Net2phone SVP Talks Acquisition, Latin America and the Future of the Desk Phone

Earlier this year, Net2phone bought Integra CCS, a contact-center-as-a-service (CCaaS) provider operating in the Americas and Europe. In many respects this was a natural fit for Net2phone, said George Longyear, senior vice president, channel sales and alliances. He emphasized that the company already had strong channel connections in South America, Central America and Mexico and that it continues to provide holistic solutions to that partner community.

Net2phone’s George Longyear

Net2phone, which provides VoIP and cloud computing-based telephone products and services, is a subsidiary of IDT Corp., a global provider of fintech, cloud communications and traditional communications services. The success of the Integra purchase was somewhat overshadowed by the company’s announcement last week that the board of directors has postponed the spinoff of its net2phone cloud communications segment. It had been preparing to spin off on or before July 31.

“The Net2phone team has achieved exceptional results bringing advanced cloud communication solutions to markets in North and South America,” said Jonah Fink, president of net2phone. “We remain very excited by Net2phone’s rapid growth, the transformational opportunities created through the recent acquisition of Integra, and the strength of Net2phone’s global channel partnerships.”

Longyear agreed with those sentiments and spoke to Channel Futures about why Integra’s purchase is good for channel partners. He takes on other topics as well, including the future of the office phone. Also in this interview, Longyear discusses why Net2phone was able to offer partners solutions for hybrid work, options available even before the pandemic hit.

Channel Futures: The common refrain I hear is that the office phone is disappearing, especially with the transition to hybrid work. What is your take on that assessment?

George Longyear: I would say that the need is diminishing for hard phones that sit on desks at this point. Requests that come through virtualized service, whether it be contact center, whether it be unified communications, or whether it be Microsoft Teams integration, require soft phones and not actually hard phones that sit on the desk. So I’d say that desk phones are here to stay for the time being. But it’s definitely leaning toward the direction of virtual and soft phones.

CF: Are you seeing sales drop for hard phones?

GL: I don’t think they’ve dropped. And if they have, it’s been minimal. You still have a good portion of potential customers that are very used to having a hard phone that sits on the desk. But I’d say we’ve seen maybe a reduction in the asks for a for hard phones. I can tell you that’s due to some of the overall shortage of hardware amongst the large vendors out there in the UC marketplace. There are the microchips, and the shortage on that piece of it has affected the supply chain.

However, you still have plenty of businesses that are doctors’ offices, hospitals that are not working remotely and still have that need for the physical hardware in an office location.

CF: From your previous interviews with Channel Futures, it seems that your company is doing well financially as a consequence of the pandemic. Have you’ve experienced a sales increase during this period?

GL: I would say 2020 was probably our greatest year because many people were pushed, whether they liked it or not, to a home office. So that required the ability to deliver services in a virtualized environment across geographies. I think that the Band-Aid was ripped off, so to speak. I mentioned Microsoft Teams native integration with Net2phone was a huge driver. We had just launched into that space and COVID-19 was an instant catalyst for that.

CF: Why choose Microsoft? What was it about that business relationship or decision?

GL: Other UC providers also did the same because Microsoft is so embedded. Such a large portion of the customers out there …