Unified Communications and Simplicity
A recent PC World article by Peter Judge says unified communications (UC) is a good investment during recession. The article goes on to quote a Redshift survey commissioned by Mitel that claims that workers in the UK are demanding UC solutions. Unified communications is of course a very popular term these days, and many communications offerings seem to fit under the UC umbrella as companies rebrand products.
Judge made a statement about simplicity which I found particularly interesting. He makes the point that UC in its simplest form, is just teleworking through a DSL connection using an IP phone (which can in itself be just software). I agree very much with this, as I think companies can benefit a lot from adding simple functionality on top of their existing infrastructure instead of engaging in large replacement type installations. Just adding an IM/VoIP client is a simple first step for improving efficiency by fostering collaboration, improving the ability to reach co-workers, and untying employees from their desks.
The next step is to add conferencing capabilities which can also be accomplished through software solutions. Even though this may increase complexity for servers hosting conferencing applications, the investment can yield very large cost savings compared to traditional conferencing services.
Simplicity is elegant!
Tags: Conferencing, Mitel, Unified Communications
December 3rd, 2008 at 11:06 am
Roar,
Unified Communications should be MORE than IM/VoIP – we have this for over 3 years now and for consumers not just enterprises.
Please have been using Skype and other IM clients to communicate without their IT departments installing and rolling out a “corporate” service for them.
Someone needs to sit down and define UC in a way that will make sense and remove all of this hype nonsense, otherwise, people will just say that there is no such thing as UC…
December 3rd, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Unified also means having a single source (client) to emminate all types of communication from. Currently in my office, I have a ShoreTel deskphone, ShoreTel Call Manager software, MS Outlook for email, and MS Office Communicator for IM. Hardly unified!
December 3rd, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Tsahi,
You bring up a very good point about UC not being confined to just IM and VoIP, and the need for a more coherent definition. The way I usually think of it is to use a paradigm that places the PC (and probably eventually a mobile device) as the driving force for functionality that used to reside on separate devices. Furthermore, a single application that enables not only IM and VoIP, but video, email, unified messaging, and intuitive voice and video conferencing seems to be the direction most people are heading. That being said, I think Roar hints at a trend that seems to be the dominant force at the moment, and that is enterprises taking a staged approach to UC. For reasons pertaining to budget, infrastructure, and uncertainty, many companies are choosing to implement many features usually associated with UC one step at a time. So, for instance, a company may choose to utilize a VoIP or IM solution, but may still rely on hosted conferencing services, instead of making a big investment in an on-premise, unified solution. I would imagine that this will continue given the current economic climate.