By Jim Lundy
The unified communications and collaboration (UCC) wars are not about to end anytime soon. This week, LogMeIn announced its new flagship GoToConnect platform that makes it a complete UCC offering. GoToConnect is a tried and true solution, since it leverages the UCaaS voice offering from Jive Communications, a Utah-based firm that LogMeIn acquired last year. This blog discusses the move in the context of the ongoing UCC wars.
LogMeIn headquarters in Boston, MA. Photo courtesy of officesnapshots.
From Meetings to UCC
The web conferencing wars are well known. Zoom is the newcomer who has been taking share from others. However, while that was going on, a new market that Aragon refers to as people-centric collaboration was emerging. This market — which is commonly known as UCC — blends meetings, voice telephone, messages, and other collaboration capabilities into one platform. True UCC offerings make the whole process of communicating and collaborating more seamless.
Aragon evaluates the major providers in this market in the The Aragon Research Globe for UCC. Our third edition of that report will publish later this month.
LogMeIn and Zoom Chase UCC
While Zoom has grown by taking share from others in web and video conferencing, the battlefield has changed. LogMeIn just jumped into UCC with a full-fledged UCC stack that is battle tested. Zoom is just launching its voice service — which as far as we know, is new and not battle tested. The challenge for both firms will be to compete outside of meetings for the full UCC platform play.
The Race to Win the UCC Wars
The race to win in UCC brings many other providers into play, including Avaya, Cisco, Fuze, Google, Microsoft, Mitel, RingCentral, Unify, Vonage, and many more. Communications and collaboration is about to get much smarter, which means more automation, more intelligence, and a better experience.
LogMeIn is Well Positioned for UCC
LogMeIn, which has a new UCC General Manager, Mark Strassman, has had to fend off attacks from Zoom and others as it integrated the GoTo brand into its portfolio. Mark is the GM that LogMeIn CEO William Wagner is counting on to drive the UCC business for LogMeIn, and win share in this increasingly competitive market. With the new GoToConnect platform, LogMeIn is ready to do battle in what is one of the largest software markets—over $120 billion by 2025.