Clouds clearing in UC?

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Widespread integration of the cloud into a unified communications (UC) strategy is still at an exploratory phase according to industry sources, though the emergence of collaborative tools, such as the Microsoft Office 2010 integration with SharePoint 2010, is having a “healthy impact” in this sector.

Damovo managing director, Mary Bradshaw is one of many industry commentators that ComputerScope spoke to who felt that, in terms of UC, the cloud is still something that is being talked about rather than implemented to any great degree.

“Cloud is, sorry to use the word, nebulous,” said Bradshaw, “it’s out there and I don’t think any of us have got to grips with exactly what it’s going to look like in regards to UC anyway, and yet that is still absolutely the emerging technology in this space.”

While clients are bringing cloud into conversations about UC, Bradshaw commented that many often back away from the topic due to security concerns. They are, she said, worried over “who owns and who can access the information” that is stored within the cloud. She adds though, “People have argued the security risk of the cloud yet we all use a BlackBerry, so it’s degrees of familiarity perhaps.”

Taking up from where Bradshaw left off, IBM IT architect, Brendan Murray said that the “whole concept of virtualisation” is affecting UC strategies across the board. “There’s a move towards virtualising internally and as well as that running applications on the cloud,” he said, adding, “there’s a very strong move toward private clouds in particular due to security concerns.”

COLLABORATIVE TOOLS
With regards to the emergence of collaborative tools, Microsoft’s own Richard Moore, business manager, Information Worker, said that if you are going to use them “they have to be used effectively within the content of your UC environment”.

Moore continued, “We’ve just recently merged SharePoint alongside (Microsoft) Office and that opens up a whole lot of doors. For instance, with all this enabled within an organisation, if you’re looking for an internal document not only could you find it, you could reach out to the author of that document if they’re in the company.

“If I wrote it, my presence icon appears within that search – so you can see that UC is embedded right into the heart of the collaborative experience. So if you were looking for me you could use instant messaging me you could send me an e-mail, whatever you want to do. The integration is really powerful, it changes the working way of life.”

INTEGRATION
Elsewhere, Arik Elberse, director of product management with Cisco Ireland commented that he believes that, at present, the critical concern for clients is to be able to integrate a wide range of software applications with their chosen UC solution, “especially as customers tend to have critical line-of-business applications which extend well beyond office productivity applications like Microsoft Office or IBM Lotus (SameTime)”.

The Elberse made the point that this has led to his company and others providing a broad range of ready-made desktop UC integrations into mainstay applications like Microsoft Office or IBM Lotus SameTime, but also a wide range of application programming interfaces (APIs) and software development kits (SDKs) to allow easy integration to other applications, including web-based applications.

“Another key point is that applications such as Microsoft Office, that have tightly integrated UC functionality, like presence, click-to-call and click-to-instant message, actually make this capability available to development partners like Cisco via fully supported open APIs.” added Elberse.

STRATEGIC PLATFORM
Asked about where UC methodologies have improved of late, Avaya’s country manager Jason Flynn commented that what has impressed him is how UC is gaining more and more importance as a “strategic platform for integrating dispersed communication channels and methods” to drive optimal performance and collaboration. This unified framework, he added, allows for one vendor to take the lead on implementation and management, streamlining operations and costs.

Joe Baguley meanwhile, chief technology officer, Quest Software, made the point that UC is “allowing economies to be made and additional benefits gained by integration of communications”.

He commented that while investment is required, initially upgrading and migrating e-mail servers to latest software versions such as Exchange 2010 with the addition of other components such as Office Communications Server (OCS) – which is “Microsoft’s UC hub” – will bring benefits to users “such as instant messaging and ‘free’ voice/video calling using their computers”.

INTERNET OFFERINGS
Continued Baguley, “this will require the purchase of webcams and/or the necessary headsets for the users to take advantage of this but these are relatively low cost.” He was also quick to point out that the potential is there to integrate into most existing phone systems (PABXs) or to upgrade entirely to a Voice Over IP system (VoIP).

Moore of Microsoft would also look towards telephony as a major area of interest for a number of clients. “A lot of companies still have very costly telephony investments, customers can save very significant sums by moving to a PC based-phone environment with the UC being the hub of your communications.

“There’s no handset, you just have headphones and the computer is doing all the telephony stuff. If that takes hold you end up with just your PC being the hub of all communications. Even if you’re in the US your phone comes with you and that’s a massive change.”

EARLY ADAPTORS
Plantronics’ Paul Dunne, channel manager, UK and Ireland business solutions unit, noted that the early adaptors of UC were global companies who quickly understood that it helped them gain competitive advantage.

“The next wave of adoption,” Dunne said, “will see smaller businesses recognise that in order to grow and compete in a crowded market they need the right communication tools to collaborate with their clients. The office of tomorrow will pivot around flexibility and mobility; two features at the heart of UC, and its ability to improve the end user experience is key to its growing success and popularity with users,” he added.

John Conlon, enterprise solutions sales manager at IT distributor Sharptext sees UC on a similar footing at present. He would add though that, “With a such a wide array of UC solutions available, a useful starting point can be a ‘packaged’ solution to meet a particular need. For example, we have bundled a Cisco small business UC system with wireless access points, to give a solution addresses a particular need at compelling price, and this can then be scaled to suit any individual site.”

PRESENCE
Moving on, Neil Stone-Wigg, CTO with Trilogy Technologies believes the playing field for UC has been irrevocably changed in recent times. In the traditional open-plan office scenario, UC was a “hard sell”, he commented. “All the recent improvements in business productivity software have led to greater mobility within the workforce. With mobility comes a loss of visibility as to where/when someone is online and available.”

Expanding on his point, Stone-Wigg went on to say that, “UC fills that gap perfectly, with the presence indicator and ‘find-me’ facilities. UC across external businesses is possible but is taking longer to catch on. Sometimes there is a benefit in external contacts not always knowing your availability.”

Asked what other recent innovations have impressed, he cited cloud-based phone systems and their relative ease of use as vitally important. The CTO added that over the past year there has been a strong acceptance of cloud based solutions in this regard which, he said, provide unlimited scalability (both up and down) on demand and flexible deployment.

SOCIAL MEDIA
Looking at things a little left of centre, product manager with Magnet Networks, Joe Lavin cited “voice-mail to text e-mail” as a “new and interesting” concept. “The ability to leave a voice-mail that is automatically converted into a text message and e-mailed to your e-mail account is impressive,” he said, while also commenting that the emergence of Twitter and other social media avenues could also have an intriguing effect on UC.

“We’re not seeing a lot of it being used for business processes yet, despite its potential as a collaboration tool. Facebook and Twitter are still seen as marketing channels but not to openly debate or workshop ideas internally with in a company. This will happen but will need to be structured and privacy issues around discussing company information will need to be dealt with.”

Phil Adams, systems sales director with Nimans, has been working in the UC space for well over 20 years and he sees a focus on products that can cleverly map social media into a UC strategy as “vital”.

“On the social networking side, I think a lot of companies have recognised the power of LinkedIn, they now see a powerful, global, social network site which is very business focused. It’s becoming a very powerful recruitment machine and it’s definitely become a networking site for business transactions and business introductions. It’s the one area that’s leaped out at me where innovation is moving at a pace – the convergence and integration of social media into UC.”

WHERE NOW?
Taking all of the above into account though, which other avenues will UC head down in the near future? Avaya’s Flynn offered the interesting idea that over the next year to 18 months, unified communications will shift to a ‘three-click’ experience, which in turn will massively bolster adoption rates.

“UC has laboured under a variety of models,” he said, “which has led to slower-than-expected adoption. In the coming year, with session initiation protocol (SIP) and session management, companies will build, deploy and support applications much more easily. In three clicks, and in three seconds or under, workers will have access to many more resources and applications – using almost any device they choose.”

He added “With SIP adoption gaining momentum, we have seen improved economics fostering the intersection of communications and business applications.”

WEB-BASED COLLABORATION
Over the next 18 months, Cisco expects to see broad-based adoption of UC technologies and a significant swing from voice telephony to business quality video telephony and conferencing, according to Elberse. “Additionally, we expect to see an increasing adoption of social software tools and collaboration platforms in the enterprise,” he said.

Products which can provide a web-based collaboration environment will flourish he added, as they provide “file management, blogs, ‘wikis’, video file creation and sharing and embedded real-time communications like presence, instant messaging and even web-based IP Telephony (VoIP) capabilities”. The Elberse continued, “We believe these types of integrated experiences and platforms will enable organisations and individuals to take their productivity to the next level.”

MIXED-MODE COMMUNICATIONS
For Barry Dillon, country manager with UC specialists, ShoreTel mixed-mode communications may be the fulcrum of much change in this sector due to how it illustrates the “remarkable flexibility of IP telephony and UC”.

“The participants in a communication session can be using different types of devices, and advances in technologies such as voice-to-text and text-to-voice conversion mean that they can even be using different modes,” said an enthusiastic Dillon. “By not having to match up endpoint circumstances and connection types, you replace the current norm-leaving a voice-mail or e-mail message and hoping for the best-with an actual interaction.

He added, “Today, we have separate tools for different types of communications, and each has its own place to store a duplicate set of contacts. As mixed-mode UC evolves, we see a unified directory with one entry per contact, a consolidated view of presence across all media, and ultimately a single tool for initiating communications across multiple media types.”

FUNDAMENTAL QUESTION
IBM’s Murray is of the opinion that “the big focus” of the next year or two will be to make all-things UC “more ‘virtualisable’ if you like”. He continued, “That obviously feeds into a growth in cloud computing and there is a strong move towards hosted solutions and using Software as a Service.”

Meanwhile, the question of where UC fits into the office of tomorrow is, said Bradshaw, a “fundamental one”. Indeed the reason it’s so important is that the Damovo chief doesn’t believe there will be “an office of tomorrow”.

“I see a revolution in how we work,” stated Bradshaw. “I see work as being an activity and not a place, the office becomes, anywhere, everywhere or nowhere. People adapt the tech in its truest, most adaptable form; there will be no need for an employee to sit in a business park. I can sit anywhere in the world and probably pay the same price to call a colleague using UC solutions. The cost factor is one thing, but the effectiveness factor is coming along as well.”

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