Unified Communications in Russia TAdviser Overview

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Until recently, a significant share of the Russian unified communications market was occupied by global players. Not only large corporations, but also medium and even small companies voted for the decisions of their development. And this is not surprising: domestic manufacturers of such products in terms of marketing budgets cannot compete with international corporations.

At the end of February 2022, the situation changed, both for solution providers, foreign and Russian, and for their clients. Read about how sanctions and the departure of foreign vendors will affect the Russian UC market, what are the scenarios for switching to domestic products and what is expected in the near future in a new TAdviser review.

At the turn of the 20th-21st centuries, when large industries - factories and factories with thousands of workers - largely became a thing of the past, enterprises became small and flexible, and their staff significantly expanded the layer of employees whose jobs are located outside the walls of the plant or factory, the value of corporate communications increased significantly.

This growth was supported by the proliferation of mobile communications, as well as the development of IP technologies that allow the enterprise automatic telephone exchange of the PBX to transmit voice, data and video over one network. This allowed foreign suppliers of corporate telephony systems: Avaya, Cisco, Nortel, Siemens and some others to form the concept of "Unified Communications, UC" or "unified communications" in Russian, and offer customers software and hardware for its implementation.

The companies that took advantage of this offer received such a competitive advantage as a single information and communication space, combining IP telephony, e-mail and messenger at the basic level, and video conferencing, TelePresence and mobile devices of employees at the expanded level. A little later, service providers appeared who offered unified communications as a cloud service (Unified Communications as a service, UCaaS).

In the process of implementation and development, the concept of unified communications has attracted solutions for collaboration, Collaboration, and a new segment of the IT market has appeared in the research of leading analytical agencies - UC & C. By API, solutions of this class are integrated with other enterprise systems and business applications of companies, including data analysis systems.

Now in the largest system-forming enterprises, the further integration of unified communications systems with PCS, MCDS, operational and technological communications, mobile radio communications, portable communication systems and other systems is most relevant, - notes Artem Cheprak, General Director of Informtechnika and Svyaz.

The acceleration of the development of the global unified communications market was given by the coronavirus pandemic, or rather, the measures taken by states around the world to combat it. Lockdown, the transfer of a significant part of workers to home offices led to an explosive increase in demand for solutions for online meetings and video conferencing.

According to IDC, at the end of 2020, the global market for unified communications and joint work (UC&C) grew by 24.9% to $47.2 billion.

If we talk about certain segments of the global unified communications market, then the volume of UCaaS (unified communications as a service) in 2020 increased by 21.2% to $16.4 billion. The revenue of the segment of collaboration solutions, which include video conferencing software and related cloud services, grew by 45% to $22.1 billion at the end of this period, and revenue in the segment of video conferencing endpoints - by 12.4% and amounted to almost $2.6 billion.

Against this positive background, the results demonstrated in 2020 by the IP phone segment look quite symptomatic. So, for this year, its revenue decreased by 22.8% to $1.9 billion, and the supply of IP phones declined at a similar pace. At the end of the year, they decreased by 22.2%.

In Russia, in the segment of unified communications from the 90s until February 24, 2022, both in pieces and in money, the dominant position was occupied by solutions of international suppliers. According to Vladimir Burgov, CEO of CommuniGate Systems and Dmitry Inyushev, leading expert at Rubytech, Microsoft, Avaya, Cisco, Unify together accounted for 90-95% of the market.

At the same time, local manufacturers of telephony equipment of the operator class - Eltex, STC Protei, IskraUraltel have been present on the Russian market for several decades, recalls Arthur Koplik, head of the unified communications department at I-Teco, and the demand for their products is growing. And with the first wave of import substitution, several developers of video conferencing services appeared at once: Vinteo, TrueConf, IVA Technologies (IVKS), VideoMost. Now RTU-Connect from SATEL is joining them - each of which has already found its own niche in this market segment.

Solutions from Vinteo are traditionally strong in their traffic mixing technology. If you need all the custom features of web conferences, then you should pay attention to IVA Technologies. TrueConf and VideoMost, using traffic proxying technology, will provide a reduced load on the server and unassuming in terms of server sizing, the expert says.

In 2020-2021, the Russian market for unified communications and joint work developed ambiguously.

Lockdowns, business closures, freezing of investment programs, on the one hand, had a very difficult effect on the entire industry. On the other hand, in 2020, an unprecedented demand for remote connections arose, and from mid-2021, the implementation of deferred demand began. Starting from the second half of 2021, we saw a significant increase compared to 2020, - says Yaroslav Prokopovich, Product Director of VATS at MTT.

In the period until February 24, 2022, "the market grew at double-digit rates," notes Artem Cheprak. As confirmation of his thesis, he cites the example of Informtechnika and Svyaz, whose turnover increased by 20%.

The Aleks ei Zhirnov, Director of the Communications Solutions Department of the AMT GROUP, also speaks about the growth of the market at the level of 20% at the end of 2021. According to him, it was determined, on the one hand, by the explosion of user needs in UC systems during a pandemic, and on the other, by the increasing maturity of domestic solutions.

Another confirmation of the active growth of the market is the data of the TMT Consulting report "The Russian market for virtual PBXs - results of 2021," cited by Roman Romanov, head of the software development center of SATEL. According to them, the segment of virtual PBXs in 2021 grew by 30.8% to 17.7 billion rubles, and the number of companies using them increased by 12% to 400.8 thousand. "The main incentive for the growth of UC demand has become the demand for remote work and digital solutions for business," he notes and predicts the positive dynamics of the further development of the Russian unified communication market in connection with the increasing needs of instant omnichannel communications between people, be it company customers or internal employees.

At the same time, Aleksei Zhirnov explains that it is difficult to predict the growth of the Russian market for unified communications systems by the end of 2022 due to the fact that customers who planned to expand their implementations of foreign solutions have now taken a wait-and-see attitude regarding possible prospects. And, according to AMT GROUP, this situation may last until the end of the year.

11 companies took part in the new TAdviser rating, compiled on the basis of revenue from the implementation of projects in the field of unified communications in Russia. The leader of the rating was MTS, the indicators of which are given taking into account the data of MTT (in June 2021 MTT was bought by MTS). The second line of the rating is from InformTechnika, which develops hardware and software solutions for unified communications.

The total revenue of the rating participants at the end of 2021 amounted to 14.9 billion rubles.

Largest Unified Communications Solution and Service Providers *

№	Company	Specialization in UC	Revenue from the implementation of projects in the field of unified communications in Russia in 2021, million rubles. including VAT	Revenue from the implementation of projects in the field of unified communications in Russia in 2020, million rubles. Including VAT	Revenue dynamics 2021/2020	Largest customers
1	MTS (including MTT)	Proprietary Software Products and Services	5 119.4	4 043.5	n/a
2	InformTechnika	Own Hardware and Software Products	3,200	2,700	18.5	PJSC GAZPROM, JSC Concern Rosenergoatom, Federal Customs Service of the Russian Federation, Roscosmos, Russian Railways
3	* * * * (1)	System Integration	1 748.3	2 242.4	-22	n/a
4	I-Teco	System integration	1,250,4	1,074,8	16.3
5	SATEL Group	System Integration, Proprietary Software Products	940	449	109.4	PFR, FTS of Russia, Svyaztransneft JSC
6	HiTech Group	System Integration, Proprietary Hardware and Software Products	759.8	437.8	73.6	n/a
7	Webinar Group	Own Software Products and Services	513.6	426.2	Higher School of Economics, MIREA RTU, Tinkoff, Otkritie, M.Video
8	SVETETS	Proprietary Software Products	500	600	-16.7 Russian Post| |, "" JMoney, "Park Hotel Mazai, Pizzeria Europe Rusters, Plus, Bi-Bi.car, Vladikavkaz International Airport, etc. Svetets software products implement the largest installation of a cloud communication solution in Russia, which employs more than 500,000 users, more than 1,800 contact centers (according to the company).
9	VK Digital Technologies	Own Software Products and Services	440	55	700	ВЭБ.РФ, Government of Altai Territory, Ministry of Digital Development
10	Reksoft Group	Custom Software Development	294.2	n/a	n/a	OKEI Hypermarket Chain
11	Raitek	System Integration	150.9	144.8	FSUE NAMI, JSC UZGA, JSC Solnechnogorsk Plant Europlast, JSC Sinara - Transport Machines, JSC UK Efko
		Total	14,916,6

* - the rating was prepared based on the results of the survey of companies

TAdviser 2022

(1) - Company name is hidden due to information verification

AI technologies bring additional value to solutions in all segments of unified communications. So, in UCaaS, "unified communications from the cloud," they serve to minimize the burden on service employees.

The synergy of SaaS and AI allows you to automate business processes, solve problems with ineffective customer service in a situation where there are not enough resources, - said Alexander Melnikov, CEO of MCN Telecom. - If the number of customer requests grows, and the resources of the team that responds to typical requests work with complaints and appeals are not enough, voice robots and chatbots become the correct assistants.

Combining cloud telephony with voice technologies allows you to achieve a new level of automation of business processes, they understand in MCN Telecom, and offer as a service voice robots for transactional and mass calls, as well as for processing incoming calls.

Another cloud PBX service provider, MTT offers the business a universal voice robot designer to automate a wide variety of processes. And Mango Office has launched an "anti-robot" - an anti-spam solution that filters calls and interrupts those who get to voicemail, thereby reducing the client's costs of empty calls.

Such solutions are based on Voice User Iinterface, VUI, voice user interface. Through the VUI interface, many other applications are already available to users: integration of helper bots into video conference sessions, voice control of booking meeting rooms, calls through voice commands, sound and lighting control in meeting rooms, recalls Arthur Koplik.

In the video conferencing segment, artificial intelligence, in addition to solving typical user problems, helps to eliminate audio noise, improve the quality of video in low-light rooms, blur the background or replace it with virtual ones, which is important when organizing impromptu workplaces - at home or on the go. According to Dmitry Odintsov, Development Director of TrueConf, this trend has remained relevant for several years.

Nadezhda Alyabyeva, Marketing Director of VideoMost, added to the list of demanded VKS functions based on AI a change in the background of speakers, data analysis, auto-protocol (translation of voice into text), analysis and structuring of recorded video archives. In addition, as Vladimir Burgov notes, there are solutions for VKS analytics that help determine by video and photos in which video conferences this or that employee participated.

Another trend that many experts note is the growing popularity of cloud unified communications.

A powerful trend that has emerged in the global UC market in recent years has been the transition of unified communications to the cloud. Until February of this year, the leaders in promoting the cloud approach to the Russian market were leading foreign players: Cisco, Microsoft and Avaya, says Dmitry Inyushev.

At the same time, the share of cloud solutions is still not high: even in the US market, according to some reports, it does not exceed 7% of the total, and this, according to Yaroslav Prokopovich, indicates the great potential of the cloud model, including in Russia.

The share of PBXs for small and medium businesses is reduced in favor of cloud PBXs. The share of cloud PBXs in the large business segment is gradually increasing, which we see, among other things, on the example of demand for our cloud platform "MTT Business," he says.

Nikita Zhurba, CEO of SVETETS Firm, notes a similar trend. According to him, large organizations and government agencies are starting to trust cloud solutions more.

For example, on the basis of PJSC Rostelecom's Virtual PBX (the solution is based on the products of Svetets), the provision of services to the Federal Treasury of the Russian Federation has been organized, which is more than 38,000 users and 1800 offices throughout the country, he says.

Along with corporate telephony and video conferencing, instant messengers are experiencing rapid development. The need for companies to exchange instant messages between employees of companies, as well as with counterparties, partners and customers is growing. At the same time, as Dmitry Odintsov notes, about 80% of communications between employees take place asynchronously in personal and group chats.

The future lies with solutions that combine the functions of the VKS and a full-fledged messenger with the synchronization of chats on mobile and desktop devices, the expert says.

When choosing a corporate messenger, it is important to check it for compliance with information security requirements.

A more convenient and less resource-intensive option for data protection and control is a comprehensive solution from an external supplier that provides all the necessary functions within a single communication platform, recalls Alexey Lagutin, head of project implementation at Mango Office.

In the portfolio of this supplier of domestic cloud solutions there is just such a messenger.

Unified communications developers pay a lot of attention to building teamwork applications. "Everyone is trying to make communications as simple, fast and intuitive as possible, create a so-called user-friendly interface in applications," Arthur Koplik calls another trend and adds that attempts to combine all services in a single unified window also do not stop.

In addition to requests for additional functionality of solutions, customers of UC&C solutions have formed a need for increasingly dense integration of unified communications with the entire range of corporate systems.

Separately, it is worth noting the request to increase the mobility of employees. This means that all communication functionality should be available to them both from a desktop PC and from a mobile device, naturally without compromising information security, says Artem Cheprak.

Today, representatives of Russian business are in the greatest demand for UC services that provide fast messaging, video conferencing, as well as the integration of unified communications systems with stationary telesystems, adds Roman Romanov.

As an example, the expert cited the Russian Telephone Node (RTU) platform installed in the IT infrastructure of the Azov-Black Sea Basin branch of FSUE Rosmorport. One server with a UC-platform RTU even in the basic configuration (16 GB of RAM, 8 CPU cores) processes 4,000 phone calls at a time and combines 20,000 user accounts. This ensures stable telephone communication and also reduces production costs by optimizing the operation of equipment.

Virtualization is another trend. It allows the customer to configure an arbitrary number of virtual PBXs, virtual contact centers, IVR systems and other applications on the same computing resources. As Nikita Zhurba notes, the SVETETS solution is fully deployed in a virtual environment, allows you to create a virtual communication infrastructure of the company and arbitrarily redistribute these resources if necessary - to manage the number of users, available services, etc.

The evolution vector of unified communications systems is directed from software and hardware solutions to purely software, or software-defined ones. How far did Russian manufacturers manage to move in this direction? And will benefits such as hardware independence, quick deployment, ease of use, and cost-effective software solutions completely replace hardware and software?

Today, an impressive number of modern solutions of domestic developments are presented on the Russian market, which are developing in several areas: virtual PBXs (VATS), corporate instant messengers and cloud audio/video conferencing services, Roman Romanov notes.

So the transition to software-defined UC solutions in Russia is a global trend, which, by the way, is observed not only in the field of unified communications.

All modern platforms of combined communications that have appeared on the market in the last five years are software, says Vladimir Burgov. - That's why from the very beginning we developed the CommuniGate Pro unified communications software platform. And the history of the development of modern technologies shows that we did everything absolutely right.

At the same time, although the vector of evolution of UC solutions is directed towards virtualization and cloud environments, and more and more fully software systems will appear, software and hardware platforms for unified communications will always be in Russia, Dmitry Inyushev believes.

In state structures (in particular, power structures), he recalls, special and very strict requirements are imposed on solutions in the field of communications in terms of information security and hardware that is exclusively isolated from the external circuit is used to implement them.

According to Alexei Lagutin, software and hardware solutions will remain relevant for large businesses, banking and medical spheres, government agencies and other organizations, which are especially important for controlling and encrypting transmitted, recorded and stored data. At the same time, the use of hardware is under the influence of a trend towards the transfer of corporate IT resources to hybrid clouds. "They allow the client to leave internal traffic requiring protection in their own perimeter, and use the cloud resource at the provider's capacities to scale the IT infrastructure," the expert explains and adds that the ability to deploy solutions without purchasing equipment has acquired particular importance in the context of import substitution for operational migration from foreign services and software to Russian analogues.

"Today there is no need to talk about leaving the stage of software and hardware solutions," agrees Artem Cheprak. According to him, the IT infrastructures of large state/near-state and corporate customers are a patchwork of motley software and hardware solutions, including analog telephony. And because such customers always want a single communications system that seamlessly integrates all of these solutions, they need a vendor with relevant expertise and a cross-generational hardware portfolio.

However, Alexander Melnikov notes, many UCaaS solution providers today are taking adequate measures to reduce risks associated with data security in the cloud, so the replacement of software and hardware solutions with software will only intensify in the coming years.

As for the VKS and video services, in this segment, "clouds" have become one of the tools of the sanctions policy, since at any time they can be blocked, which is fraught with losses for large businesses, including financial ones.

Large companies here and abroad migrate from the "clouds" to autonomous video conferencing systems, independent of blocking by external providers and manufacturers of these solutions. As a result, in March 2022, the demand for domestic TrueConf software in Russia increased by 100% compared to March 2021, and abroad - from 30% to 50%, depending on the specifics of the region, - says Dmitry Odintsov.

At the same time, since hardware solutions for video conferencing at the time of purchase were quite expensive, they will be used by companies for another 10 years, even though this has long ceased to be advisable, says VideoMost Marketing Director Nadezhda Alyabyeva.

Obviously, the use of software and cloud UC will be more profitable and more convenient, but the demand for large screens, high-quality cameras, microphone arrays will remain, she concludes.

The fact that cloud unified communications are convenient and beneficial for small and medium-sized businesses does not exclude their demand for large companies. What motives are they guided by when choosing a UC usage model?

In fact, all types of UC solutions are found in companies of all sizes, but you can distinguish some trends, some standards, depending on the scale of the business, "says Vladimir Burgov.

For SMB companies with minimal IT infrastructure and, often, IT specialists in the state, cloud solutions of PBX, messenger, video conferencing are such a standard. This model provides them with a quick start, including the IT infrastructure that can be obtained from the cloud as quickly as possible.

Large and some medium-sized companies can use cloud UC solutions, but we see more and more colleagues looking at on-premium solutions. From the point of view of infrastructure control, from the point of view of infobesis, solutions deployed on their own site, of course, are much more preferable, he says.

VideoMost also sees the interest of large customers and government customers in cloud UC services such as VideoMost SaaS, which have all the necessary functionality and at the same time ensure the necessary level of security and security of information, says Nadezhda Alyabyeva.

Alexander Melnikov notes that regardless of the scale of the business, companies choose unified communications from the cloud, focusing on internal business tasks. And MCN Telecom provides telecom platform resources to both small and medium and large companies.

Almost all experts agreed that small and medium-sized companies have enough virtual telephony with a set of options depending on the tasks of the business. But as for large customers, then the opinions of experts diverged. Alexey Lagutin believes that since large companies usually have a request for information security in parallel, hybrid clouds are especially in demand in this segment. And Artem Cheprak notes that some medium-sized companies will want to deploy the UC system on their infrastructure.

For each large company, the solution is selected individually, and due to the inheritance of communication systems of past generations, it will have both software and hardware components, he says.

The larger the business, the more critical for it the issues of privacy and data security, - notes Arthur Koplik, - and state-owned companies or companies with state participation are obliged to follow a number of regulatory acts, according to which most often the transition to the cloud model is too expensive or generally prohibited.

But by and large, companies make a choice between a "cloud" and a server solution, based on the specifics of the business and the tasks for which the unified communications system will be used, summarizes Dmitry Odintsov. According to him, since large business, industry, the financial sector, government and law enforcement agencies are characterized by high requirements for fault tolerance and data protection, such customers often choose server solutions that they themselves fully control.

Adjustments to the established practice of introducing unified communications in companies of all sizes were made by global vendors of UC solutions, announcing the suspension of their activities in the Russian market. This solution of most international suppliers complicated the work of many large, medium and small companies in our country that used their solutions, on the one hand. On the other hand, it opened up to Russian developers of unified communications a wide field of activity to transfer 90% of the market to domestic solutions.

Now it is difficult to predict what such global changes in the market for unified communications solutions will lead to, but one thing is obvious - "wait out" will not work, now you need to import substitution "in an adult way," notes Arthur Koplik.

SVETETS CEO Nikita Zhurba notes that import substitution and Russian origin of products are now one of the key factors on the market. In recent months (we are talking about the first half of 2022 - approx. TAdviser) "SVETETS" received more requests from companies and integrators with questions about the replacement of Avaya, Cisco, Unify systems.

And we have a lot to offer these companies, "he argues.

To what extent are the manufacturers of domestic software generally ready for the mass introduction of their products in a market free from Western competitors?

{{quote "Over the past few years, thanks to the active stimulation of the development of the domestic IT industry, many solutions have appeared on the Russian software market that can compete with foreign counterparts. Moreover, these digital products are actively being introduced into the work of domestic companies, providing a seamless transition from foreign to Russian solutions, - Roman Romanov answers this question. }}

Indeed, in Russia today there are all classes of domestic UC solutions: unified communication platforms, such as CommuniGate Pro, combining in their core almost all types of communications, virtual PBXs, video conferencing systems, both hardware and cloud.

In terms of technology, we are on a par with the global market, to some extent even ahead of it. We also spend a lot of time on security, integrating neural networks, artificial intelligence into UC solutions, including speech recognition, emotion recognition, facial recognition, etc., says Vladimir Burgov.

In charge of themselves, the Russian developers of all these solutions confidently declare their readiness. So, according to Alexei Lagutin, head of the project implementation department of Mango Office, the influence of foreign software products is minimized in the key components of the solution architecture of this supplier. Its own development team, its own line of products, servers located in Russia - allow you to quickly deploy a solution that is fully adapted to its needs for the customer.

We are ready to take on the technically difficult part of the work to help complete a seamless transition with minimal loss, "he says.

SVETETS believes that today Russian unified communications solutions are in no way inferior to their Western counterparts - audio and video communications, conferences, chats and a developed set of services.

As part of the solution, we offer our customers all the necessary means of convenient work - softphones for PCs, WebRTC application, mobile applications, subscriber equipment management system, - explains Nikita Zhurba.

The company "Informtechnika" planned active actions to increase its market share long before all known events and, as a result, approached them prepared.

We have developed and supply a unified communications system with a capacity of up to 1 million subscribers, which includes a combined IP PBX "MiniCom MKh-1000" and a corporate messenger "ROSCHAT." The solution is built on the basis of one "window" and works on all popular operating systems, both mobile and desktop, - explains Artem Cheprak.

According to Alexander Melnikov, the MCN Telecom platform combines mobile and fixed communications with the ability to connect fixed numbers with local codes of more than 60 regions and mobile numbers of more than 40 regions of Russia, as well as more than 200 Cloud PBX functions in one trunk. Among them are speech synthesis and recognition, voice robots, chatbots, colltracking, Flash Call and other services that provide effective business communications for users.

We will continue to provide services to our customers in full so that they do not have problems with business processes, he stressed.

Dmitry Odintsov also speaks of full readiness to replace foreign software and hardware VKS systems in the fields of activity. This is confirmed by the results of a survey of 465 managers and specialists directly related to unified communications during company seminars in different cities of Russia. So, answering the question: "What solutions for VKS did you use in 2021?," - 20% of them chose Zoom, 14% - TrueConf, 10% - Skype (regular), 9% Cisco Webex and 8% Skype for business.

Government organizations and business customers migrate to the Russian Aerospace Forces almost everywhere. The share of imported hardware VKS solutions continues to decline - they are supplanted by internationally recognized Russian products protected from sanctions and blockages, he says.

A similar opinion is expressed by a market colleague, software developer VideoMost. According to Nadezhda Alyabyeva, he is ready to replace the products of international vendors and service providers such as Zoom, Webex, Microsoft Teams, Cisco, Poly, Avaya, WhatsApp, and others used for corporate communications in government and commercial organizations in the Russian Federation with his solutions.

VKS software is easy and fast to replace, much easier than ERP or office software - there is a domestic cloud VKS service, she says.

Russian Video Conferencing Systems Market Overview

The market for corporate video conferencing systems (VKS) in Russia, as well as around the world, has been growing at a high pace over the past few years. The remote mode of operation, which has spread widely due to the pandemic, along with the trend for import substitution, spurs the development of domestic VKS systems. Russia already has products that can not only confidently replace foreign platforms and services, but also provide full integration with them. Read about how the domestic videoconferencing market is developing, what drivers and barriers experts talk about, how they see the future of such systems and who is the leader of this market in the TAdviser review.

Nevertheless, one cannot but recognize the obvious problems that both vendors and their partners system integrators have to deal with in one way or another. The first of them concerns the hardware of UC solutions. The domestic market lacks telephones, audio and video equipment.

There are several manufacturers in the Unified Register of Russian Electronic Products, but, unfortunately, all of them produce equipment for certain companies and departments and from components of foreign (mainly Chinese) production. And in this case, unfortunately, it is very difficult to assess further prospects for the availability of such products, - says Dmitry Inyushev.

And everyone: UC developers, system integrators and customer companies, especially those from medium and small businesses, still have to face a shortage of servers and find a way to overcome it.

Nikita Zhurba says that among other problems that have to be encountered in the process of replacing foreign solutions, one can note the closeness of some products, which complicates the process of integration with them. For example, in IP phones, the ability to work with third-party solutions can be artificially limited, or support for the open RFC standard has been replaced by a proprietary implementation of the functionality.

A separate layer of problems that customers need to solve is psychological. They are forced to get acquainted with unusual Russian-made unified communications solutions for them in a short time and assess how suitable they are for migrating to them from foreign UC platforms and solutions, choose the optimal one from them and integrate them into their IT infrastructure.

However, according to Vladimir Burgov, the problem of embedding a new one has been practically solved.

Our Russian manufacturers, Russian integrators have worked out scenarios, tested migration methods from foreign UC platforms to Russian ones, the expert notes.

At the same time, one of the main problems in this process is the years-old user experience of customers with one or another functionality of the unified communications system used by him, which may not be available in domestic solutions. Accordingly, the customer is forced to make a serious decision on how much the rejection of such functionality is acceptable to maintain his business processes (even for the time determined by the manufacturer of the new solution, during which this functionality will be developed and implemented in the required amount).

For a number of reasons, the active development of unified communications systems in the composition to which users of foreign solutions are accustomed, Russian manufacturers began relatively recently. On the one hand, this is certainly a limiting factor affecting their current readiness for full replacement. On the other hand, this is just a positive aspect, which consists in the fact that domestic producers have quite certain benchmarks that set the directions of development, says Aleksei Zhirnov, Director of the Communications Solutions Department of the AMT GROUP.

For the fastest and most efficient migration from the unified communications platform of an international vendor to its Russian counterpart, they need to be as close as possible in terms of a set of functions. However, it is clear that it will not be possible to achieve a 100% match.

In the current situation, all customers, without exception, will somehow have to decide on the strategy for such a transition. The main factors that adversely affect their choice when deciding on the timing and possibility of transition are the lack of a clear plan for the manufacturers in question to implement the necessary functionality and an insufficiently convincing list of successful product implementations.

In our opinion, the import substitution process for unified communications solutions does not differ from that for any other IT systems. Firstly, the business needs of users of the current system, possibly prioritized by their importance for the latter, should be recorded. Secondly, it is necessary to conduct market analytics of such solutions, taking into account the previously received requirements, and draw up a list of leaders of two or three, which fully (but not necessarily) meet all the requirements. Thirdly, organize pilot implementations of solutions from this list on limited groups of real users in order to get feedback from them to enrich the selection criteria. Only after that you can make the final decision on the choice and move on to agreeing on the budget and implementation dates, - says Aleksei Zhirnov, Director of the Communications Solutions Department of AMT GROUP.

In general, in order to reduce potential risks at each of the above stages, it makes sense to conduct this process with the involvement of specialized experts with the necessary competencies and expertise. The customer expects the integrator to help migrate data from one platform to another, preserve the functionality and landscape of client interfaces. He, in turn, pilots solutions, creates a migration plan with the ability to roll back to its original state, and establishes a parallel use process.

All these stages are extremely important, but costly, says Arthur Koplik, head of the unified communications department at I-Teco.

It is also important to understand at the preparation stage how the UC platform will be supported and developed further. It is also necessary to assess the condition of the equipment, analysis of the availability of spare parts.

At the same time, according to Artem Cheprak, the transition itself should be carried out without stopping production processes, while maintaining the current functionality. Informtechnika will conduct an audit, integration with legacy solutions and create a new seamless communications environment.

The most correct scenario is a gradual transition from one platform to another, in which two, three, four solutions work simultaneously, depending on how the infrastructure was assembled at UC at the customer.

In CommuniGate Pro, a similar scenario has been tested, which means it is possible. Migration occurs gradually, in parts. Users are transferred to piloting, where this process is configured for what is now and what the customer will have, because after all, each implementation story is individual, despite a large number of common points, "says Vladimir Burgov.

And if the Russian manufacturer of such a UC-solution of combined communications and its partner integrator network are ready to offer the customer such tools for the simultaneous coexistence of two systems, new and old, for gradual and migration of users from the old system to the new one, for a seamless transition from one solution to another, it will thus solve a large number of customer problems, and this will become his customer his product will be valuable, the expert says.

Today, in fact, nothing is deterring domestic customers from switching to Russian products, says Nikita Zhurba, General Director of SVETETS Firm. Migration to Russian solutions is already a matter of security and digital independence of the company. And few people are ready to ignore this factor in serious organizations, even though some Western vendors are already talking about "return."

Of course, the introduction of import-substituting solutions should take place evolutionarily, while maintaining the invested investments of companies and supporting the existing segments of corporate communications systems. This requires us, vendors, additional integration flexibility and willingness to work for a long time, "concludes Nikita Zhurba, adding that today Russian developers have every chance to seriously squeeze Western brands in the Russian unified communications market.

The growth in demand for domestic unified communications solutions, which is noted by their Russian developers and suppliers, is certainly a positive trend. It operates now in many countries. In China, for example, it is local IT solutions that prevail, including in the UC area. And the choice of companies in their favor is actively supported by the state.

The state addressed a number of support measures to Russian developers of UC solutions as representatives of the IT industry. And this should to some extent make it easier for them to move their products to meet users.

• Unified Communications (Russian Market)
• Unified Communications (Global Market)
• PBX - Office PBXs (Russian Market)
• PBX - Office PBXs (Global Market)
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