By Jim Lundy
RingCentral: The House That Vlad Built
RingCentral has transitioned this week with Founder and CEO, Vlad Shmunis, who has decided to step down and move on. Flag built RingCentral for many years and it has become a powerhouse in communication and collaboration. This plug is about Vlad’s run at Ring Central.
RingCentral Announces Transition
There is not much to say about the transition. RingCentral’s board made a safe pick, the former CFO of Hewlett Packard, Tarek Robbiati. At the same time, the COO of the firm Mo Katibeh also announced that he was leaving. While that leaves a gap, the firm has key executives, such as EVP, Kira Makagon, still in place.
The House that Vlad Built
Vlad started RingCentral when it wasn’t cool to so a SaaS company for Unified Communications. In 1999, cloud had not arrived yet and on-premise offerings such as NEC, Nortel, and Avaya Aura dominated the landscape However, that did not deter Vlad. He soldiered on and started to build out the RingCentral Platform.
Ease of Adding an 800 Number
On the way to RingCentral gain traction with small businesses close by offering them an 800 number for a fixed price per year. In 2011 they were only two firms, RingCentral and 8×8, that offered an 800 service that was reasonably priced. That got them going.
Cloud Takes Off
If the mid-2000s was the era of email migration, the 2010 to 2020 timeframe is the error of cloud communications. RingCentral took off and they’ve never looked back. Today, RingCentral partners with many of the large UCC firms, including Avaya, Unify, Alcatel Lucent Mitel, and others.
Going AI with RingSense
Earlier this year RingCentral, rebranded and added RingSense, which is their overall approach to AI. It also includes conversational intelligence. This is probably one of the biggest moves, along with its new contact center. Vlad will leave the company well-positioned for the future.
Bottom Line
Vlad Shmunis led RingCentral into a fast-growing tech company that leverages the cloud and is now leveraging AI with the move to the Uber Suite, which is UCC intelligent contact center. He will be remembered as one of the longest-serving CEOs in Silicon Valley and it’s a record that will most likely stand the test of time.
What Does Cybersecurity Look Like in the Age of AI?
Join Aragon Sr. Director of Research, Craig Kennedy LIVE on August 17th at 10 PM PT
Cybersecurity in the Age of AI: Fighting Fire with Fire
Cybercriminals are aggressively weaponizing artificial intelligence (AI) to launch increasingly effective cyberattacks against organizations. These cybercriminals are using AI to launch sophisticated and stealthy cyberattacks, such as creating realistic deep fakes, generating malware that can evade detection systems, creating convincing phishing emails, or identifying and exploiting vulnerabilities in real-time.
In this webinar, you will learn how AI can help you fight fire with fire to combat and survive these AI-powered cybersecurity attacks.
Some key areas we’ll cover:
- How cybercriminals are changing the game with AI?
- What solutions are available to combat these threats?
- How emerging AI technologies will transform cybersecurity?
This blog is a part of the Digital Workplace blog series by Aragon Research’s CEO, Jim Lundy.
