Gartner UCaaS Magic Quadrant 2023: Teams Keeps Its Crown – UC Today

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.

Strengths 

Gartner’s positioning of Microsoft reaffirms Teams as the leading choice, particularly for organizations already leveraging Teams for messaging and meetings. The platform’s telephony capabilities have garnered widespread approval, aligning with evolving user preferences that prioritize collaboration over traditional telephony. Microsoft’s commitment to enhancing telecom partner relations is evident in the growing adoption of Operator Connect services, with approximately 70 telecom operators now integrated, spanning diverse global regions.

Over the past year, Microsoft’s strategic moves have sparked increased interest, particularly among Small and Medium-sized Businesses (SMBs). The company expanded its calling plans to cover 35 countries, extending its reach and accessibility. Notably, Microsoft responded to market demands by introducing pay-as-you-go calling plans, a feature highly sought after by organizations with minimal PSTN outbound call volumes.

Caution 

The introduction of Teams Phone Mobile, pay-as-you-go calling plans, and the Operator Connect program for PSTN connectivity has introduced uncertainty among organizations regarding the most suitable PSTN connectivity option for their needs. Gartner clients often express confusion about the Operator Connect offering and its distinctions from Direct Routing or Microsoft Calling Plans, highlighting the need for clearer communication and understanding in this evolving landscape.

For organizations with advanced telephony requirements, Microsoft Teams Phone still reveals certain gaps. While it serves basic needs well, organizations with advanced telephony use cases often resort to third-party telephony solutions for features like multiline hunt group capabilities, attendant consoles, advanced call queuing, interactive voice response, and advanced call recording.

Gartner clients also report uncertainty in the realm of call center options within Microsoft Teams Phone. The introduction of Dynamics 365 with a first-party voice channel contact center offering, followed by the Microsoft Digital Contact Center Platform integrating Dynamics 365, Teams, and Nuance, has caused confusion. Notably, Microsoft has yet to provide a self-developed Microsoft Teams call center option, indicating a lack of internal coordination across different product teams.

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.

Strengths 

RingCentral continues to invest heavily in third-party application integration, facilitating the delivery of advanced features through no-code, low-code, and pro-code solutions. This approach resonates particularly well with UCaaS buyers who prioritize customization and programmability in their communication solutions. By focusing on flexibility and adaptability, RingCentral caters to the diverse needs of organizations seeking tailored communication solutions.

The introduction of RingCentral’s natively developed RingCX contact center solution marks a strategic move to address the evolving landscape of business requirements. This development allows RingCentral to meet the demand for consolidated UCaaS/CCaaS services, aligning with the preferences of UCaaS buyers who seek integrated solutions from a single provider. RingCentral’s service delivery boasts an impressive track record with 19 consecutive quarters of uptime as of the latest evaluation and an availability SLA target of 99.999%.

Caution 

RingCentral’s primary market differentiator lies in telephony, a facet of customer communications that currently holds less sway in decision-making. The company’s strategic move to reposition its Microsoft Teams integration, emphasizing telephony-only integration over its broader UCaaS capabilities, presents a potential future entry point for customers into RingCentral’s UCaaS suite. However, this shift poses an additional challenge as it necessitates convincing customers to adopt the full collaboration value proposition rather than focusing solely on telephony, reflecting the evolving dynamics of customer preferences in the UCaaS market.

Despite RingCentral’s efforts, its self-developed RingCentral Video solution lags behind competitors in various aspects, including brand recognition, user familiarity, support for large groups, and advanced capabilities such as 1080p full HD video, polling, and industry-specific features. RingCentral’s investments with legacy UC technology partners, such as Avaya, Atos/Unify, and Alcatel-Lucent, have not yielded the forecasted customer growth. The relationships may no longer be exclusive, suggesting the need for strategic reassessment and potentially seeking new avenues for customer acquisition.

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.

Strengths 

Zoom has exhibited remarkable growth over 12 months, boasting a 90% expansion that surpasses the performance of most of its competitors. Notably, Zoom achieved a higher influx of UCaaS users, including telephony users, in the past year than in any previous year, underlining its robust market presence.

Zoom’s strategic investments in Zoom Contact Center, identified as one of the highest-priority areas for new features on its roadmap, have yielded substantial advancements in functionality. Gartner’s observation of significant adoption of Zoom Contact Center over the past year suggests a positive market response, with expectations for Zoom to further enhance its capabilities in the coming 12-18 months. Additionally, Zoom stands out among UCaaS vendors for its deep integration of AI into its offering over the past year.

Caution 

Zoom underwent a workforce reduction of 15% in the past year, raising concerns among Gartner clients. While Gartner does not view this action as a significant indicator of business risk, occasional monitoring is recommended to ensure the continued health of Zoom’s business operations.

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.

Strengths

Cisco holds a unique position as the sole vendor classified as a Leader by Gartner that can provide a comprehensive, self-developed UC portfolio. This holistic approach positions Cisco as a one-stop solution provider for organizations seeking a unified and seamlessly integrated communication and collaboration environment.

With a longstanding history as a UC/UCaaS vendor, Cisco boasts deep expertise and significant investments in security, regulatory compliance, and industry-specific capabilities and certifications. Particularly notable is Cisco Webex’s ability to cater to organizations in highly regulated industries, including healthcare, financial services, public sector, government, and public utilities, irrespective of the regulatory requirements originating from the U.S., U.K., Europe, or Asia. Cisco’s recent investments in Webex Control Hub further enhance its competitive edge, introducing features like localizations for numerous countries, a global partner ecosystem, flexible configuration options combining cloud services with on-premises infrastructure (suited for less-developed regions or countries with stringent telecommunications regulations), and robust survivability capabilities.

Caution 

Gartner client perception indicates that Webex’s offering is perceived as more expensive compared to its competitors, even when considering other vendors classified as Leaders in the Magic Quadrant. In response to this feedback, Cisco introduced a more competitively priced suite offer in 2021, encompassing eight different workloads, including AI. However, recent Gartner client feedback suggests that despite this adjustment, competitor pricing is still perceived as more aggressive in the market.

For organizations in need of a unified communications solution tightly integrated with a small or midsize contact center (up to 250 agents), Webex Contact Center presents an effective option. However, for larger enterprises seeking expansive, high-volume contact center solutions with over 1,000 agents, the preference still leans towards leading stand-alone contact center providers. Notably, organizations that are already Cisco customers using Unified Communications Manager (UCM) often opt for collaboration capabilities from competing UCaaS providers. In cases where organizations prioritize cloud telephony and choose to allocate their collaboration business to competing UCaaS vendors, the appeal of the full Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) Webex offering becomes less compelling.

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.

Strengths 

8×8 remains a strong choice for organizations seeking bundled UCaaS and CCaaS solutions, particularly those with less advanced contact center requirements, typically having fewer than 300 contact center agents. With PSTN replacement available in 58 countries worldwide, 8×8 stands out among vendors offering native calling plans extensively across global regions, including China, a recent addition that expands its global reach.

In the realm of organizations that have already adopted Microsoft Teams for messaging and meetings but require advanced telephony features, 8×8 is well-positioned to deliver both UCaaS and CCaaS solutions. Notably, 8×8 distinguishes itself as one of the few UCaaS vendors offering a natively integrated Microsoft Teams contact center solution, catering to the evolving needs of businesses integrating Teams into their communication workflows.

Caution

8×8 customers, as reflected in Gartner Peer Insights reviews, have highlighted challenges in accessing timely customer service and support, along with mixed satisfaction regarding the intuitiveness of 8×8’s admin portal during deployment. These aspects indicate areas for improvement in ensuring a smoother and more user-friendly experience for customers, emphasizing the importance of addressing these concerns to enhance overall customer satisfaction.

In the past 12 months, 8×8 has made significant strides in enhancing its capabilities to support midsize and larger contact centres, catering to up to 300 agents. The introduction of native workforce management, quality management, and speech and text analytics services showcases a commitment to meeting the evolving needs of businesses with advanced customer service requirements.

Additionally, the change in status of Sylebra Capital, a significant owner of 8×8, to “Active Investor” in 2023 introduces a potential factor that may influence the company’s long-term direction, emphasizing the importance for existing customers and potential buyers to regularly monitor 8×8’s product roadmap for any consequential updates.

UCaaS Challengers 

Google

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.

Strengths

Google seamlessly incorporates UCaaS features like Gmail, Google Drive, and Docs into its Workspace, enhancing user experience. This integration empowers users to access unified communication services within familiar Google applications, driving positive feedback from Gartner clients. Organizations utilising Google Workspace can enjoy a cost advantage, as many UC capabilities are included in their entitlements.

Gartner’s “Strong Positive” rating for Google’s financial health indicates a robust foundation for sustained innovation and competitiveness in the UCaaS market.

Cautions

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.

Strengths

Cautions

Dialpad faces challenges in visibility and brand recognition compared to top UCaaS providers, resulting in lower consideration among IT planners. Though well-suited for most business users, meeting functionality falls short in areas such as virtual assistants, survey/polling, live translation, and full HD video resolution (currently capped at 720p). Dialpad, while capable of supporting enterprise customers, lacks expertise in servicing very large multinational organizations (over 5,000 users).

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.

Strengths

GoTo’s UCaaS services provide user-friendly interfaces within a unified desktop and mobile solution. The bundled GoTo Connect and Customer Engagement offerings cater well to resource-constrained small organizations, especially those integrating crowdsourced customer service elements.

GoTo excels in the automotive and education sectors, boasting deep industry integrations and alignment with communication processes. Gartner Peer Insights reflect positive feedback on onboarding and installation, primarily through self-serve channels, with professional services offering dedicated support when needed.

Cautions

GoTo Connect faces limitations for large organizations, lacking certain capabilities. Its full PSTN replacement is confined to 14 countries, potentially restricting multinational adoption. Meeting support is capped at 250 participants, with GoTo Webinar supporting up to 3,000. While suitable for midmarket organizations, over 90 percent of GoTo’s UCaaS customers are small organizations (under 100 users). Reviews of its mobile app vary, with some Gartner clients reporting an inconsistent user experience.

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.

Strengths

Cautions

Ericsson’s acquisition of Vonage may shift focus away from UCaaS, according to Gartner, as the Vonage acquisition exhibits growth in CPaaS services integrated into Ericsson’s 5G infrastructure. While Ericsson aims to empower Telcos and CSPs with UCaaS, market consolidation could alter priorities. Vonage Meetings falls short for advanced use cases, supporting a maximum of 200 participants without native support for transcription, language translation, large events, polling, or room integrations.

Vonage’s year-over-year growth remains stagnant compared to leading UCaaS providers, facing challenges in expanding adoption and brand awareness globally, with reported support difficulties outside of North America by some Vonage Business Cloud (VBC) customers.

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.

Strengths

Sangoma’s UCaaS offering stands out with competitive pricing and a new bundling strategy encompassing various services, including contact centre solutions. Differentiating itself, Sangoma provides a complete UCaaS solution combining cloud services with essential hardware like desk phones and headsets. Additionally, the integration of CPaaS capabilities enhances organizational operations, customer satisfaction, safety, and other CPaaS benefits seamlessly within Sangoma’s UCaaS offering.

Cautions

Sangoma has experienced executive leadership changes in 2023, introducing uncertainty regarding its business priorities, strategy, and roadmap. Existing customers are advised to closely monitor service levels, account management, and support responsiveness for potential issues. While Sangoma’s UC offering covers foundational components like message, meet, call, and contact centre, it excels primarily in telephony.

However, collaboration features, especially in meetings and messaging, receive mixed feedback compared to leading UCaaS competitors. Sangoma faces low brand recognition among Gartner clients, which, amid market consolidation, poses potential business challenges as better-established brands gain increased adoption at the expense of lesser-known competitors.

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.

Strengths

Wildix boasts a robust user base, particularly in Europe, where 70 percent of its customers are located, with the remaining 30 percent spread across other regions, including North America. Its integration with Microsoft Teams and improvements in IM presence updates make it a favourable choice for SMBs seeking Teams-integrated UCaaS solutions. Wildix enhances call and meeting analysis through semantic analysis of telephony and meetings recordings, providing an enriched user experience.

Cautions

Despite boasting a user base larger than some rivals, Wildix faces the challenge of having the lowest revenue among surveyed vendors, potentially giving pause to UCaaS buyers. Its core differentiation lies in a web-based approach tailored for sales and support roles, contrasting with competitors addressing the broader communication needs of entire organizations. However, this unique focus limits Wildix’s reach in the wider UCaaS market, and it lacks market brand awareness among Gartner clients seeking UCaaS solutions.

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