JAA'S Analyst Blog - Current Posts

Since the relaunch, JAA's traffic has been really growing, as is our following, and your support is greatly appreciated! For those who have signed up for the blog via RSS, we hope you continue following, and sharing with others is also appreciated.

You should also know that the majority of JAA's thought leadership is published on sites other than this blog, and the best way to follow my broader coverage is to subscribe to my monthly newsletter.

A short note for navigating this section - scroll below for the most recent posts, and then for more, click on the Blog Archive box, where you can view all of my posts, going back to the beginning in March 2005.

Am back now from RingCentral’s 2025 Analyst Summit, and it was time well-spent. Hosted at the upscale Bardessono hotel in Yountville - the heart of Napa - the setting was more than comfortable, making the almost two-hour drive from SFO a small inconvenience. More importantly was the intimate setting with a small group of analysts and pretty much all the key people we need to know and hear from at RingCentral.

Momentum is strong on many fronts, and it adds up to continued growth through 2025. There were many updates to keep track of, most notably:

Strong Q4 results, with 2024 revenues hitting $2.4 billion
Launch of AI Receptionist - AIR - which brings CAI and agentic AI capabilities that any business can use to automate the handling of incoming calls
Appointment of Kira Makagon as President and COO - further solidifying an already-strong leadership team
Updates on RingCX - powered by RingSense AI, their CCaaS offering is clearly gaining traction, both with and without the AI feature set

There were other updates of note as well, but I’m not doing a full-on review here. I posted commentary and photos regularly during the sessions on my LinkedIn feed, and with longer analysis coming on two video segments.

One is with UC Today on their Big UC News roundup, and another is a similar roundup with our group at BCStrategies. Both should run publicly next week or soon after, and I’ll share the links in case you don’t catch them.

To complement those takeaways, here are some of my photos, some of which you may have seen in isolation from my LinkedIn posts.

Below - nice overview visuals here. It’s easy to forget that RingCentral has been going for 25 years, and the first photo is a great timeline for their innovations and milestones. Second visual emphasizes a key message from the event - they have a complete, “multi-product portfolio”, and have a come a long way from from being a VoIP provider.

Some of the bright stars on their team, ball-hockey guy/MC/Mr. Canada - Amir Hameed, Kira Makagon, and Kristen Koenig (from their Hopin acquisition - another good growth story)

Zane Long leading the partner panel; RingCentral brain trust for the Exec Q&A, including Vlad Shmunis

More smart people, especially on the AI front - Jim Dvorkin, Dr. Antonio Nucci, John Finch

AI Receptionist demo (hard to see, but the 8 avatars on the screen represent the different personas that AIR can take on); the Two Mikes - Mike Stowe and Michael Brandenburg talking about what makes their platform distinct.

Thought you’d never ask - the hotel was right out of Central Casting for what you’d expect in Napa; world-famous, we-are-not-worthy French Laundry restaurant; and of course, an organic lemon tree in the garden area of the property.