It’s all about branding new business communications technology in order to associate new products and, more importantly, new services in the marketplace. The trick is in the definitions of the brand and catching the interest of who in a business organization will be interested and responsible for new business communications capabilities. This is particularly tricky as both business processes and communications with people converge as software that all can exploit the Web as services.

The biggest target used to be telephony for real-time person-to-person contacts, but as more consumers started using screen-based endpoint devices, text messaging communications (email, IM, and mobile SMS) have rapidly become a practical alternative to real-time voice interfaces and connections. This shift was accelerated with the advent of multi-modal smartphones and tablets that not only make individual end users more accessible for both business and personal contacts, but also support “UC-enabled” applications to exploit voice or visual user interfaces.

Since Microsoft came in to the UC game at the desktop and mobile smartphones with its Lync software products, IBM has now jumped into the marketplace with a new brand, “Social Business,” that is intended to include US-enabled applications of all kinds. At their recent Lotusphere conference, IBM upgraded their older enterprise technologies to be part of their “Smart Cloud” and “Social Business” product and service offerings. In particular, they reinforced their role in consultative services to organizations that need help in identifying requirements and managing the migration to what I call “UC-enabled” applications.

One analyst who attended the Lotusphere conference was very impressed with the new directions of IBM, but never mentioned “UC” as part of his review (Bruce Guptill, Saugatuck research Alert).   On the other hand, Irwin Lazar, from Nemertes, highlighted the need for “UC Management” in his No Jitter review of the Lotusphere conference.  (See http://www.nojitter.com/post/232400454/inside-lotusphere)

“UC” is not going away but is being embedded under new labels for business communications. As far as I am concerned, “Social Business” is really another form of communications that is “UC-enabled!”

Tags: Unified Communications Information // 1 Comment »

Consumers and business users are increasingly using message “texting” for person-to-person contacts, and automated business applications are targeting pro-active, time-sensitive alerts and “notifications” to multi-modal smartphone users. A recent study by Frost & Sullivan confirmed social media tools are being used more frequently than any form of conferencing. Sixty percent of C-level executives indicated that their mobile device was their primary means of communication for their jobs. So, it is time to pull messaging services and especially “unified messaging” (UM) into the game as multi-modal, “UC-enabled” applications.

(http://www.nojitter.com/post/232400283/frost–sullivan8217s-end-user-study-shows-interesting-trends-in-uc-social-media)

Old voice mail has always had significant shortcomings primarily because the Telephone User Interface (TUI) was too limiting, but also because of integration issues. With the advent of smartphone usage by consumers, those shortcomings can be obviated and make voice mail and other forms of messaging more convenient and practical by becoming UC-enabled.

What this really means is that every form of business messaging, ranging from email to voicemail to SMS to IM chat to social posts, can be used independently by either senders or recipients. Users can also escalate their messaging contacts with presence-based “click-to-call/conference” options. It also means that UC enablement can help consolidate all end user communications management functions for the flexibility enabled by mobile, multi-modal devices.

The term “unified messaging” (UM) was originally used to describe the ability of a voice mail system to inter-operate with an email system to determine if there were any new email messages waiting.  Later, UM included the ability to store and retrieve both text and voice messages, as well as other incoming call management features. Now that IP Telephony is replacing legacy PBX systems and both inbound and outbound calls are becoming more intelligent and “contextual,” unified messaging may now be ready to be simply part of the “UC-enabled messaging” landscape.

The experts at UC Strategies will be discussing this topic in terms of UC-enabled voice mail will do for business process performance and technology costs, usage feature benefits to individual end users at the desktop and on the go, as well as practical migration alternatives from legacy voice mail systems.

Stay tuned!

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For my last post of the year, I want to highlight something else that Apple is bringing to the Mobile UC table. They have been notably successful in innovating the design of mobile devices (iPhone, iPad) and it looks like they are converging the user interface modalities even further with their latest patent announcement of the “Smart Bezel” and its Multi-Modal Human Interface  (MMHI) Engine.

http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2011/12/apples-revolutionary-smart-bezel-project-gains-a-new-chapter.html

As long as I have been writing about the multi-modal benefits of UC for mobile end users, I have been suggesting that contact initiators should be able to dynamically choose their modality of communication independently of what their recipients may want. That will be particularly valuable for all forms of messaging, where both message input and output (retrieval) could be voice or visual. It will also be very useful for “mobile apps” where input commands can exploit the convenience of voice, while output responses (menu choices, information, graphics, etc.) can exploit the screen. Such flexibility is what UC is all about from the practical end user perspective because it makes the mobile user not only more accessible but also more efficient/productive in using their time.

What is particularly interesting about the Apple approach is that it will simplify and dynamically automate any changes in user interface options based upon the individual end user’s environmental situation. This would be particularly important for dark vs. bright lighting conditions as they impact the use of the screen and its battery needs, as opposed to using speech or haptic input/output as much as possible.

We have always suggested that a person driving a car will require “hands-free” input and “eyes-free” output to insure safe driving. (We can always debate the issue of distractions of any kind for safe driving!) Apple’s Multi-Modal Human Interface Engine would be able to detect the fact that the movement of the mobile device indicates it is in a moving vehicle and could automatically invoke limited interface modality choices. Although there will always be an issue of whether the user is actually driving or is a passenger on a car, train, plane or bus, this kind of sensor detection can still initiate some simple form of “confirmation,” whether from the user or from the vehicle itself.

While automated media conversion has long been available after the fact through “visual voicemail” and improved speech recognition technology that converts voice messages to text, Apple’s Smart Bezel may dynamically control all forms of input and output modalities at the endpoint device level where the user interface action is at. So, while we have always looked at UC’s ability to enable end users to utilize any form of communication exchange between people or between mobile business applications, we still require those end users to make most of those choices manually. Now, maybe it can be done more intelligently and automatically by those multi-modal smartphones that are not just “phones” for conversation anymore.

Stay tuned!

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It’s been awhile since I’ve blogged about the hospitality industry, although I always pay attention to the telephony infrastructure (Ok, the phones in the room and behind the front desk) wherever I stay. I’ve seen a lot. There is a lot of old Nortel out there, particularly as they had a hand hold in the hospitality industry early on, for example. But more and more I’m seeing newer, higher end phone sets in rooms, along with newer entertainment options as well.

Last July Mitel announced that the JW Marriott Indianapolis had selected and deployed Mitel’s Unified Communications solution based on its Freedom architecture. Mitel’s UC solution is a pure IP voice infrastructure spanning all 33 floors and over 1000 guest rooms, as well as the adjunct 104,000 square feet of convention space. The hotel has used this infrastructure to give guests new services not possible before, such as web-based information and other services on the phones in the rooms, as well as mobility options for guests.

When I was at the Cisco Collaboration Summit in Miami earlier this month I got to take part in a site visit of JW Marriott Marquis and Hotel Beaux Arts in Miami. This is a unique hotel from the perspective that it is a Marriott on the lower part, and an embedded smaller hotel on the 39^th floor. It is also technologically unique as well. Cisco, along with partner Modcomp, used the Cisco Connected Hotels framework to combine 12 Cisco technologies to deliver guest services, including physical safety, Medianet, video and collaboration.

The hotel has the most pervasive and creative uses of video I’ve ever seen in a hotel.  Up in the ballroom, which can double as a basketball or tennis court, is the biggest video board in the world, at 450 feet, made up of 52 inch Cisco LCD Professional Series display boards. This screen is amazing and multi-use. A basketball team could show replays, corporate events could show video presentations, etc. I could think of all sorts of uses. What came to my mind were those embarrassing childhood videos that brides and grooms sometimes torture each other with at weddings. But Cisco took this idea farther by saying that guests could use video devices to record and stream video during or after the wedding/reception. I don’t know about this one.

The hotel has video signage throughout the building for guest services, Cisco IP phones with video-enabled screens, and a TelePresence concierge in the lobby. The latter is almost a test case on how to introduce TelePresence to the mass market. They have positioned the board at some distance away from registration. However, during peak hours when there can be a line, those in the back of the line could have the opportunity to interact with a life-size video concierge that can show them restaurants options, Google Maps, menus, etc. The hotel says that they will be placing a printer there shortly so that guests can print out things such as Google Maps and directions.

For guests, there are wired and wireless options, including being assigned a wireless IP phone in their room, which they can take with them throughout the property. Guests have the option of using TelePresence rooms for meetings, can also request a mobile video concierge so that they can interact with a concierge without leaving a meeting room.  Once in their rooms, guests have multiple options of services on the phones, and the hotel has used the same for targeted advertising to guests. For example, during a slow time in the spa, they might put an ad on the phone with a discount during a specific time period that the person can get by mentioning a code on the display, or perhaps get a free drink or appetizer in the restaurant.

Finally, Cisco also took too care with security by using Cisco Physical Access Control, and Cisco IP Video Surveillance technology, coupled with Cisco Emergency Responder for 911 calls. This was really a great hotel, and don’t even start me on how nice the rooms were. I didn’t want to leave.

Tags: Collaboration, Mobile UC, Video // 2 Comments »

UC and CEBP Can Provide Fast, Secure Communications

Health care activities have long been recognized as a big target for UC flexibility, particularly for mobile end users and for personalized automated notifications. However, a recent announcement by the health care industry’s Joint Commission showed the potential for another way UC-enabled applications can play a key role for convenient and efficient contacts.

The Joint Commission stated that texting medical orders directly is not acceptable because of authentication and record keeping requirements. Needless to say, the convenience of using mobile smartphones and tablets would be limited. However, while person-to-person texting is prohibited, person-to-process-to-person should be acceptable, and that’s where Mobile UC flexibility and CEBP come into play.

The doctor who wishes to initiate a medical order can simply do so through a mobile app that first requires secure access and authentication, including a written signature or voice ID if necessary. The order can be input as speech or typed, and then becomes a text message that is then deliverable to authorized recipients, which can include hospitals, pharmacies, and the specific patient. The voice recording of an order is also useful for validating a record of the medical order.

The patient involved can be immediately notified and have access to a copy of an order to be aware of what will be done and to quickly follow up with timely usage of any medications involved.

Doesn’t that look like a multi-modal UC application to you?

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In my ‘Happy Birthday, Cisco TelePresence’ blog last month, I wrote about the latest and greatest Telepresence offerings Cisco introduced near the five-year anniversary of the birth of the first TelePresence product. To recap, the first two parts of the announcement were a vertical market application for healthcare called Cisco VX-Clinical Assistant, a number of new TelePresence endpoints, including the Cisco Jabber^TM Video for TelePresence; a standards-based, HD video-calling software application that allows participants to join TelePresence calls from their desktop PCs or laptops, and Cisco TelePresence MX300; Cisco’s newest multi-purpose, room-based TelePresence system, that supports nine people in a room.

The third part of last month’s announcement was the extension of TelePresence into the SMB market with the introduction of Cisco TelePresence Callway, a hosted service that is part of the Cisco Collaboration Cloud. Even though Cisco talked about how the four pillars are mobile, social, visual and virtual, the combination of video and the cloud were the two central themes I took away from annual Cisco Collaboration Summit, held last week in Miami, Florida.

Murali Sitaram, VP /GM of the Collaboration Software Group, gave a presentation on “Cloud Collaboration in the Post PC-Era”. Snorre Kjesbu, VP/GM of the TelePresence Technology Group, and Hakon Dahle, VP/CTO of the TelePresence Technology Group presented “Delivering on the Promise of Video Everywhere”.  We also listened to a very entertaining panel of Cisco executives talk about “Managing and Securing Collaboration in the Cloud”, as well, backed up by a breakout session on “The New Role of Video”, with multiple executives fielding our questions.

Barry O’Sullivan, Senior VP/GM of the Collaboration and Communication Group, started off the summit by talking about the cloud, and stated that WebEx is now the second largest business SaaS application out there with 500M users. Barry then spoke about the announcement of the next generation of WebEx, which extends the experience of the meeting to before and after the meeting. The idea is that users do work before and after meetings, related to those meetings, and this work would be far more effective and efficient, if attendees could have a persistent meeting space where they could file share documents from a desktop or file store, to get ready for the meeting, and leave that meeting “essentially open” for any updates after the meeting.

In Murali’s presentation he outlined a vision of how users collaborate now that we have so many device options and collaboration tools other than just our desktop. As he put it, “we consume experiences, documents, etc. and we do it across multiple devices. The cloud fundamentally enables this world that we live in, which is mobile, social, visual and virtual. The user device is like a piece of glass with the intelligence higher up.” So following up on this concept of a persistent meeting, the idea is to make meetings more expressive and meaningful.  There is knowledge in each meeting that needs to be conveyed to the next one.  With a persistent meeting space you can prepare by scheduling, posting the agenda and meeting materials, meet through video and sharing, on the device of your choice, and then follow up by sharing, continuing the discussion, watching recordings and tracking progress.

We also heard and saw a lot on Cisco Quad, and using Quad to create neighborhoods where employees can work. One demo showed how a vendor could collaborate using WebEx, and we were shown how Cisco has worked on getting the user interface between the Quad and WebEx to look very similar, including sharing a common activity stream. There is also now a history feed in the activity stream, added through the assets brought in from Cisco’s acquisition of Versely. In addition to the history feed, the demo also showed a widget that allows a pop up for an approval on part of the project, chat to get project approval, and then a video popped up via Callway. An additional party was using Telepresence through VXE, and another one was brought in using Jabber client on an iPad.

It is hard to encapsulate two days of Cisco collaboration into a few paragraphs. I’ll just say that from where Cisco was five years ago with the introduction of TelePresence, to the variety of tools and applications in collaboration, including video, that they now have available for users of all company sizes and types, and how they are integrating them, and delivering them is truly impressive.

—–

Also on UCStrategies.com on this topic:

• Cisco Collaboration Summit - What’s UC?, (UCStrategies Views article) by Jon Arnold
• Cisco Continues to Help Customers Transform Their Business, (UCStrategies Views article) by Blair Pleasant
• Cisco Helps Companies Transform Business, (video podcast) by Blair Pleasant
• Cisco Getting Serious About Developers, (UCStrategies Views article) by David Yedwab
• UCStrategies Experts Discuss the Cisco Collaboration Summit, (Industry Buzz podcast) by Blair Pleasant

Tags: Collaboration, Unified Communications, Video // 1 Comment »

UC Interoperability - Technology “Separation of Church, State, and End Users”

Unified Communications (UC)-enabled applications must be supported in various ways and “interoperability,” a loose term being used to describe a major challenge (see No Jiitter post by Fred Knight) in supporting UC’s operational growth. For many providers of UC applications and services, interoperability simply means getting old and new communications applications integrated to work together at various levels, including network access, application user interfaces, and endpoint device form factors and operating systems. However, every organization will also have to consider interoperability as a means of gracefully transitioning from the past to the future. This will not only be a challenge in transitioning operational communications technologies, but also a challenge to the future role of an organization in controlling access to both its information resources and its communications between people (internal staff, customers, and business partners).

Business communications (particularly voice telephony) are transitioning away from hardware-based, location-based technologies to “open” software and “virtual” applications that can more easily interoperate with each other. They are also shifting to application-driven real-time notifications and multimedia self-services rather than requiring person-to-person phone calls for real-time information access and delivery. Bottom line is that traditional requirements for enterprise communication control is expanding away from just the wired premise desktop to multimodal, mobile BYOD devices that will be primarily controlled by the individual end users through UC and shared for the many different contacts with other organizations that the individual end user has “business” relations with.

These technology shifts would suggest that much of yesterday’s real-time, voice-only desktop telephony requirements will be significantly reduced in favor of multimedia user interfaces, asynchronous forms of personalized contact, and real-time mobile notifications, with the option of “click-to-call/talk/video” connectivity based on accessibility and availability (presence). End users will be initiating voice conversations differently and managing responses to such contacts differently than traditional call management.

So, the basic question really is how will that transition take place from the perspective of enterprise technology? Will it shift (slowly or quickly) completely or partially (hybrid) to virtual cloud based IP network services that can satisfy application customization, management, and security needs? That’s where standards and interoperability become key and both the industry and the markets still have “one foot on land and one foot in the canoe!”

Tags: Mobile UC, Mobility, Unified Communications // 1 Comment »

The big news in business communications is that IBM is supporting its employees use of their own mobile devices (smartphones, tablets), while focusing on secure access to internal information. By the end of the this year, 100,000 IBM employees will be able to securely access IBM internal networks with their own devices and network services that will also be used for personal applications and entertainment (dual persona). In 2012, another 100,000 employees will also be BYOD enabled.

Employees will be paying for their own devices and will require loading IBM management software for security purposes. In addition, IBM will require passwords and use VPNs for access to information applications. Initially, IBM will provide contact and calendar access through its Lotus Traveler.

In addition to allowing employees to use public mobile apps, IBM will also provide approved third-party and internal apps from its Whirlwind app store, launched in late 2010.

IBM’s move to BYOD will expand the role of UC for its mobile users, enabling both person-to-person contact flexibility and CEBP notifications from time-sensitive applications. IBM’s BYOD policy  is setting an example for large organizations to migrate their legacy telephony business communications to a more cost efficient and productive virtual and mobile UC environment.

See article

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Being a “pioneer” isn’t always fun, especially if you have to wait forty years for the world to catch up with you.

In my last blog, I described how “time-sharing” was the start of online applications before the Internet and the Web made them a lot easier and cheaper. I helped speed up the commercialization of time-sharing systems by getting Scientific Data Systems (SDS) to adopt the Berkeley time-sharing system as an early product offering. However, before moving to SDS, I also was able to help bring real-time “collaboration” and, what today would be called text “chat,” into time-shared applications.

The SDC Time-sharing System

System Development Corporation, a spin-off of the Rand Corporation, was tasked to develop one of the first “time-sharing” systems for ARPA. As described in my previous article, the objective was for remote end users to independently access various “interactive “ applications in real-time, dialing in on telephone lines from Teletype terminals. However, there was no person-to-person connectivity function involved.

In 1964, SDC was going to give a paper on the time-sharing system at a big computer conference in Washington, DC and I had the responsibility for demonstrating it at a small booth in the exhibit area.

I saw the value of having an interactive application simultaneously accommodate more one person at a time, so I talked to the programmer who was developing the communication front-end computer interface for connecting remote end users over the telephone network. I suggested that, instead of a single field associated with remote user connections, that two fields be provided. That would allow the two users to simultaneously interact with the same application, both seeing all inputs and outputs concurrently. However, the programmer wasn’t sure that the effort was really important or that it could be done in time for the conference.

The LINK Command

A week before the conference, the programmer called me to tell me he had done what I had asked, by adding an online command to the time-sharing system user interface. In addition to “linking” two remote terminals together with a time-shared application, the ‘linked” users could type in text messages for both to see. That was our version of today’s text “chat” function.

I immediately notified the various researchers, who were developing a variety of interactive applications on our time-sharing system, to plan on being on the system during the times that I planned to demonstrate the SDC time-sharing system at the computer show in Washington. I was then able to “visit” with each of the researchers to see and try the different interactive applications they had developed.

Summary

Needless to say, computer show attendees who were used to batch-processing, premise-based main frames, could not believe what they saw from the Model 33 ASR terminals connected to standard phone lines that I was using. The computer system itself was three thousand miles away and they could interact in real-time with different applications and concurrently exchange text messages with the people who were also three thousand miles away.

Although this demonstration was very simple and primitive compared to what the Internet and text messaging data sharing technologies do today, e.g., email, chat, file sharing, etc., it did help shift the original vision of time-sharing from simply remote access to interactive computing applications to the potential of direct communications between users on the network and to “collaborative” online interactions with shared applications. The SDC system was not a commercial product and the “LINK” concept did not go anywhere. The world had to wait for the Internet and email to provide universal access to online text communications; bringing voice and video communications into the picture has taken longer.

Today, with IP Telephony, SIP, UC and multi-modal, mobile devices, we are seeing that very early “time-shared” vision being expanded from person-to-person communications (including “click-to-call/chat,” voice and video conferencing, etc.) to process-to-person contacts and interactions (CEBP). This brings us down to the basics of business applications, mobile devices, and wireless network access.

Tags: Unified Communications Information // Add Comment »

Personalized UC - Mobility vs. Portability

While telephony struggles to find its new role in UC-based business communications, the real driver for UC is going to come from individual end users and the endpoint communication devices they will carry with them for both business and personal/social contacts. With the rapid adoption of wireless smartphones and tablets, the business communications market is faced with the challenge of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) for all types of end users who will interact with an organization.

Wired desktop and residence phones stuck end users with the “telephone” form factor designed for conversational speech input and output and limited non-voice keypad inputs for dialing and control functions, better known as the Telephone User Interface (TUI). With smartphones that provide a screen-based capability for output as well as full alphanumeric text inputs, end users can now choose a portable endpoint device that accommodates fast, flexible, on-demand multimodal contacts with both people and informational applications like a desktop computer, “anywhere, anytime, anyway.”

Steve Jobs, an acknowledged leading visionary for end user needs the industry has ever had, set the pace for UC Mobility with Apple’s first smartphone announcement back in January 2007. While it didn’t do everything that a multimodal end user would want, particularly with speech input, it was a start towards personalized, Mobile UC. Apple’s latest release of the iPhone 4S, finally brought in a missing user speech input interface (Siri) for a variety of automated mobile applications. So, the basic vision of UC, which allows an end user to dynamically initiate and respond to contacts in any interface medium and modality they choose or require, can now be supported by their personalized devices.

Smartphones vs. Tablets

Smartphones and tablets are both being gobbled up by consumers and the question has been raised as to which device will be carried most by the end users. My colleague at UC strategies, Dave Michels, wrote a thoughtful piece on the subject on the No Jitter website. Inasmuch as personalized usage will include all forms of information from documents to pictures to video, the size of the screen will affect the end user’s choice of device type.

My view is end users may well carry both types of devices when they are on the go. Sometimes they need something they can work with one hand while walking around and fits into any pocket, i.e., a smartphone, other times they will need the larger screen when they can also sit down and can look at the screen. In the first case, speech input recognition becomes a key component for the user interface (as reflected by Apple’s Siri addition to its iPhone 4S). When the end user knows they want everything a larger screen will support AND they have a convenient way to carry a larger tablet, e.g., in a purse or other type of shoulder bag, they will take the larger device with them.

When “push comes to shove,” the basic choice for end users is to be able to communicate with other people and with (mobile) business applications. The smartphone size and capabilities will accommodate that nicely. For mobile applications that really require larger screens, the portable tablet will start replacing laptops. But the choice will now be in the individual end user’s ballpark and wireless carriers trying to figure out how monetized everything subscribers will want and to keep control of the traffic demands that mobile apps will be bringing.

So, mobility will trump portability for basic consumer UC applications, but business users may well look to both kinds of wireless devices, just as they do with their wired desktops.

Tags: Unified Communications Information // 1 Comment »