Artilium

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Trends That Matter; Defining What Comes After Unified Communications

Many analysts and industry observers have correctly identified 2007 as a pivotal year in Unified Communications (UC). A flurry of product releases and the firm commitment of market leaders such as Microsoft have placed UC firmly at the top of the telecoms agenda. But before mobile operators and managed services providers can achieve their business objectives, it is imperative to understand what UC is – and more importantly – what it is not. Against this backdrop, this blog seeks to be a catalyst for broad topic discussion and advancement on the subject of UC and all things at the intersection of communications and context, such as presence management and a new breed of location-based services which is just a part of what UC enables. 

While the industry develops definitions and use cases to illustrate the vast benefits of UC for both business professionals and connected consumers, here is a thought-provoking post from Network World that points out that UC is much more than the integration of different communications media, such as voice, e-mail and Internet telephony over a single interface.  As convergence specialists, Steve Taylor and Larry Hettick - who offer news and analysis about the latest in convergence trends, including fixed mobile convergence, presence management, IP video, and UC – point out: UC is this and much, much more. 

To illustrate this shift, the authors hone in on the journey UC will take us from ordinary human-to-human communications to an exciting mix of human-to-machine and machine-to-machine interactions.  Their post recounts that while traveling, Larry’s originating flight was delayed so he missed his connecting flight. The airline’s back office automatically re-booked Larry for the next flight and sent both a voicemail (left by an IVR speech system) and an e-mail message, offering the option to speak to an agent if he didn’t like the re-booked flight option. In this example, we see the interplay of business processes that combine machine-to-machine communications, machine-to-human communications and completely automated options to deliver a worthwhile service. Read between the lines and their simple example of a flight reservation system speaks volumes about how UC will likely transform our communications and our daily lives. 

How does this impact the UC discussion? It certainly introduces a new dimension and begs the question: Is our definition of UC – which is work in progress anyway – perhaps already too narrow?  The authors suggest what they term “applications convergence” - which they use to describe the process by which computer-based back-office applications and content become conversational with humans in support of a business process - deserves our consideration. Clearly, applications convergence, or whatever we want to call it, is a reality and central to what businesses and their remote workers need to be effective and connected. We side with Steve and Larry: “Regardless of what anyone calls it, the fact remains that ordinary business processes, IT applications and the telephony system are now becoming more and more integrated and we think that’s great news – regardless of any labels.”