Artilium

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Is Presence The New Dialtone?

Amid the buzz about UC, it’s helpful for the industry to have some concrete data points upon which to base expectations and measure results. Welcome figures and forecasts come from In-Stat and Wainhouse Research. The firms have joined forces to publish an extensive two-part market report covering the whole of the UC services market.

FYI: Their definition of a UC system is complex, but comprehensive. It includes “elements of presence, instant messaging, IP telephony, audio conferencing, web conferencing or data collaboration, unified messaging (a common message store for voicemail, email and faxes), mobility, and/or video conferencing—all accessible through a single client interface or within an embedded application interface.

“UC is the lifeblood of the connected company, the vast majority of today’s enterprises whose survival depends on real-time communication with their extended organization of partners, shareholders, stakeholders, and anyone else who brings value to the ecosystem. There is a competitive need to streamline the flow of knowledge and information worker expertise throughout the organization, and UC provides a framework for accomplishing just that.

Against this backdrop, the research estimates the entire unified communications products and services market will be $22.6 billion in 2007, growing to $48.7 billion by 2012. Compound annual growth rate over the forecast period will be 13.7 percent.

As David Lemelin, In-Stat analyst, puts it: “The way in which individuals communicate and collaborate in the business setting has changed dramatically in the last few years, but we are just on the cusp of even more dramatic change. Employees will increasingly have intuitive tools that allow them to control communications and presence, while expanding their access to critical information.

“It raises some fascinating questions, which this post pursues in an interview with Dr. E. Brent Kelly, senior analyst and partner at Wainhouse Research. He argues that instant messaging services will become increasingly important as UC grows in to a larger market. The value proposition revolves around the ability of workers to see and reach out to colleagues and co-workers at the critical moment when they need answers or assistance.

Kelly adds: “Since they’re also presence-enabled, end-users don’t have to reach out to somebody and find they’re not there. They can check to see the best method to contact somebody at any given time. Presence is the dial tone of the 21st Century.

“UC is clearly front and center of customers’ minds, and presence certainly tops the list of the elements businesses will likely roll out first. Kelly confirms this, hinting that instant messaging, IP telephony and audio conferencing are “almost universal” – although it’s quite unlikely it will be a feature on every desktop. As with all services, these elements should only be deployed where it makes business sense.

The takeaway: UC is at the foundation of strategies that will allow companies to capitalize on, and adapt to, change moving forward. To succeed, the enterprise must absorb mobility and presence into its way of doing business. Not only is access to the right information at the right time essential to running an efficient and informed enterprise; reaching the right person at the time is a competitive differentiator.