From retirements to new integrated apps in a marketplace, here are some extracts from our most popular news stories over the last seven days.
Thomas Goodmanson Steps Down as Calabrio CEO
Thomas Goodmanson has retired following 15 years at the helm of Calabrio.
Goodmanson hopes to take the opportunity to rest and spend more time with his family.
Taking the reigns is Kevin Jones, the former CEO of Rackspace Technology, a business that supports organizations in designing, building, and managing multi-cloud solutions.
There, Jones spearheaded a global expansion, growing its annual revenues from $2BN to $3BN.
While Jones was ousted from the role in November 2022 after his executive team backtracked on its intentions to sell parts of the business, the markets reacted poorly to the move.
Indeed, Rackspace’s stock dropped nine percent, which perhaps proved a testament to his previous successes.
Yet, despite the fallout, Jones is ready to jump straight back into the CEO hotseat.
Setting out his vision on LinkedIn, he stated:
As CEO, I will hold a laser-tight focus on our true-cloud business model, market-leading product, and global presence, but also stay true to my belief that there is no greater differentiator than our people and culture.
Jones also doubled down on Goodmanson’s mantras of empowering the contact center as a brand guardian and optimizing human-centric experiences.
Consequently, Calabrio customers should not expect a significant swing in strategy, which sometimes comes with a CEO switch. The recent changes at the top of 8×8 exemplify this.
Gartner Halves Its 2023 Prediction for IT Spending Growth
Gartner has chopped down its 2023 forecast for global IT spending growth from 5.1 to 2.4 percent.
The market analyst anticipates total spending to reach $4.5 trillion this year.
B2C companies will bear the brunt of the drop from 5.1 percent, a figure Gartner only forecasted three months ago.
The degree to which inflation continues to limit consumer spending power is central to the decline.
Thankfully, enterprise IT spend remains steady. As John-David Lovelock, VP Analyst at Gartner, said:
While inflation is devastating consumer markets, contributing to layoffs at B2C companies, enterprises continue to increase spending on digital business initiatives despite the world economic slowdown.
Much of this enterprise spend will focus on software and IT services. Indeed, Gartner expects these segments to grow by 9.3 and 5.5 percent, respectively, in 2023.
Meanwhile, the market for devices – which is typically a consumer-driven space – seems set to decline by 5.1 percent.
Perhaps this statistic, more than any other, highlights the differing economic realities consumers and enterprises face.
Dialpad Does AI Differently. Now, It’s Prioritizing Partnerships and Integrations
Dialpad has launched Teams and HubSpot as integrated apps within its App Marketplace, with Dynamics on the way.
Alongside these additions, Dialpad will release integrations to ServiceNow, Bullhorn, and the new Google ChromeOS Desk Connector.
With these integrations, Dialpad hopes to cover many more verticals and business needs while assisting contact centers in simplifying agent experiences.
“Our partnerships with companies like Google open up integration options for us to bring mutual customers more flexibility to meet their individual business needs,” added Sangeeta Walsh, VP of Strategic Alliances at Dialpad.
We’re focused on growing the Dialpad App Partner program and App Marketplace to continue and increase efficiencies for our customers and their employees.
Alongside these new applications, Dialpad has enhanced its open app ecosystem. These updates allow its customers to integrate apps and workstreams in a single workspace more easily.
According to Michael Brandenburg, a Senior Analyst at Frost & Sullivan, the updates will support users in creating complex communication flows. He states:
By reimagining its app marketplace, developer portals, and partner programs, Dialpad is keeping true to its mission of delivering better, smarter, more integrated EX and CX through its Ai-Powered Customer Intelligence Platform.
Finally, Dialpad doubled down on its commitment to closely partner with Google, integrate its contact center APIs, and team up to advance customer-first workflows.
Snowflake X SnowConvert Merger Accelerates Cloud-Data Migrations
This Thursday, Data Cloud service providers Snowflake acquired SnowConvert by Mobilize.Net to integrate the latter’s database migration tools into its Cloud Data service.
The merger enables Snowflake to provide simple code conversion avenues to assist with migrating customer workloads onto the cloud.
Snowflake clients are already familiar with the SnowConvert toolkit. According to the firm, SnowConvert is also the most popular client application for migrating customer workloads into Snowflake.
By integrating its client’s preferred solution, Snowflake is solving standard code conversion hurdles that clients face.
The integrated toolkit accelerates customer data migration by removing the need for manual coding to successfully deliver customer data projects.
SnowConvert’s toolkit integrates sophisticated automation techniques for Snowflake customers to reduce the requirement for coding knowledge.
Moreover, the new tools allow Snowflake customers to migrate legacy databases more efficiently and faster. Alongside Snowflake’s first-party applications, the new tools will add built-in data-type and procedure-level analysis capabilities.
A key objective at Snowflake is to provide a fast and efficient avenue for its “customers and partners to unlock value from data.” according to Ted Brackin, Snowflake’s VP of Professional Services.
The VP also explained how, for many organisations, improving efficiency for its clients starts with migrating their legacy databases and applications to the Snowflake’s Data Cloud.
