Who’s leading the way in Meeting Solutions?
The Gartner Magic Quadrant is the go-to report for many companies in search of advice for which solution to choose. As meeting services become more essential, driven by the demand for better human interactions in a remote environment, there are countless options to choose from.
Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Meeting Solutions blends collaboration, communications, and content sharing to support virtual meeting scenarios in various environments.
According to Gartner, by 2024, remote work and new workforce demographics will mean that only 25% of meetings will take place in-person. 74% of companies will permanently shift to remote work as a result of the experiences they had during COVID-19. What’s more, by 2023, 50% of all video conferencing systems may be based on Windows or Android appliances.
2020 Meeting Solutions Leaders
The leaders in the Magic Quadrant are the vendors that demonstrate the most completeness of vision, combined with the ability to execute. This year’s leaders are:
Microsoft:
Microsoft’s Office 365 cloud solution includes Microsoft Teams, the tool quickly emerging as the world’s favourite option for enterprise collaboration. Microsoft Teams also provides support for live event broadcasting, and there are opportunities for on-premises deployments with the Skype for Business Server. Microsoft’s immersive environment combined with its commitment to constant growth and new integrations make it a powerful choice for teams.
Cisco:
Cisco leads the Magic Quadrant for 2020 with its Webex solutions for Meetings, Events, and Training. Cisco Webex Teams supports better workstream collaboration too. Cisco’s solution comes with a variety of deployment options, including managed services, cloud-premises hybrid and premises-based software, alongside SaaS. Cisco also supports a selection of endpoints for personal and professional workspaces.
Zoom:
Zoom arrived at the top of the Magic Quadrant this year thanks to its fantastic Meeting and Webinar solutions. Gartner also praises Zoom’s Room services, and support for partner hardware. Zoom solutions satisfy a range of new and established meeting scenarios, and companies can choose from a host of useful deployment options. The company is investing constantly in new and robust vertical solutions, such as hardware as a service, hardened security capabilities, and new video experiences embedded into enterprise workflows.
2020 Meeting Room Challengers
Challengers in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant demonstrate excellent ability to execute but may need to show more completeness of vision before they reach “Leader” status. This year’s challengers include:
Google:
Google’s G Suite (now Workspace) solution bundles a host of useful tools into a single environment, including Google Meet. The Google Meet solution supports up to 250 participants and comes with associated devices for collaborative in-room experiences. Google’s deployment model focuses only on SaaS, with sales and service operations that span the globe. Google’s vision is on building stable, secure, and enterprise-grade meeting experiences.
LogMeIn:
LogMeIn serves the Meeting environment with GoToTraining, GoToMeeting, and GoToWebinar. There’s also the Join.Me option to ensure that companies have a wide selection of meeting scenarios to choose from. There are various hardware options available through partners, and LogMeIn operates entirely on the cloud, making it easy for businesses to get started. Over the next few years, LogMeIn will be focusing on strengthening its portfolio for remote and office workers.
Huawei:
Another challenger in this Magic Quadrant, the Huawei brand offers hardware video endpoints and solutions for on-premises deployments. The WeLink cloud-based meeting solution serves the SaaS environment. Huawei is working on expanding its cloud-based offering in all of the markets it serves, except North America. The company is also working on new AI solutions, virtual reality technology, the Internet of Things, and 5G.
2020 Meeting Room Visionaries
The Visionaries in the Gartner Magic Quadrant demonstrate excellent completeness of vision, but they have a way to go with their ability to execute. This year’s companies include:
StarLeaf:
The StarLeaf meeting offering complements its portfolio of powerful room systems that support all kinds of spaces. The StarLeaf meeting solution supports premises-based software, SaaS, solutions, cloud-premises hybrid options, and managed services deployments. Custom integrations are available with Microsoft Teams, and StarLeaf can interoperate with various SIP and H.323 endpoints. Room systems from the company provide one-touch entry to conversations.
Pexip:
Pexip provides the Infinity Meeting solution and infrastructure to support numerous enterprise use cases for conferencing and collaboration. The solution is available in a variety of deployment options, including premises-based software, hybrid options, and cloud-based SaaS. The virtualised video infrastructure software from Pexip is available to deploy on-premises or in the cloud. Sales and operations are growing on a global scale.
BlueJeans:
Purchased by Verizon in 2020, BlueJeans provides Meetings and Events solutions either as standalone tools or as part of Verizon UCaaS systems. Alongside BlueJeans Rooms, these offerings are excellent for customers hoping to satisfy various meeting scenarios. Interoperability with Microsoft Teams is an option through the BlueJeans gateway. The company is focused on supporting businesses across a variety of vertical markets. BlueJeans is also looking at the mobile market with Verizon’s 5G and mobile edge network investments.
Lifesize:
Lifesize’s meeting solution is primarily available through the cloud, which companies can add to existing premises-based video infrastructure options. There’s the Icon series of endpoints to empower people in the conference room, and Lifesize is now working on delivering both paid and free cloud conferencing plans with new features and functionality. Future iterations will include better integration with the Microsoft portfolio and Slack to enhance meeting scheduling and management.
2020 Meeting Room Niche Players
The Niche Players segment of the Magic Quadrant addressees innovators in the Meetings environment who have not yet made their way into any other sector but show a lot of promise. This year’s companies include:
Adobe:
Adobe Connect is available as a premises-based or SaaS software, or there’s also a managed service offering. Customers choose this service for remote training and learning scenarios thanks to a powerful range of educational features and customisation options. The vendor’s three year plan includes expanding its reach to support more small and mid-sized businesses and satisfy emerging use cases through new product innovation. Learning content creation tools make Adobe more appealing to the Educational environment, like Adobe Presenter and Adobe Captivate.
Kaltura:
Kaltura comes to the Meeting Rooms Magic Quadrant with the Kaltura Meetings service. The company also offers products for town hall meetings, webinars, and virtual classrooms, to suit a range of meeting needs. The company’s services support on-premises, cloud and hybrid deployments, with a portfolio that spans across the globe. The Kaltura team is working to support companies of all sizes across any enterprise role, improving meetings with analytics, automation, and AI offerings.
Quanshi:
A meeting solution brand name for G-Net Solutions, Quanshi offers its MeetNow cloud service with Quanshi Box for conference room solutions in China and other selected countries around the broader APAC region. MeetNow is available as a SaaS service, premises-based offering, or cloud-premises hybrid. The company is now focusing on expanding its reach into the market for online video meetings in the countries it serves by addressing relevant use cases and opening API libraries for more business application integrations.
TrueConf:
Offering the Server product in connection with its video room systems, TrueConf supports premises-based, SaaS, and hybrid models for meeting solutions. The TrueConf companies offers an excellent range of deployment options and security for companies that need to protect their data in the changing business landscape. TrueConf is currently working on developing its hardware appliances and adding new third-party integrations for meeting solutions customers.
Avaya:
Another Niche player in the current Magic Quadrant, Avaya is offering Spaces for workstream collaboration, with live meeting capabilities included. This service is currently an add-on for the UCaaS solution from Avaya, or as an extra for various room system offerings. Spaces is available in a range of deployments, across the globe. The company is using its incredible background in communications to grow its influence in the team collaboration space, and it’s working on delivering new CPaaS solutions and integrations too.
What Are Your Thoughts?
Gartner frequently adjusts and reviews its inclusion criteria for the Magic Quadrants as the markets evolve and change. As a result, the report does feature some significant changes this year, compared to the previous year’s Magic Quadrant. For instance, Kaltura appeared on the Magic Quadrant for Meeting Solutions for the first time this year, thanks to its interactive meeting offerings. Quanshi also appeared on the Quadrant after steadily growing its business offering.
Some previous Meeting Solutions providers that had appeared on other reports failed to hit the mark this year too. Enghouse Systems (Vidyo), PGi, and ZTE were not suitable for the report according to Gartner because they didn’t meet the inclusion criteria.
What do you think about the latest Magic Quadrant for Meeting Solutions this year? Do you think that the right Leaders were announced? Which companies are missing that deserved a spot, and which vendors should have been in a higher position?