8x8 is a deeply discounted XCaaS specialist aiming to convert reliability, platform integration, and usage-based AI engagement into a multi-year re-rating—before hyperscalers squeeze the mid-market.
Overview
8x8 (EGHT) is a long-standing cloud communications vendor operating across UCaaS, CCaaS, and CPaaS, now concentrating strategy around its unified eXperience Communications as a Service (XCaaS) platform. The core promise is a single-vendor system that unifies internal employee collaboration (voice/video/chat) with external customer engagement (omnichannel contact center), reducing integration friction and total cost of ownership for lean IT organizations—especially mid-market enterprises. Revenue is primarily subscription (~80%) via tiered X Series plans (X2–X8), supplemented by a fast-growing usage-based stream (~20%+) including CPaaS APIs, secure payments, and AI-driven customer assistant interactions. A major differentiator is global, carrier-grade infrastructure: a backbone spanning 36 regions with full cloud PSTN in 58 countries (including complex markets like China), paired with a financially backed 99.999% uptime SLA across both UC and contact center—capabilities that “meetings-first” rivals often cannot match. Rather than displacing Microsoft Teams, 8x8 increasingly positions as an enhancer through Operator Connect and Teams-certified contact center capabilities, targeting mid-market and globally distributed enterprises in verticals like retail, healthcare, public sector, and tech.