New data from Blue Touch Paper reveals where the UC market is moving. Here is what IT and AV buyers need to act on now.
The conversation happening in the channel right now is not about products. It is about platforms.
Channel Pulse, a quarterly market intelligence program run by Blue Touch Paper, published its Q1 2026 Landscape Report this spring. Blue Touch Paper interviews its global Channel Advisory Board (CAB). A community of AV, IT, and unified communications (UC) resellers across North America, South America, Europe, APAC, and the UK. Each interview happens face to face on a video call. The result is a ground-level view of where the market is actually moving, not where vendors say it is going.
The Q1 2026 findings are sharp and consistent. Microsoft Teams dominates hardware decisions. Platform certification has become a dealbreaker for enterprise buyers. Cloud video interoperability (CVI) is fading fast. And a new Microsoft framework called the Microsoft Device Ecosystem Platform (MDEP) is about to change which devices your reseller recommends.
Here is what each of those findings means for the person responsible for the rooms.
Microsoft Teams now decides your hardware
Ninety-eight percent of channel partners in the Blue Touch Paper survey cite Microsoft Teams as a primary hardware sales driver. That number deserves a moment. It means nearly every reseller you speak to starts room design with Teams certification as the baseline requirement.
The practical implication is straightforward. If your organization runs Microsoft 365, your hardware choices narrow considerably. Microsoft certifies room devices through a formal testing process. Certified hardware delivers consistent feature support, including automatic camera framing, noise suppression, and Copilot integration. Uncertified hardware may join a Teams call. However, it will not deliver the full platform experience.
Moreover, Teams AI features expand over time. Certified hardware will enable them first. Uncertified hardware may never catch up.
The Blue Touch Paper report names Logitech, Cisco, Neat, Yealink, Q-SYS, and Shure as the vendors gaining channel momentum. Conversely, HP Poly, Crestron, Barco, Jabra, and EPOS are losing ground. Channel partners give consistent reasons for both trends. The growing vendors align tightly with Teams, deploy easily at scale, and carry strong commercial terms. The declining vendors struggle with slower innovation and weaker native fit with the Teams ecosystem.
For buyers, vendor trajectory matters. A reseller’s enthusiasm for a brand reflects something real about that brand’s roadmap investment and support structure.
Your OS choice is a room strategy decision
Channel partners in the Blue Touch Paper survey sold Windows-based devices 60% of the time and Android-based devices 40% of the time. That split is not arbitrary. It reflects two distinct deployment patterns.
Windows devices suit complex, premium, and AI-heavy rooms. Windows supports more advanced Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) capabilities. It also aligns with enterprise IT security policies and offers compute upgradeability. That means you can swap the PC module without replacing the whole room system. Windows additionally gives Microsoft more surface area for Copilot and AI feature delivery.
Android devices suit standard meeting rooms better. They cost less upfront, deploy more simply, and deliver a consistent, appliance-like experience. For organizations standardizing dozens or hundreds of rooms at volume, Android is often the right answer.
The key question to ask your integrator is not “Windows or Android?” in isolation. Instead, ask which room types you are solving for. Then let that determine the OS. Define the room category first, and the OS decision follows naturally.
MDEP: the standard reshaping vendor eligibility
Here is where the Blue Touch Paper report gets interesting for buyers. Microsoft has introduced a framework called the Microsoft Device Ecosystem Platform (MDEP). MDEP is Microsoft’s program for validating that Teams Rooms devices meet consistent standards for security, manageability, and long-term feature access inside the Teams ecosystem.
Think of it as a deeper level of certification. Today’s Teams certification tells you a device works with Teams. MDEP tells you a device integrates into Microsoft’s broader device management and security framework in a standardized way. In practice, that affects everything from remote device management to AI feature access to enterprise security compliance.
The Blue Touch Paper survey found that most resellers are not yet discussing MDEP with clients. Most clients have not asked about it either. However, 47% of channel partners predict a negative sales impact for vendors who do not adopt MDEP. The channel’s reasoning is direct: vendors without MDEP solutions may lose eligibility for future Teams Rooms ecosystems entirely. Certification expectations will harden, and non-MDEP devices may fail to meet enterprise criteria.
For buyers planning multi-year refreshes, MDEP status deserves a place on your vendor evaluation checklist now. Ask your hardware suppliers directly whether their roadmap includes MDEP compliance and by when. Vendors who cannot answer that question clearly carry higher long-term risk.
CVI’s quiet collapse
CVI allows a native Teams Room to join a video conference running on a different platform, such as Zoom, Webex, or Google Meet, without a separate BYOD (bring your own device) laptop in the room. For several years, CVI served as an important bridge technology during the multi-platform transition.
The Blue Touch Paper report shows CVI’s role is shrinking fast. Fewer than 10% of current VC deployments include a CVI solution. The primary driver is native guest join, which is the built-in ability to join a meeting on a different platform directly from a Teams Room. Native guest join now handles most cross-platform scenarios adequately.
Sixty-five percent of channel partners call native guest join mostly or fully sufficient. Pexip leads the remaining CVI market for organizations that still need it, particularly large enterprises running mixed Cisco Webex and Teams estates.
If your organization has been paying for CVI licenses, revisit that spend. For most deployments, native guest join covers the requirement at no additional cost. The Blue Touch Paper data suggests CVI now serves a niche rather than a standard use case.
Platform consolidation is your new reality
The Blue Touch Paper report asked resellers whether their customers were consolidating onto fewer platforms. Only 4% reported no change. The overwhelming majority described consolidation happening, with many moving strongly or completely onto a single platform.
The driver is simplicity. A single platform means a single admin tool, a single certification path, a single hardware standard, and a single support escalation path. Organizations that committed to Teams are going deeper into Teams. That trend strengthens hardware decisions, license purchasing, and vendor selection simultaneously.
For buyers still running mixed estates, Teams in some rooms and Zoom in others, the cost and complexity of that approach will only grow. The channel increasingly designs for one platform at a time. Maintaining two competing native room ecosystems means maintaining two separate hardware, support, and upgrade tracks indefinitely.
Five things to do now
The Blue Touch Paper report is a channel-facing document. Its findings, however, map directly to decisions IT and AV buyers face today.
- Audit your current room estate against Teams certification. Uncertified hardware will fall further behind as AI features expand inside the platform.
- Define your OS strategy by room type before your next procurement cycle. Use Windows in complex and executive spaces, Android in standard rooms, unless your security policy dictates otherwise.
- Add MDEP to your vendor evaluation criteria now, even if your next refresh is 18 months away. Vendors who cannot commit to MDEP compliance are a higher long-term risk.
- Review your CVI spend. Native guest join handles most cross-platform scenarios. If CVI remains justified in your environment, document exactly why.
- Name your primary platform and design toward it. The cost of multi-platform ambiguity compounds over time.
Data cited in this article comes from the Channel Pulse Q1 2026 Landscape Report, published by Blue Touch Paper. The report is available at bluetouchpaper.tech.
Tim Albright is the founder of AVNation and is the driving force behind the AVNation network. He carries the InfoComm CTS, a B.S. from Greenville College and is pursuing an M.S. in Mass Communications from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. When not steering the AVNation ship, Tim has spent his career designing systems for churches both large and small, Fortune 500 companies, and education facilities.
- Tim Albright
- Tim Albright
- Tim Albright
- Tim Albright
