The Bleeding Edge: Unified Communications Systems – The Battle is On!

  Communications Management  

We could see it coming - the massive armies of the information technology and communications industries finding a killer app that they all could claim ownership of, and one of  huge revenue potential. The war is unified communications systems. This is going to be the year when UC becomes more than just a buzzword. Microsoft and others are entering the market in a big way, and the future roadmaps are moving beyond hype.

Four key processes have led to this point: 1. the acceptance of Voice over IP as the protocol for future phone calls; 2. the growing acceptance of smart phones with the ability to provide phone, e-mail and text messaging services in one convenient, always-there package; 3. the growth of fat bandwidth at the office, at home and on the road; and 4. the cultural acceptance of always being in touch with people.

So UC is really about all the different pieces of the communications system needing to be assimilated to behave as a single, congruent application, so that access is intuitive, not subject to guesswork. Thus digital convergence has its first “world war.”

There are large companies in their own space: software vendors like Microsoft and IBM; Internet portals like Google; communications systems companies like Cisco in data and Alcatel in phone; communications carriers like AT&T; and smart phone vendors such as Nokia. We can expect …

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