Cisco recently made a series of announcements regarding offerings and opportunities for customers and service providers at its Connections 2018 event. Here are some of the highlights.
Cisco market growth
Cisco kicked off the event with some numbers regarding execution and performance. Specifically, the company’s service provider partners have held about a 65 percent share of cloud calling this past year. And Cisco BroadCloud for Carrier saw a 56 percent growth in users year-over-year. Finally, 65 Cisco partners have already deployed UC-One SaaS, and subscriptions have doubled month over month.
Going forward, Cisco is looking for partners to break into the mid and large sized business segments, since they’ve been less quick to adopt cloud technology. The company estimates that there are over 250M addressable, premises-based lines around the world, and the market segment is expected to grow by 26 percent each year, reaching a $7.5 billion annual revenue for SaaS by 2022. This growth leads to plenty of new opportunities for partners and service providers in this part of the market.
New offers for service providers
This projected growth and new opportunity have also brought about a new offer from Cisco. It includes BroadCloud Cloud Calling, the entire Webex Collaboration suite, and Cisco devices. It’s also included in the Cisco Collaboration Flex Plan, which makes it easy for all parties involved, from service providers to end users.
Specifically, the Flex Plan offer includes a premium enterprise calling subscription, access to all group features, all the necessary components for Cisco phones and headsets, video endpoints, and access to Webex Teams. You can also add Webex Meetings and/or Customer Journey Platform if you choose to do so.
Cisco is also expanding its Digital Accelerator initiative, which was previously known as Powered by Broadsoft. This expansion is meant to help partners further take advantage of this new and untapped market. It helps partners deliver marketing and sales assets that are tailored to those new offers. They’re also meant to be fairly seamless and easy to deploy.
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