I've spent the week in the UK, in large part meeting with industry analysts and editors. As you might expect, some of the market dynamics and challenges are the same and some are different. All told, I reached some interesting conclusions about various communication topics that I thought I'd share.

1. The cloud is here to stay! Cloud-based (or hosted if you prefer that term) communications is a red-hot topic. One analyst told me 30% of his contact center inquiries revolve around the topic. Another analyst is pushing all his clients in that direction -- "it just makes sense," he says.

2. Social media is still a mystery. One editor loved it and wanted to write all about what we were doing with it; one analyst called it "rubbish" (a great British term). My guess is that it is somewhere in the middle.

3. The contact center market growth stats over the next five years are only single digit. Makes me glad to see that we are growing at a much faster rate.

4. Security for CaaS-based contact centers is still a perceived issue, when in reality, properly architected, it is as secure as its premise-based counterparts.

5. There are some distinct differences in distribution preferences between countries -- the Germans prefer buying direct while the British like VARs.

6. Customers are looking for two important things from their vendors (obviously there are more than two, but these were interesting) -- help internally selling the value of the solution; removal of financial risks.

7. There are three contact center vendors with installed bases prime for churn (email me if you what to know the names of the three).

It has been a great week. I love London.

"Cheers"

Joe Staples