I’ll join in on the year-end roundup – it was a great year for the unified communications market and we’ve made a lot of headway. Here are some of the year’s highlights, and my expectations for next year in the unified communications world – in no particular order.

1.    The economy - Of course the economy is the biggest news of the year. Enterprise customers are unsure what the fallout of the recession will be and are still not sure how UC fits into their environments. Some UC purchases have been put on hold, and many companies are now taking a wait and see attitude.

2.    Software as a Service – The only bright side about the lousy economy is that it might encourage companies to consider these alternative ways of reaping the benefits of UC without the capital expenditures. We’ve started seeing more companies – both large and small, evaluating Software as a Service offerings for UC in 2008. Cisco is well positioned for SaaS, of course, based on its WebEx acquisition, but other companies (like CommuniGate) will benefit as well in 2009 and beyond.

3.    Partnerships and alliances – vendors are starting to work together and we’re even making headway toward UC interoperability and federation. IBM and Microsoft are working together and making progress in terms of interoperability testing, and I expect to see more interoperability announcements between all of the major players in the coming months.

4.    Increasing number of UC implementations and case studies – while the market is still relatively small, 2008 was the year for real UC implementations, for both UC-User (for user productivity) and UC-Business Process projects.

5.    Social networking/social software has become huge, both in the consumer world and within the enterprise. New enterprise-grade social networking projects are being developed and announced, and are beginning to integrate with UC. Expect to see forms of “click to call” from some of the leading social networking sites, and especially from corporate social networking applications. Virtual worlds are also becoming more “mainstream” for the enterprise, as evidenced by Nortel’s Web.Alive.

6.    Mergers and acquisitions - Cisco/PostPath/Jabber; Nortel/Pingtel/Diamondware; Gores Group/Siemens; Convergys/Intervoice; and Syntellect/Envox are just some of the relevant acquisitions of 2008. I expect Cisco and possibly other UC vendors to acquire a social software company in the coming months so that it will have a commercial product offering in this area (see above). Unfortunately, I also expect some UC companies to downsize and either close up shop or get acquired by former competitors.

7.    End user focus – from a purely UC perspective, we saw several companies focusing their UC efforts on the business user or end user, rather than the IT manager. Avaya, Cisco, NEC, Alcatel-Lucent, Siemens, and others have introduced programs aimed at understanding end user needs and matching UC offerings to these needs. Line of business managers will be the key to UC success.

8.    Channel involvement - As evidenced from the UCStrategies UC Summit last June, resellers and system integrators are gearing up to sell and implement UC solutions. This requires knowledgeable and experienced partners who can work with not only the IT staff, but line of business people as well. New channel programs from Avaya and others demonstrate the commitment to help bring the channel up to speed in going beyond selling boxes to selling solutions to the end users and line of business managers.

We hope that in 2009 the UC market will continue to build on the momentum that started a couple years ago. Let’s hope that it’s a happy new year for all.

Tags: Unified Communications Information by Blair Pleasant
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2008 was the year of communications.  Unified communications became a reality, with products and solutions actually being deployed, to form a collaborative strategy within organizations.  Perhaps the need for cost efficiencies, combined with the plummeting economy, forced enterprises to rethink how they utilize their communications platforms to improve overall productivity within their organizations, and ultimately add to their bottom line.  While tools such as UM and e-mail have been deployed for quite some time now, the emergence of a more unified communications and collaborative strategy took shape.  The integration of telephony and presence features became much more critical to business processes. All of a sudden, there were so many modes of communications that calling someone on the phone really became secondary. Modes such as IM and SMS have become the way to have a conversation.

As the year comes to a close, what does 2009 hold in store for this industry?  With emerging technologies taking shape, business models changing, a new group of millennials coming into the workforce, the blending of personal and professional lifestyles, and a new president-elect, I think that despite the economy, we’re in for change.  Here are a few things that I think will happen in 2009 (in no particular ranking order-they’re all important):

1. The Unified communications market will consolidate-as the credit crisis continues, the financial viability of vendors will be challenged, those who don’t survive will simply get acquired in a rapid fire sale, or simply go away. 
2. Interoperability will happen-There’s no way around it, if UC is to succeed, vendors will need to interoperate and partner with other vendors, in order to drive UC adoption. Most enterprises will take a best of breed approach, simply because of existing, disparate technologies within the organization, which becomes expensive to rip out and replace.  2008 was a lot of talk about making it happen; 2009 will see it happen…really.  Vendors finally understand that this is not a one vendor-take-all space and will learn to guess what? Collaborate!
3. Customers will have the option of deploying UC and collaborative tools overall, in the Cloud, making for better resource efficiencies.  Although still a relatively nascent market, vendors will capitalize on this opportunity and make it enterprise ready.  Enterprises will evaluate any technology that can help to rationalize capex/opex.
4. Enterprise social networking will become a legitimate collaborative tool.  Look for Facebook and LinkedIn type enterprise applications take shape in order to enhance partner, supplier and customer relationships, while at the same time, securing an organization’s intellectual property.
5. SaaS will gain traction as enterprises, both big and small, look to reduce hardware investment and create efficiencies; market will move towards anything as-a-service.
6. Terms like software, hardware, and telephony will go away, making way for new terminology.

Although there are many things that MAY happen, I believe these WILL happen.  The market must go in this direction in order to further the value proposition of UC and collaboration in general.  The value and benefits will be hard for enterprises to ignore, even in this economy.  This is a good time for enterprises to take the time to re-evaluate their equipment, strategy and ultimately resources.  Automating many business processes and implementing productivity applications is key in this environment and vendors have a choice of solutions to choose from.

On that note, thank you for reading me, and providing feedback.  I’m very interested in reading what you think will happen in 2009, feedback is very much welcomed.  It’s been quite a year and glad to have been a part of it.  I look forward to sharing my thoughts and opinions with you in 2009, and wish all my readers a wonderful and prosperous New Year!

Tags: Mobile UC, Unified Communications, Unified Communications Information by Vanessa Alvarez
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Here is an excellent article about the “smartphone” becoming your next computer.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/smartphones/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=210605369

I might rephrase the title to something like “Is The Mobile Handheld Computer Going To Become Your Next ‘Smartphone’? From a UC perspective, you are damn right it will!

As I pointed out in my last post about Citrix and it’s new policy of “BYOC” (Bring Your Own Computer) for its employees, the big hangup for enterprise mobility has been security and device support. Mobility is where the flexibility of UC really pays off most, much more so than at a desktop. So, as I see it, the security concerns for mobile devices can be relieved by “virtualizing” enterprise applications, just like they are starting to do for desktop use. The hosted application servers control access to sensitive information, in a hosted and secure network service environment but where the enterprise can still manage usage and access. That is where the new network infrastuctures of SOA and SaaS are taking business process applications, so we need to include wireless mobility and UC flexibility into that mix as well.

You should keep an eye on the posts of my colleague, Michael Finneran, about mobile devices and whether these should store business applications and data like a desktop computer, or just be a “terminal.” My opinion? The handheld or portable laptop device should always be at least a mobile “terminal.” If you really need to have reliable access, find a wired connection! Otherwise, use any available wireless access. If you have to do real “work,” and want to carry information with you, you will probably want a more efficient bigger screen and a keyboard, so carry a laptop (and your “smartphone” and find a place to dock and sit down!

Of course, we still need the wireless carriers to be more cooperative with consumers, who are also business users, that need mobile access to and from enterprise applications, exploiting Communication Enabled Business Process (CEBP) and self-service portals. That same need will apply to any consumer who is a “customer” of an enterprise business. But, that’s another debate that isn’t finished.

The big issue that is really shaping up is who will supply those “smartphone” devices, mobile operating systems, and mobile software clients to subscribers of wireless services, and how will enterprise organizations be able to exploit and control those devices in terms of access to proprietary business information by authorized business users. The battle for control is just starting!

Tags: Mobile UC, Unified Communications Information, Unified Communications Information by Art Rosenberg
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