Major vendors always have and always will have holes in their product portfolios that are best filled by best-of-breed products. These gaps almost always plugged by products from smaller companies.

The UCStrategies team recently recorded two podcasts covering the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications. As I read through Gartner's report, I was struck by a statement in the opening section: "Despite the emergence of complete UC portfolios, these are still in an early stage, and no vendor product adequately addresses all of an enterprise's UC needs. As a result, a best-of-breed approach remains the surest way of ensuring adequate functionality."

The situation Gartner described isn't new, and it will never go away. Major vendors always have and always will have holes in their product portfolios that are best filled by best-of-breed products. These gaps almost always plugged by products from smaller companies, like the two that Gartner refers to in their "Market Overview" section: Polycom for conferencing and Applied Voice & Speech Technologies (AVST) for unified messaging (UM).

Best-of-breed vendors face two common challenges: market awareness and building relationships with the major vendors. In working with would-be best-of-breed vendors to manage those challenges over the past 20 years, I've found that there's no magic, but instead it's about the fundamentals, and that includes spending money on the right things at the right time.

And when it comes to Unified Communications, there's one investment that can't be ignored or overlooked: Key trade shows in general, and Enterprise Connect, formerly VoiceCon, in particularly.

Enterprise Connect is really the only place where a small vendor can engage in face-to face discussion with all the relevant constituencies: Potential customers, press, analysts, consultants and potential partners. I have recommended to numerous companies that they participate in the various manifestations of Enterprise Connect including NBX (acquired by 3Com), Genesys Labs (acquired by Alcatel), Sphere Communications (acquired by NEC), Selsius (acquired by Cisco) and other smaller companies who were acquired before they became well known.

Trade show appearances are critical for establishing relationships with major vendors. All the major players have people walking the exhibit floor, checking out the competition and looking for partners and products to help round out their portfolios. There is, of course, an important social side to these relationships. To spur that process, UCStrategies has hosted wine tastings at the past few VoiceCons where senior executives from the major vendors mingle with a few potential best-of breed vendors (and no, they are not all clients of mine!). Many of these companies have developed relationships based on introductions that were made at these wine tastings--again, that is all part of the networking opportunity those vendors get from participating in events like Enterprise Connect/VoiceCon.

So, whether you are an established vendor or a provider of best-of-breed solutions, make sure you sign up for Enterprise Connect in Orlando. If you're an enterprise customer, make sure you attend so you can discover the best-of-breed solutions to help round out your UC Strategy. And if you're an aspiring best-of breed-vendor looking for an invite to the UCStrategies wine tasting, send me a message--jburton@ucstrategies.com

I look forward to speaking to you and to seeing you in Orlando.