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Metaswitch Looks to Move
Voice Infrastructure to Cloud
At its recent customer event in Scottsdale, Ariz., Meta-
switch announced its new MetaSphere Cloud Service,
whereby the core of an operator’s communications network
will be deliverable from a cloud infrastructure that is man-
aged and maintained by Metaswitch. With a voice core in
the cloud, operators will find it easier to manage, purchase
and grow their communication services, quickly introducing
new features from Metaswitch’s virtualized telephony appli-
cation servers, says the company.
According to Kelsyn Rooks, director of network transforma-
tion marketing at Metaswitch Networks, the model will likely
involve a deployment cost and recurring software licensing
fees based on what the service provider utilizes. The solution
includes “everything involved in a Metaswitch deployment,”
he said, but stops short of being a full-service, fully supported
model. In other words, service providers maintain the customer
interaction, and Metaswitch is not looking for a revenue share.
Metaswitch expects to host the infrastructure in selected
third-party data centers, as the communications software
provider is “not looking to get into the data center business,”
said Rooks.
Rooks was sure to point out that MetaSphere is not multi-
tenant, so every service provider gets its own instance. He said
Metaswitch is collaborating with customers on some final details
of the service to make sure needs and concerns are met.
MetaSphere was one of seven major product announcements
released at the customer event. The others include an NFV start-
er kit, new analytics tools, an expanded unified communications
solution and a security review service, among others.
Wirt to Lead Line System Sales
and Marketing
Line Systems formally announced the addition of Bruce
Wirt as vice president of sales and marketing.
Wirt will be responsible for supporting LSI’s existing
regional infrastructure while expanding the company’s na-
tional service footprint by directing the internal sales team
and advancing channel opportunities. He will also oversee
sales engineering, sales support and marketing.
Before joining Line Systems, Wirt served as vice presi-
dent of sales at NetCarrier, where he developed a national
presence for the Mid-Atlantic carrier – signing large regional
and national master agents, tripling annual revenue and
winning multiple awards in national trade publications along
the way. In a prior role at Cavalier Telephone, Wirt success-
fully incubated key business development programs and
had full autonomy over direct and indirect sales teams.
“I’ve always had tremendous respect for what the leader-
ship team has been able to accomplish at Line Systems over
the past 17 years. When I saw that they were expanding out
of the Mid-Atlantic and tapping into the national marketplace,
I felt strongly that I could have a great deal of success lead-
ing that charge,” said Wirt. “My goal is to build upon the
achievements of the internal sales department and add a
turnkey master agent component to the revenue production.”
Microsoft Makes Gains in SaaS
Market
New data from Synergy Research Group shows that
Microsoft is now challenging for leadership in the enterprise
SaaS market. In 2015 Microsoft grew its market share by
almost 3 percentage points but was still a little way behind
long-time leader Salesforce.
However, Microsoft continues to grow its SaaS revenues
much more rapidly, says Synergy, achieving the second high-
est 2015 revenue growth rate among the top 10 SaaS com-
panies. If current trends continue, Microsoft should overtake
Salesforce.comin 2016. Microsoft had 70 percent year-over-
year growth in 2015, driven largely by Office 365. Salesforce,
for its part, experienced 21 percent growth last year. Syn-
ergy’s figures do not include home sales of Office 365.
All told, the enterprise SaaS market grew by almost 40
percent in 2015, and Synergy forecasts that it will more
than triple in size during the next five years. The smaller
consumer SaaS market is only a third of the size of the
enterprise market and also has a lower growth rate. While
it is not the leader in consumer SaaS, it is notable that Mi-
crosoft’s growth far outstrips that of other major consumer
SaaS operators.
“In many ways SaaS is a more mature market than other
cloud markets like IaaS or PaaS,” said John Dinsdale, a chief
analyst and research director at Synergy Research Group.
“However, even for SaaS it is still early days in terms of market
Enterprise SaaS
Market Share & Revenue Growth
Hosted UC seats made up 22% of the unified communication
services market in 2014, growing to 46% in 2019
70%
2014
2019
35%
0%
Salesforce
Microsoft
Adobe
SAP
Other Top
Ten
0%
5% 10% 15% 20% 25%
Source: Syngergy Research Group
Worldwide Market Share - 2015
ADP, Google, IBM, Intuit, Oracle, Workday
Annual Growth
Annual Growth
Salesforce
21%
Microsoft
70%
Adobe
55%
SAP
73%
Other top Ten
29%
Hosted UC
Hosted PBX
Global Seats (Millions)
10
Channel
Vision
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May - June 2016