It’s December. I’m not a big fan of New Year’s resolutions, plus I’m not a unified communications vendor, so I don’t have a New Year’s resolution list for how I can help further the development of unified communications. I also don’t care to blog about my UC predictions for 2008, as there are plenty of others out there who will probably do that. However, I’m capable of believing in Santa, and as one of my friend’s tells her children when they ask her about Santa - “You have to believe to receive.” So, I thought I would put together my wish list for the Twelve Days of Unified Communications, with some help from my friends in the industry. I talked to a dozen or so vendors on what they would like to see happen in UC in 2008, and whether they had any input as to how they are helping further these wishes. Not surprisingly, in many cases these wishes reflected their own ongoing initiatives or pet peeves (attributions of which I have left off for reasons of anonymity). However, for the most part they tended to have a lot of commonality in what they wish for.
Before I start, I have two comments. First, you will have to forgive me taking poetic license in trying to get my twelve days to rhyme with the lyrics of the original song, and second, only a linguist would be crazy enough to try this. So without further ado, over the next 12 days, here are the Twelve Days of UC.
On the first day of UC the industry gave to me, a clear definition of UC.
Ha! As if this is going to happen, but as I said before, a girl can wish and believe. Unified communications had a big coming out party this year, but oddly, it’s pretty well talked about in the industry that very few analysts, research houses and vendors can agree on a single definition of UC. I’ve had vendors ask me, as a frame of reference before a briefing, what my definition is, and I’ve said that I don’t have one, as I’m waiting for the dust to settle. If I really had my wish, it would be to take many of the industry pundits and leaders in these companies into a big conference room with some good food and wine, and a white board, and tell them they can’t come out until they can agree. Santa, Santa, are you listening? To show how diverse this issue is, here is a smattering of definitions on the subject.
The Wikipedia definition is “Unified Communications (UC) is a commonly used term for the integration of disparate communications systems, media, devices and applications. This potentially includes the integration of fixed and mobile voice, e-mail, instant messaging, desktop and advanced business applications, Internet Protocol (IP)-PBX, voice over IP (VoIP), presence, voice-mail, fax, audio video and web conferencing, unified messaging, unified voicemail, and whiteboarding into a single environment offering the user a more complete but simpler experience.”
My colleagues at UC Strategies more simply define it as “Communications integrated to optimize business processes”. Personally, I kind of like this one as its simple and to the point.
Wainhouse Research defines a unified communications ‘system’ as “a collaborative environment that contains elements of presence, instant messaging, telephony and/or audio conferencing, web or data collaboration, unified messaging (a common message store for voicemail, email, and faxes), mobility and/or video conferencing”.
NEC defines it as, “Unified Communications enables customers to experience greater productivity through the convergence of communications channels and business processes using a combination of technologies, devices and services, including presence, status, mobility, collaboration, video and video conferencing, and messaging. “
Microsoft says, “Unified Communications bridge the gab between telephony and computing to deliver real-time messaging, voice and conferencing to the desktop environment”.
From Cisco’s unified communications overview on their web site, “Today's every time, everywhere unified communications systems bring together voice, video, data, and mobile applications to liberate employees from their desktop and improve business agility and profitability.”
I think this wish is going to take awhile. Simon Gwatkin at Mitel brought up an interesting point on this subject. He mentioned that it’s no wonder the industry is so confused. For the first 100+ plus years of telephony we talked about analog and everyone knew what it was. For 30 years we talked of TDM and everyone knew what it was. But just in the last 7 years (and this is after hundreds of other acronyms in the PBX, contact center, and other applications markets), we have tossed around first VoIP, then IP Telephony, IP Communications, Integrated Communications, and now Unified Communications, not to mention others such as Business Process Integration and Communications Enabled Business Processes. I’m tired just typing this.
So here is the real reason for my wish. I feel we need it to further along awareness, acceptance and adoption. If prospects are less confused, they will be more interested. In any case, I’m not sure how to get to a common definition, but I’m hoping the New Year’s brings one.