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This New Year BroadSoft celebrates over 13 years of a singular focus developing the most advanced communications applications software for IP networks. As BroadSoft continues to develop and deploy a robust set of communication services, our community, and the market at large, prospers from the path of rapid growth and innovation. Stepping foot into another year of change and growth, we would like to share our view of five major changing market dynamics alongside our vision for BroadSoft in 2012.
- #1 – We will innovative and deliver solutions that leverage the growing abundance of mobile broadband.
Quality broadband is a key enabler for real time communication in the cloud. As we rapidly move from a world of scarce to abundant broadband, those in the market have the opportunity to build completely new value propositions surrounding visual communications and collaboration. While such movement will spur emerging industry players, BroadSoft will meet this challenge by continuing our innovative product development. In the New Year, BroadSoft Service providers customers will have the opportunity to leverage the explosive growth of 4G and LTE deployments to fundamentally change the way we communicate.
- #2 – We will introduce new, quick and easy to deploy, cloud services that deliver our unified communications solutions
Cloud services have evolved from simply placing enterprise applications in the cloud to true multi-tenant applications with open APIs. For instance, the highest levels of security and management have allowed enterprises to customize and integrate services into their operating environment. The growing adoption of cloud services by the enterprise has powered a growth in specialty cloud applications and a deprecation of cost in cloud deployments – two trends we expect to see continue through the New Year. BroadSoft has harnessed the power of the cloud to rapidly deploy and innovate our BroadCloud implementations. In 2012, BroadSoft Service providers will leverage value-added solutions resulting from BroadSoft’s continued investment in these applications and their open APIs, as well the integration of BroadSoft’s real time communications services into other applications.
- #3 – We will super-charge our go-to-market program
Go-to-market programs in 2012 will focus on the new end user – the end user who wants to decide how, when, and where to communicate. Individuals now expect a variety of optimized and integrated communications options, and they are focused on simplicity and efficiency. BroadSoft’s go-to-market program, along with continued innovation and offerings in UC services, will focus on how people desire to communicate. Whether the real-time services include new innovations in video calling, chat, collaboration and conferencing, as well as non-real-time services such as email and social networking, 2012 service providers will bring to market and package an optimal experience around the user who expects more than just voice.
- #4 – We will provide an industry leading consumer mobile solution that is scalable, reliable and is easy to operate
Some estimates assume that by 2020 there will be 50 billion connected devices. The proliferation of smart devices brings subsequent connections to our global networks and the utilization of operating systems with open application development environments, such as iOS and Android. In such an environment, we believe the most successful services, such as Apple iTunes, Blackberry email and the Skype service, combine an intuitive user experience with powerful cloud applications. BroadSoft Service provider customers in the New Year will capture the power and proliferation of these devices through an intuitive user experience, specifically through leading user interface solutions. By bringing the power of the cloud onto these devices, a focus on the end user will help make each experience personal.
- #5 – We will continue to enhance our unified communications solution with an increased focus on the end user
Why do so many of us have to pick up our phones to send a text message when we are working on our laptops? Why must we use special devices for video calling? Why must we dial into retrieve voice mail? Users in the New Year will not only want, but expect, a unified experience across all of their real-time communication services. As an industry, we have been developing the standards and technology that supports a powerful shift in integrated communication services. So what does this look like?
- Users install applications on their many devices and these devices then register with their cloud communication services.
- These applications ensure a seamless experience across the devices, so that users can establish service from that device.
- The applications provide access to a full range of services including video calling, conferencing, voice mail, text messaging, collaboration, chat and presence.
Service providers in the New Year have the unique opportunity to bring together a rich set of real-time communications services along with the power of social networks, providing a true unified communications experience. Service providers who can take advantage of seamless services will capture this market, while end users will benefit from the freedom to use the right device at the right time for work or pleasure.
To achieve our five objectives, BroadSoft’s community can plan on leveraging our robust set of communication services, including:
In the New Year and beyond, these elements will continue to evolve and provide our community the tools to be successful and deliver even greater value to our customers. Combined with BroadSoft’s leading services, we believe the industry trends support our vision for BroadSoft and sets up the environment for us all to be successful for many years to come. BroadSoft would like to thank you for joining us the past 13 years and we look forward to enjoying a very spectacular New Year with you!
At the opening of BroadSoft Connections 2010, I laid out three challenges for our service provider partners. I’d like to reflect on one of these today – my challenge to share success stories and go-to-market (GTM) best practices.
Our industry continues to move rapidly toward hosted and cloud services; we have watched UC implementation rates double year-over-year as reported by the CDW in its third annual Unified Communications Tracking Poll. In the same report, the CDW found 20 percent of medium and large businesses have fully implemented their UC solution, compared to just two percent one year ago, while they predict mobility needs are further driving on-the-go access features of UC adoption. Infonetics Research likewise predicted increased VoIP infiltration – specifically through the business market – predicting a $74.5 billion VoIP services market by 2015.
However, we believe having a successful service requires more than just great technology and a willing market. Our service provider partners need to excel in all aspects of GTM to ensure they have a compelling offer, a winning sales team, excellent fulfillment and support, and great demand generation.
BroadSoft is doing our part to assist – we increased our investment in GTM support resources, we built the BroadSoft XcelerateSM website to help our partners succeed with GTM, and we built an increasing number of tools such as the Top Ten Keys to Success. As a supplement to working with your BroadSoft account manager and our internal teams, we urge you to use these BroadSoft Xcelerate resources to build a great GTM strategy.
Our industry is growing fast, and when we help each other we continue to drive the market away from premise-based solutions and towards hosted and cloud services. Help us all win – share your success stories and share your keys to success.
Over this summer, look for BroadSoft to share more information and case studies and tools as part of our Xcelerate program and look for this to be a focus of our BroadSoft Connections event in October.
Remember my challenge from Connections 2010 – we want you to be a part of the go-to-market solution and drive value from collaboration. Visit our LinkedIn Group at http://linkd.in/jGU8ST and share your success stories here!
At our annual executive users’ conference in October, I talked about three ways the BroadSoft ecosystem can “connect our networks” in order to deliver the superior user experience and communication services being demanded today. In my opinion, our ecosystem needs to:
- Create the largest, innovative developer network
- Share our successes in order to grow awareness of hosted communication solutions
- Connect our networks to deliver ubiquitous high-definition voice and video
Let me share more on how you can drive growth and productive conversation in each of these areas.
Create the largest, innovative developer network
At BroadSoft we have spent the last 18 months investing in the design and development of our Xtended program, which is comprised of three elements: 1) RESTful APIs, 2) a robust developer program & 3) an e-Commerce enabled marketplace. We have committed both time and financial resources to all aspects of this program, enabling our customers to open their networks and mutually benefit from the investments of third party developers.
BroadSoft’s global service provider customers deliver communication services to over half a billion individuals in both their work and personal lives. A uniquely attractive audience to third-party developers, the desire and capabilities to build innovative applications will only increase as our ecosystem encourages this growth. Integration of communication services with additive innovative offerings and web-based applications, such as CRM services, increase the value of our IP-based networks, helping us retain our existing customers and attract new customers. So I am asking the BroadSoft customer base to:
- Open the Xtended APIs on their network
- Customize and launch an Xtended Marketplace and
- Join the community in recruiting new developers and promoting their applications
Everything that is needed to get started has been built and tested. Since BroadSoft Connections, I have personally reached out to several of our service provider customers who appreciate the value of BroadSoft Xtended. They have agreed to lead the charge in this effort – I hope you will join them.
Share our successes in order to grow awareness of hosted communication solutions
Another way we can jointly drive the adoption of hosted communications is by connecting our networks in terms of combined marketing power. By sharing our successes and detailed case studies, we help better define the value enterprises and individuals are experiencing through hosted communications. Through the global communication of such value, we will mutually drive the increased adoption of hosted unified communications, which has reached its highest growth level since 2008 (Dell’Oro Group, 2010).
While the awareness has grown significantly, we have a long way to go. We want every business owner and decision maker to realize they have a choice: to use a hosted service versus tying up people and capital on deploying out-dated enterprise based systems. I personally hear from our customers amazing and motivating success stories that they have helped enterprises succeed in their primary business purpose when they are no longer worried about their communication services. They are entrusting the experts in telecommunications to keep their businesses running.
I am asking all BroadSoft customers to share these success stories. In order to facilitate this openness, we introduced a new Web site, Xcelerate, with the single goal of helping you become more successful in launching and selling hosted UC. There are many great resources available on the site (Marketing Campaign Tools, Sales Battlecards, Demonstration Videos, and much more) and I encourage all BroadSoft customers to use these tools, while also contributing to the group.
Connect our networks to deliver ubiquitous high-definition voice and video
For a number of years, we have talked about the connection of our networks over IP to enable global high-definition voice and video. With the tremendous interest in high definition audio and video, we must connect our individual islands if we are to benefit from this growth. As I travel around the world, the interest level around SIP based video is exploding in both fixed and mobile networks and the time to interconnect is now. There are several companies, such as PCCW Global, focused on enabling this interconnectivity. I encourage everyone to talk with these companies in order to find ways to bridge our islands and take the upmost advantage of this unique opportunity before it passes us by.
The delivery of high-quality, superior communication experience, is our business. We cannot let others erode it. Let’s start by connecting our networks in these three ways. Please let me know what you think by commenting below.
I’d like to introduce BroadSoft Xcelerate, a program developed by BroadSoft to help our service provider customers increase the adoption rate for their hosted communication services.
I think BroadSoft has earned a reputation – a reputation we’re proud of – for having the best technology and product in our industry. Certainly a tremendous amount of energy, focus, ingenuity and effort have gone into building our product line.
But what’s equally clear, is that the success of a service provider does not rest solely on the technology of its platforms. To succeed, service providers need to surround their technology with equally outstanding offers, value driven positioning and innovative tools designed to deliver this unique message.
Xcelerate is BroadSoft’s program designed to help service providers build a successful Go-To-Market plan. On top of an outstanding technical platform, Xcelerate ensures service providers have winning offers that meet target market segments, and they have the capability to market, sell, and deliver on these offers.
The first stage of the Xcelerate program is the BroadSoft Xcelerate web site, now live and available online. On the Xcelerate website, you’ll find tools and resources to help you with each aspect of BroadSoft’s Go-To-Market methodology, “The Four Pillars”, including: Offer Definitions, Sales Enablement, Customer Turnup, and Demand Generation. You’ll find things such as: Reference Packaging, Sales Training, Marketing Campaign Tools, Sales Battlecards, Demonstration Videos, and much more. For a brief overview of the program, you can download and view the live webinar introduction: Winning Go-To-Market Strategies from BroadSoft Xcelerate (http://bit.ly/xcelerate).
The Xcelerate site is free, available to all BroadSoft customers and partners, and requires only a BroadSoft Xchange account. Please take a moment to review the site today, and feel free to send feedback to xcelerate@broadsoft.com.
Michael Tessler
Scott Hoffpauir
Leslie Ferry
Mike Wilkinson
Curtis Hartmann
Paul Adams
