Year three of the unified communications push finally is showing signs of saneness in the marketing messages surrounding UC adoption. Maybe it’s partially the economy as companies are so much less likely to go storming ahead with full blown UC deployments, and are instead starting to take a much more measured approach; taking the time to really think hard about which pieces of UC they need now versus later, and taking more careful stock of what they already have (read network readiness). This in turn is forcing vendors to soften their approach. But I would like to think that it’s more than network readiness and the economy that is making this happen. I’d like to think that vendors are looking more broadly at what will benefit customers, and benefit them by implementing solutions in a non-disruptive order, than just pushing the ‘everything UC’ button.

For some vendors, a more sane approach has been taken all along, but now they are becoming more vociferous in their marketing delivery. While at VoiceCon, I talked to Joe Staples, Senior VP of Worldwide Marketing at Interactive Intelligence about their approach to UC and he talked a bit about marketeers gone wild when pushing the UC hype. I had to laugh when he said that even vendors who make headsets now say that they are optimized for UC. It’s a bit much.

Interactive Intelligence’s all in one solutions/platform approach makes it a lot easier to add new capabilities, but even without this Interactive Intelligence takes the approach of asking CIOs what problems are they trying to solve, which of their legacy stuff should stay or go, and if the underlying technology infrastructure is sound and in place. Interactive Intelligence also has the vision of communication based business processes which are discussed in my white paper “Peering Past the Unified Communications Frenzy” (June 2008), and in CEO Don Brown’s white paper “A New Approach to Business Process Automation” (November 2008) which are both downloadable on this site. Also worth listening to is Jim Burton’s interview with Joe Staples in which they discuss the communication-based approach versus communications-enabled one.

As for the addition of solutions to the UC mix that Interactive Intelligence sells, today they announced the addition of SMS to their all-in-one multi-channel contact center suite. This might not be the sexiest UC function, but it does enable customers who are into using SMS to interact with a contact center using the method they prefer and have those SMS messages routed, recorded and reported on the way that a call would be. It also allows the contact center agent to respond back in kind. One additional benefit of using SMS is that contact centers will be able to push messages and important information out to their customers, not just receive messages, so that customers can be notified of events, or status updates on everything from order purchases, special events, sales, or critical information such as when a stock price hits a certain level, etc. Although, with the economy and stock market the way that it is, maybe we don’t want to know the later.

Tags: Unified Communications, Unified Communications Information by Nancy Jamison
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At VoiceCon last week, it was clear that the economy had hit the show.  Attendance was light, booths were even lighter, and the word was that most enterprises were holding off on big IT projects until Q1-09.  From a vendor perspective, they felt VoiceCon Spring was a more important show.  This is definitely a sign that vendors are being cautious about where they put their marketing dollars. 

The conference overall, took a turn in terms of the hype around it. It was quieter than usual, and I realized that the hype has died down.   UC is no longer a question of if it will happen, but more of when and how it will happen.  Vendors at the show focused more on features and functionality of UC solutions, really getting down to what the actual solution consists of.  Many also pointed out partnerships that will enhance their solutions, as is in the case of NEC and Tellme, where NEC will be combining its services with Tellme’s on-demand platform.  Several topics that I didn’t see however, or wish there were more of were: 

Green IT-GREEN is a big initiative for the president-elect, and I would not dismiss being “green” as a core part of UC’s value proposition.  Enterprises today have either included, or are including green initiatives into their business strategy, in part because of corporate social responsibility, in part for the more obvious, which is the cost savings behind being “green”.  Unified communications brings together groups of global talent at the click of a button, making go-to-market timing much more efficient; the reduction of travel not only helps the air pollution, but also an enterprise’s bottom line; less hardware (servers, wiring closets, etc) means less real estate; relationship building with external partners through unified communications, improves customer satisfaction; and ultimately, when we see communications increasingly embedded into business processes, automation of those processes, which in turn, will help enterprises to reallocate resources towards other business initiatives.  I would also include in this section, offering services in the cloud, which is still very much a nascent market, but not one to be overlooked. 

Mobility-Although VoiceCon has historically not been a wireless show, I firmly believe that the lines between wired and wireless are blurring.  Unified communications is tearing down this wall, but did not see much focus around mobility.  As was evident during Microsoft’s keynote when they introduced their customer, the “convergence” manager from Boeing, leading enterprises understand that the worlds of wired and wireless have come together. I did receive an interesting demo from Mitel, which has understood that the key for mobile UC will be the GUI, and they have opted to mirror the GUI for each supported device (i.e. BB with their own interface, etc).  Many vendors have strong mobile UC stories; however, I didn’t find them prevalent at this show.

Collaboration-Although unified communications is still not widely deployed, and I don’t expect it to evolve to a more comprehensive collaboration strategy within enterprises any time soon, there has been growing interest in what the next step for unified communication is. Collaboration is the long-term evolution of UC, and the umbrella under which UC falls. I look at collaboration as being unified communications+wikis, blogs, communities+enterprise social networking.  While we’re certainly not there yet, it would be great for enterprises, both big and small, to see what the evolution of UC is and have a better understanding of how they all fit with one another. 

So, while it was good to see all the usual suspects attending this event, this industry is changing, and VoiceCon must evolve.  It really is not just about voice anymore, but so much more, of which voice is a small part of. The roles within an IT organization are changing, and targeting the “network” guy or the “telecom” guy is no longer the case. The coming together of IT and telecom is happening and addressing one and not the other is detrimental.  I have seen titles like IT manager evolve into convergence manager and titles such as Chief Information Officer turn into Chief Innovation Officer.  What do you call them?  The telecom guy? The IT guy?  I think I’ve made my point.

For enterprises, it’s critical that a long-term collaboration strategy is put in place.  Although the economy has put many IT initiatives on hold, UC and collaboration should be priorities.  The long- and short-term benefits are well worth it and employees need to begin taking advantage of these tools. Organizational behavior starts from the top, and management must implement policies that will encourage the use of UC and collaboration tools. Cisco has been a vendor that has demonstrated that they practice what they preach.  With a mandate from the top to cut 1 billion dollars in CAPEX/OPEX, the use of these tools is critical to making that happen. Conducting business doesn’t stop just because you can’t get on an airplane.  It’s critical that the necessary tools be put in place as to not disrupt business.

Tags: Mobile UC, Unified Communications, Unified Communications Information by Vanessa Alvarez
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Mitel

Offsetting the bad news about lay offs at Mitel was their product announcements at VoiceCon. The glitziest is Mitel’s new TeleCollaboration product, due out in Q1′09, that adds to the growing number of telepresence products in the industry. TeleCollaboration is a combination of Mitel’s conferencing and collaboration software, video from Magor Communications (www.Magorcorp.com) and Mitel’s conferencing units and handsets.

Although Cisco TelePresence seems to be the gold standard for video conferencing these days, it costs gold to implement. Although Mitel didn’t announce pricing yet, they assured me that it will be a fraction of the upper level Cisco product. I’ve been happy to see others add to the stack of affordable solutions, particularly when they add productivity enhancements as this announcement does by providing collaboration and recording capabilities in the meeting. Still, they also provide life-sized video and spatial audio as part of the package.

An additional announcement Mitel made was SiMple Personal Licensing (SMPL) of their UC products, which includes role-based software licensing, taking into account roles of different user types within an organization. Their packages in the typical basic, standard and advanced format are designed to make it easier to deploy UC. They have bundled pre-integrated packages by user type, but also provide the flexibility for an organization to add additional applications off a laundry list of UC features. The packages are:

• Basic User - someone who might not even have a PC. Package includes a hard or soft phone (including hot desking)

• Standard User - Someone who has a PC and to whom communication is important. Package includes basic plus voicemail with unified messaging and a basic UC client

• Advanced User - Someone with a PC and who is reliant on communication in their job. Package includes standard plus voicemail with UM, mobile phone twinning, and an advanced UC client with presence.

Mitel also announced their own UC client and did some product renaming - Mitel Unified Communication Express 2.0 (formerly Integrated Office Companion), Unified Communicator Advanced 2.0 (formerly Your Assistant Premium), and Unified Communicator Mobile 1.6 (formerly Mobile Extension)

Avaya

Avaya advanced the user interface for UC with the addition of a speech-to-text (STT) solution for converting voicemail messages into text, delivered as an email to the end user. The voicemail then becomes an optional .wav attachment. The solution allows users to read voicemails, keep written records of them, allows them to respond via email or voice and the converted messages can be saved and searched on. SpinVox, one of the initial entrants in the STT area partnered up with Mutare Software; a developer of interactive voice and web applications, to deliver the solution to Avaya. STT is integrated into Avaya Modular Messaging unified messaging and is available in English, French, German and Spanish. It includes Mutare Software’s EVM gateway and comes with SpinVox’s STT messaging service.

Tags: Unified Communications, Unified Communications Information by Nancy Jamison
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Tags: Mobile UC, Unified Communications, Unified Communications Information by Blair Pleasant
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What a surprise! A judge found some of the provisions in Cisco’s ICPA (indirect channel partner agreement) to be “clearly one-sided” and “unconscionable”, and found no evidence that Cisco has ever negotiated a partner contract. Now I could say I was shocked and appalled, but the truth is that I don’t recall ever seeing an indirect channel partner contract - from any major manufacturer - that wasn’t one-sided and non-negotiable. At times, the one-sided nature of partner agreements has even led me to question the use of the word “partner” to describe the relationship between some manufacturers and their reseller channel.

In this particular situation, the provisions in question revolved around termination (of the partner) and damage limitations (the vendor’s, of course). I understand the need of a business to protect its’ interests. However, what I don’t understand is protecting those interests at the expense of the “partner”. Whatever happened to the idea that a partnership is undertaken to be a win-win business relationship? The point is to create an environment where partners create and share in success - and sometimes in failure. Not to pick on Cisco - because they have some excellent elements in their partner program - but this is a great example of how one-sided the vendor-reseller relationship can be.

The data industry is a wonderful place to be. The pace is fast (make that frantic), and the changes in technology are exciting. But I believe that the industry has hurt itself with the dysfunctional relationship between manufacturers and their reseller channel. Rather than seeking ways to strengthen their resellers and help them be more successful (increasing the sales of the manufacturer’s products), many manufacturers have actually fostered the very elements that lead to the failure of many of their own channel “partners”. For example, we see partnership agreements that require a great deal of the reseller and give little in return, including “sales” training which encourages “box selling” leading to low margins, flooding geographic areas with many resellers with the same product competing against each other, onerous certification requirements for infrastructure products, and on and on. On my website, www.sierrasummitgroup.com, I discuss what is essential for resellers to be successful, and mention the importance of vendor selection in the reseller’s success. When all else is stripped away from the relationship, the degree to which vendors actually contribute to resellers’ success directly impacts the volume of products sold - i.e. the vendors’ success.

My words of advice…. vendors beware! Those one-sided channel “partnerships” may now come under some heavy scrutiny from the “other side” of the partnership.

Tags: Unified Communications, Unified Communications Information by Pam Avila
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I have a love/hate relationship with Avaya.

Way back in the pre-email, pre-cell phone days, when I started as an industry analyst with Dataquest, one of my clients was AT&T.  AT&T was a company I always admired and at one time in my checkered career I even tried to get a job with them.  Their human resources function was as screwed up as most big companies’ but that’s another story.  While AT&T was my client at Dataquest I had a great relationship with them.

As you know, AT&T begat Lucent which begat Avaya.  As the voice messaging industry was winding down in the ‘90s Avaya stepped in and acquired another company that I admired and had as a client, Octel.  As a result, I had lots of former Octel friends and former AT&T friends at Avaya.

This past Saturday, November 1^st 2008, marks the ninth anniversary of the founding of my company, Saddletree Research.  It also marks the beginning of my relationship with Avaya hitting the skids.  The love affair still existed back in 1999 due to the many friends I still had at Avaya from my Dataquest and In-Stat days, but I could instinctively feel things starting to change as any jilted lover can.

These days my relationship with Avaya is something akin to Avaya being a former girlfriend after a particularly acrimonious breakup.  We don’t have anything to do with each other except once a year when Avaya invites me to their annual analyst briefing.  We smile at each other and reminisce about the old days and better times, but I think we both know that we’re never going to get back together.  Avaya only dances with the big guys these days, like Gartner and Yankee, and select special friends.  I’m an independent in every sense of the word.  Gartner and Yankee are the football players.  I’m the soccer playing nerd.  A polite exchange of smiles is about as far as I get with Avaya.

When I go to their annual analyst fandango I endeavor to be civil and take in what they have to say.  Still, I have to admit it’s like seeing the old girlfriend that you never really got over.  Life has moved on and all parties have survived, but there’s still that faint feeling in the pit of the stomach.  The truth is I really don’t want to like Avaya anymore but they occasionally do something that still brings back happier memories of days gone by.

This year I connected with the usual Avaya suspects who gave me the simultaneous polite smile/brush off combo, but I also met some interesting people with surprisingly innovative ideas.  Most of these interesting people are recent additions to Avaya so they may not have been told the analyst relations rules yet.  I found these people to be candid and sincere, which were not traits that I had come to associate with Avaya over the past few years. 

One of these interesting, mold-busting people I met was Avaya’s relatively new vice president and general manager of unified communications, Steve Borcich.  When we sat down to talk I was expecting the rote Avaya company recitation from Steve but instead I found a guy who was, to use an already overused expression, thinking outside the box.  We talked about UC in general and in particular about how it could be applied in various business environments.  For example, Steve had thought through how UC could be applied in retail settings like the big box do-it-yourself stores to locate expert help regardless of which store an individual worked in.  He even talked about bringing in experts from outside the store who would provide customer assistance while at the same time promoting their own businesses.  Common sense but pretty smart nonetheless.

The idea of federation, as Steve described it, isn’t a new one but the way he described the use of UC in a federated arrangement showed that Avaya has been giving UC some serious thought beyond just beating the competition.  Steve’s idea of extended customer service could certainly be applied to the contact center and beyond.  I was impressed.

I still met plenty of Avaya people who looked me straight in the eye and told me they would do something when I know they had no intention of actually doing it.  I can usually tell who these people are and they haven’t let me down yet.  On the other hand there are plenty of new people at Avaya and they have to be given a chance to prove they’re different.  I hope some of them are reading this blog.  Don’t let us down.  People like me are counting on people like you, Steve.

Tags: Unified Communications, Unified Communications Information by Paul Stockford
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