBs with less than 50 users, Voxloud offers a basic telephony solution.
Recent enhancements showcase Wildix’s focus on user experience, featuring a self-service meeting scheduler, in-meeting chat, sentiment analysis for participants, automated captioning, and presence updates for mobile. Gartner says that these updates highlight Wildix’s focus on offering comprehensive and user-friendly comms solutions for organizations, particularly those with sales-centric priorities.
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