VoiceCon Unified Communications eWeekly
A Cooperative Project of VoiceCon and UC Strategies

This week’s issue of Unified Communications eWeekly is sponsored by the VoiceCon Tour 06:

One-day workshops focusing on application pay-offs in enterprise IP Telephony-SIP, Unified Communications and Next-Gen Contact Centers. Plus, User Forums where enterprise executives share the lessons learned from their migration. Dates and cities are:

• Anaheim, Oct. 24
• San Francisco, Nov. 6
• Chicago, Nov. 15
• New York City, Nov 28

Full agenda and registration details are at: http://www.voicecon.com/tour/

Welcome to the first issue of our new e-newsletter, VoiceCon Unified Communications eWeekly. Together with my VoiceCon/BCR colleague Eric Krapf and the principals at UC Strategies-Jim Burton, Marty Parker, Blair Pleasant and Don Van Doren-we will present you with weekly analysis of Unified Communications technology and product evolution, market issues and deployment.

We do, however, ask something of you: Please opt-in as a subscriber using the bocx in the right-hand column. This e-newsletter is free, signing up takes just seconds, it won’t add you to any new marketing lists, and we promise that Unified Communications eWeekly will prove valuable to you.

We’re confident about fulfilling that promise, because, over time, Unified Communications will radically alter the enterprise communications landscape. The piece-parts of Unified Communications-telephony, voice messaging and email, presence and IM, video and collaboration-already play essential roles in our personal and professional lives. UC is about bringing those historically separate, often isolated modes of communication together into a comprehensive and integrated package.

The effort, of course, is no small task. UC emphasizes software, and communications historically has been more hardware-oriented. UC places a premium on interoperability, not this industry’s strongest suit. And, UC threatens traditional silos of technology as well as those within enterprise IT, telecom and networking organizations.

Even though UC must overcome substantial challenges, there is much that is positive to report. The foundation for UC is a communications platform that can handle voice, video and data; with IP Telephony and converged networks that platform is now available. Bandwidth, particularly within the local area, is available and affordable. And the biggest names in our industry-IBM, Microsoft, Cisco, Avaya, Siemens, AT&T, Alcatel, Nortel and Verizon-along with startups, are devoting money and brainpower to move UC products and services into the market. More companies are sure to follow.

Most important, UC is in tune with the insatiable expectations enterprises have for communications. Many CEOs, CFOs and end users probably believe that Unified Communications is already available. Why shouldn’t they? Presence and IM are changing how we contact and respond to one another. IP phones deliver features and capabilities heretofore only available on computers. We routinely use computers for communications tasks. Voicemail and email integration already exists. And common directories, accessible from a wide range of devices and locations, are a fact of life.

But here’s our industry’s dirty little secret: UC isn’t available yet. And that’s because while we’re good at integrating voice, data and video within a common transmission pipe, when it comes to running truly integrated applications, the hardware, software and, most important, the expertise, are either nonexistent or primitive; same with interoperability. That will have to change for Unified Communications to succeed.

UC also has huge implications for who will be buying what from whom. Cisco seized on the evolution from TDM to IP Telephony to leverage its supremacy in data networks for a move into voice. That lesson wasn’t lost on the likes of IBM, Microsoft and Oracle, who have picked up on the slogan-”Voice is just another application on a data network”-to prove that the world of communications is moving their way. They’ll leverage UC to extend their prowess in “enterprise applications” into communications. Meanwhile, the incumbent voice/IP-PBX and messaging vendors are aggressively expanding into UC and forming new alliances with application providers. The ripple effects from this dramatic shift in who’ll be selling communications products and services will be felt by buyers and distribution channels alike. Some will be able to adapt, others won’t.

As you can see, UC is multifaceted and the stakes are enormous. We hope you’ll join us for this weekly charting of UC’s progress, challenges and market dynamics.

And, let me know what you think about this newsletter or about the topic of Unified Communications-the current state of the art and prospects for the future. Drop me a line at fknight@cmp.com.

Fred Knight
GM/Co-Chair, VoiceCon
Publisher, Business Communications Review