Earlier this week RingCentral and Mitel announced a strategic partnership which would allow Mitel to become RingCentral’s preferred partner for unified communications as a service (UCaaS), which has effectively made Mitel cloud connect redundant.

With this new agreement Mitel’s UCaas will move to RingCentral’s message video phone (MVP). This marks a major change for both companies as previous attempts at partnership had proved tricky. Mitel have the ability now to sell RingCentral Engage as well as RingCentral contact center.

The two companies have also pledged even further integration with both businesses purchasing a stake in the other. Mitel are looking to invest £150 Million into RingCentral, whilst RingCentral will purchase up to £450 of intellectual property rights from Mitel, ranging from infrastructure to call management and security.

For a long time, RingCentral has been the number one rated UCaaS provider. This strategic move by Mitel could prove to be a masterstroke, allowing them to gain ground in areas they previously lagged behind.

Mitel have put out the following statement on their website:

RingCentral has a proven track record and is rated as the #1 UCaaS provider by Gartner and many other industry analysts. RingCentral’s Message Video and Phone (MVP) solution will become Mitel’s go-forward UCaaS solution, giving Mitel customers more choices, complementing our leading UC on-premises, subscription, and private cloud solutions.

Mitel Cloud Connect Customers

Mitel have since stated that from the end of June 2022, there will be no new customers accepted onto the Mitel Cloud Connect platform. 4Sight are keen to stress that for any of our existing customer using Mitel Cloud Connect, your service will remain the same and no change of service is expected. 4sight will continue to provide the highest level of support for all customer products. After June Mitel will push any new customers towards RingCentral.

Migrating to UCaaS

On the face of it, this isn’t great news for customers that have recently invested in Mitel Cloud Connect, but Mitel has assured its customers it will continue to support Cloud Connect and the agreement will only affect new customers.

If you want to read more from what Mitel say on this, you can do so here: https://www.mitel.com/en-gb/articles/what-happened-micloud-connect

If you were considering migrating your existing Mitel on-premises solution to the cloud, and had your sights set on Cloud Connect, fear not. There are alternatives available. At 4Sight we are able to offer the new Ring Central solution, or an alternative from UCaaS vendor 8×8. We’d be delighted to talk to you about what the Mitel change means and to discuss your cloud options. Call us on 020 3668 0444 or email info@4sightcomms.com