Interactive Intelligence: The Path to Hockey Stick Growth May be CaaSInteractive Intelligence: The Path to Hockey Stick Growth May be CaaS

25 percent of new customer orders are attributable to CaaS--compared to just 5 percent in 2009.

Here in San Antonio at Interactive Intelligence's annual partner meeting the big story is Communications-as-a-Service (CaaS). The other big story was talk of the next release of the company's flagship product, CIC 4.0. In his keynote CEO Don Brown did a great review of the features expected in CIC 4.0, scheduled for release in the first half 2010.

Don is the only CEO you'll see address hundreds of partners, consultants and analysts in a tee-shirt and jeans. He's also the only one who talks about his own products with such brutal honesty--describing how a new version of a CIC application was developed because he was sick of getting yelled at by a customer about it. (Don's language was actually a little saltier than that.) That kind of honesty is a significant component in the trusting relationship Interactive Intelligence partners have with this vendor.

Vice President of Enterprise Sales for North America Paul Weber was up next and spent his entire 45 minutes talking about CaaS with a presentation entitled, "Cloud computing is all the buzz." Weber reported that in North America in 2010, 25 percent of new customer orders are attributable to CaaS--compared to just 5 percent in 2009.

According to Weber, when it comes to cloud-based solutions, "Our competitors don't want to talk about it, and they don’t want to deliver it." Weber is referring to traditional CPE competitors who for the most part don’t have a strong hosted offering or work exclusively with carrier partners.

Having the CaaS solution with a set of reference customers means Interactive Intelligence partners can (and should, according to Weber) walk into any deal and offer both hosted and CPE alternatives. Cloud is on the mind of many CXOs and RFPs are typically asking for at least a hosted option. Weber explained that there are deals that start out asking for a CaaS proposal but end up buying CPE.

Weber dedicating his keynote slot to CaaS sends a message. Interactive Intelligence has seen success with CaaS, believes that the market has an appetite for CaaS and that they have a window of opportunity in the market compared to their competitors. I borrow the sentiment in my title from Weber, who said that Interactive Intelligence has designs on moving revenues from where they are today to a whole new level. CaaS may just be the path to take them there.