Unified communications (UC) has in recent months dominated the
enterprise space, but
small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) have been somewhat
left to fend for themselves, piecing together ad hoc UC systems for
collaboration.
This week, however, Siemens announced a single appliance that
unifies communications for SMBs. The vendor claims that it will
save smaller companies money while offering them the productivity
and collaboration benefits of a robust enterprise-grade UC
solution. The HiPath OpenOffice ME is a UC appliance designed for
20 to 150 end users.
The all-in-one appliance introduces presence awareness, which
allows calls and contact attempts to be routed to the appropriate
device or number. Along with that, it features drag-and-drop
conference management, a plug-in that adds UC features to Microsoft
Outlook, a call journal illustrating history, voice and fax message
boxes, personal auto attendant, live call recording, and dialing
from any application.
Richard Wood, Siemens' global vice president of portfolio
marketing, said presence status allows end users to see co-workers'
availability for a phone call or ad hoc conference. Integrating
with Outlook means that presence information is taken from the
user's calendar and used to change call routing preferences and
voicemail greetings dynamically. The appliance also has a mobility
feature that can send calls and other contacts to devices.
"SMBs have the same communication pain points as enterprises,
but the SMB has fewer resources," Wood said, adding that scarce
resources have limited the traction of UC in the SMB.
In a recent report, AMI-Partners noted that many SMBs have the
desire to implement UC but lack the knowledge of where to
start.
"Whether using Skype on their smartphones, installing in-house
IP PBXs or using Web conferencing services, SMBs are clearly
signaling their desire to utilize all available communications and
collaboration solutions," said AMI-Partners vice president Sanjeev
Aggarwal. "However, SMBs are not familiar with the notion of
unified communications, nor are they aware of the various platforms
being cobbled together through acquisitions in the IT space."
"What SMBs need and are willing to pay for today are easy-to-use
point solutions that can help them enhance their business
communications and collaboration skills at little cost and without
requiring heavy IT support," Aggarwal said.
The report also noted that the market lacks an integrated UC
platform designed specifically for smaller companies.
"What's missing, really, is the easy-to-use integrated
platforms," Aggarwal said. "There really hasn't been a vendor that
can bring it all together in an integrated platform specifically
for the SMB. With the right focus, an integrated solution can
really make a difference here. The piecemeal approach only gets
them so far in terms of what the key goals are."
Frost and Sullivan analyst Krithi Rao agreed that the SMB market
has been somewhat neglected by UC vendors because they often lack
pockets deep enough to afford viable solutions. But she added that
as SMBs' UC needs have changed, the vendor community has also begun
to step up.
"It's the customer base itself that has evolved and grown up, and
the vendors have evolved and grown up too," she said.
Rao said many SMBs want to give the appearance that they are
enterprise-sized, and lack of physical space and resources has made
that difficult.
"Anything targeted toward them needs to be affordable and
efficient," she said. "You have to make sure the installation,
administration and management is also simple."
Siemens has come to the table with a platform that SMBs can
deploy cheaply and easily, with very little overhead, she said,
adding that the single-platform approach could entice more SMBs to
jump into the UC arena.
"SMBs want all of the UC capabilities on a single platform," Rao
said. "You can deploy the whole [Siemens] solution on one server,
one platform."
Shayne Spackman, IT director for Santa Barbara Charter, a
three-aircraft charter company with about 20 employees, said his
goals for unified communications boil down to efficiency,
productivity and customer service.
"For the customer, being able to reach the person they want in
the quickest fashion is key," he said. "The bottom line is
efficiency."
Before UC was added to the network, Spackman said, a call would
come in and it could take a few tries for employees to track down
the right person to receive that call. They would try instant
messaging, calling the mobile device, sending an email and ringing
the desk phone.
"It interrupts the process," he said, adding that presence
information now dictates the best way to connect the call. "It
unifies all of the different areas for the people we're contacted
by. You don't have to use four different programs to contact
someone. That ability to contact somebody quickly is going to be
the best value."