Let’s take a little departure in Ask Steve this month. In follow up to the unified communications panel discussion I moderated at the Channel Partners Conference and Expo in Boston, I wanted to share some of my post-conference thoughts on unified communications, or UC as it’s now commonly known.
At the conference I offered a more inclusive definition of UC than I did in a previous Ask Steve column. UC is the unification of multimedia communications that end-users can control for both social and business purposes. The types of multimedia communications run the gamut of voice, messaging, conferencing, presence, Web 2.0/collaboration and video. Communications can be real-time, near-real-time or non-real-time.
UC is one of the yellow bricks on the road to an intelligent, ubiquitous communications-fabric. It allows some streamlining of the current communications processes within a small or large business: business process including ordering, customer care, billing/account management, trouble ticket resolution, inventory management, inventory control, account payable, liquid asset management, etc. However, the business applications required to streamline these processes remain in silos — integrated together with middleware or sometimes a lick-and-a-prayer. Once communications are embedded into integrated business applications we enter a world of intelligent communications, the progeny of a UC-enabled world.
Whether we like it or not (and many of us like it a lot), UC is tied to VoIP implementations. And since it’s tied to VoIP, the prospects look good for UC although the adoption has been slower than anyone wishes to admit. Everyone knows it takes SMBs a long time to replace technology, so now is the time to start discussing UC with your customers.
