By Jim Lundy
They used to be partners, but now it is increasingly about competing for the same customers. I’m talking about Zoom and RingCentral. When Zoom was just getting started, many forget that RingCentral CEO Vlad Shmunis did Zoom CEO Eric Yuan a favor by agreeing to package Zoom video meetings as a component of RingCentral Office. Yesterday, RingCentral announced its own native video meetings offering—RingCentral Video (RCV). This blog is about the launch of RCV and the new era of competition between Zoom and RingCentral.
The Launch of RingCentral Video
RingCentral Video has been in development for years, and after months of testing by RingCentral customers, the product is ready for primetime. The launch of RingCentral Video was well planned and methodical. We tested the service multiple times and found it to be as easy as Zoom. Video and audio quality are high, partly due to the RingCentral cloud, which is capable of delivering 99.999% uptime.
RingCentral Challenges Zoom—It Had No Choice
When Zoom announced Zoom Phone in October 2018, the writing was on the wall about the partnership. Zoom, to continue to grow, needed to expand its addressable market. But that was a shot at RingCentral, and to us, it marked a turning point in the relationship. However, we would note, Zoom’s launch of Zoom Phone was not an OEM of RingCentral—and here we have the beginning of the war between Zoom and RingCentral.
We’d note that RingCentral continues to offer its original meetings offering that is powered by Zoom—customers still have a choice. Though we’d suggest using the integrated offering that RingCentral just announced.
RingCentral Has a New Ally: Avaya Launches Avaya Cloud Office
RingCentral is not standing still. The timing of the new RingCentral Meetings rollout worked very well with its new partnership with Avaya (see our recent Aragon Research blog post about the Avaya and RingCentral Partnership). This week Avaya rolled out Avaya Cloud Office (ACO), which is powered by RingCentral. Avaya is one of the largest providers of UCC, and its significant distribution network is a plus for RingCentral. Early indicators from Avaya indicate that ACO is being received very well by partners and customers.
RingCentral is not slowing down on alliances. Besides Avaya, it also forged a strategic relationship with Atos, who will also be offering RingCentral Office via its channels. The key point here is that RingCentral continues to believe in the value of partners. Zoom, on the other hand, just lost its most strategic partner. It has reseller relationships with distributors, but so do most of the major web and video conferencing providers.RingCentral Is Ahead on Team Collaboration
RingCentral realized ahead of Zoom that the battle in the enterprise is a multi-product one. It bought team collaboration provider Glip a few years ago and has messaging fully integrated into RingCentral Office. Zoom Chat, while part of Zoom Meetings, is really just hitting the market. Team collaboration is a market Aragon has covered extensively in the past.
As the pressure to work remotely increases, the video conferencing options that providers like RingCentral and Zoom offer will become more and more desirable.
In a COVID-19 Remote Work Market, There Is Demand Everywhere
The great news for Avaya, RingCentral, Zoom, and everyone else is that the demand for communications and collaboration is at an all-time high. Enterprises, universities, and K-12 schools all need more collaboration capabilities. This is good news for all the providers in the communications and collaboration market
Bottom Line
As both RingCentral and Zoom continue to grow, they are increasingly becoming competitors. Early alliances between the two firms are fading, and RingCentral has found new partners such as Avaya that are market leaders. The race to full communications and collaboration platforms is on, and enterprises want meetings, calls, and messaging to ensure their associates have all the tools to get work done.
Editor’s note: Check out the Aragon Research Globe for Web and Video Conferencing to learn more about this market.