@39355
Unified communications (UC) has been available for several years
in various shapes and forms, but adoption within corporations has
been slow. Mobile UC is right around the corner and may act as a
catalyst for greater UC adoption.
Unified communications comes in many different flavors from an
increasingly large number of vendors. Components of it, such as
unified messaging (voicemail/email integration), have been
available for more than 10 years and yet adoption was slow. About
five years ago, UC was broadened to include conferencing services
(I actually wrote a white paper on this in 2003) and yet adoption,
again, was slow. Over the last year or so, the definition of UC has
been broadened to include instant messaging, presence and location,
but adoption continued to be lackluster. Microsoft has now expanded
UC even further to include Office applications and -- guess what --
adoption is still sluggish!
The latest wave to hit UC is mobility. There were many mobile UC
demonstrations at the last VoiceCon and Interop tradeshows, and I'm
expecting to see more in the upcoming VoiceCon in the fall. So the
historical pattern has been: Add a feature, no impact on the
market; add another feature, little impact; add another, not much
impact; and so on. So do I really believe mobility could have an
impact? Yes, I do -- and here's why. @39357
I'm not totally sure I really need desktop-based unified
communications. It may be nice to have but wouldn't be essential.
One of the big benefits of UC is that it creates the ability to
move information from one medium to another. For example, in just a
few mouse clicks, I could listen to a voicemail, reply to the
caller through an email, and then send that same person an IM.
Three modes of communications all integrated together.
Conceptually, it sounds great, but I'm really not sure it provides
all that much value or saves much time. My communications and
collaboration tools have been siloed for so long that I've become
proficient at using them that way and so has almost ever tech-savvy
worker out there today. The bottom line is that any technically
proficient user -- there are more and more every day -- can
manually switch between applications and unify his own
collaboration tools. The desktop-based UC will grow, but it's going
to require integration into business process -- but that's another
column.
When I'm mobile, though, it's quite a different work
environment. Switching between applications on a smartphone isn't
nearly as simple as it is on a desktop. Moving information from one
application to another is also much more difficult, so the
integration of applications is much more valuable. Also, the
multimodality of UC is huge when a user is mobile as well. When I'm
in the office, I have a choice of contacting someone by phone,
email or IM (so I often do all three at the same time!). When I'm
mobile, the environment I'm in often dictates the mode of
communication that I use. If I'm driving, I really shouldn't be
typing on a keyboard (although everyone does), so speech is the
preferred mode of communications. However, if you're in a crowded
area or an area where you should be quiet (classroom, theater,
etc.), you really shouldn't be yelling into a phone, so text-based
communications is much more important. Thus, the ability to
communicate with everyone you need to reach, in any mode, is
critical when mobile.
Integrated presence is much more important when mobile. At my
desk, I really don't need to do a mouse hover over a user's name in
an Excel spreadsheet to see whether he's available. It's nice, but
I can just look at my IM window. When a user is mobile, time is
often limited, so trying to reach other users who aren't available
can often be frustrating. Understanding the person's presence
before you call becomes very important. Integrated presence will
help us more efficiently use those 10-minute time slots between
meetings or while waiting for a plane. @39356
The last piece of the mobile UC puzzle is the handset itself.
The business class smartphones today are head and shoulders better
than the ones of just a couple of years ago. Personally, I think
the Nokia E61i phone and the BlackBerry 8800 are two of the best
business-class smartphones on the market today. In my opinion, the
Treo has gone from leader to dark horse over the last few years.
I've been a Treo user for years and moved from 600 to 650 to 700
and, quite frankly, each one has had many stability problems --
they crash a lot and just aren't in the same class as the Nokia and
BlackBerry devices.
For those of you going through a UC deployment now, or at least
thinking about it, I recommend you take a serious look at deploying
UC to your mobile workforce as a test bed. Our research shows that
over 40% of workers today are mobile, and that number is on the
rise, so you shouldn't have trouble finding a group of people to
use as a test bed. You'll give the mobile workers more
functionality in more locations more often. Mobile device
management isn't quite where it needs to be yet (especially
multi-vendor), which might cause you some headaches, so start with
a smaller group of users with the same device.
Lastly, determine which devices you want to support concurrently
with your UC decision, as this will be a key component of your
rollout. Microsoft UC is likely to work only on Windows Mobile
initially (shocker). The Avaya and Cisco clients both work great on
the Nokia device, etc. The device and UC decisions should be
coordinated, otherwise you could limit yourself down the road.
About the author:
Zeus Kerravala manages Yankee Group's infrastructure research
and consulting. His areas of expertise involve working with
customers to solve their business problems through the deployment
of infrastructure technology solutions, including switching,
routing, network management, voice solutions and VPNs.
Before joining Yankee Group, Kerravala was a senior engineer
and technical project manager for Greenwich Technology Partners, a
leading network infrastructure and engineering consulting firm.
Prior to that, he was a vice president of IT for Ferris, Baker
Watts, a mid-Atlantic-based brokerage firm, acting as both a lead
engineer and project manager deploying corporate-wide technical
solutions to support the firm's business units. Kerravala's first
task at FBW was to roll out a new frame relay infrastructure with
connections to branch offices, service providers, vendors and the
stock exchange. He was also an engineer and technical project
manager for Alex. Brown & Sons, responsible for the technology
related to the equity trading desks.
Kerravala obtained a B.S. degree in physics and mathematics
from the University of Victoria (Canada). He is also certified by
Citrix and NetScout.