April, 2009

Preventing a Swine Flu Pandemic with Unified Communications

The swine flu is now suspected to have hit Italy, Spain, Denmark, the United States, Mexico, France, Canada, Israel, Australia, and New Zealand. It has claimed more than 100 lives in Mexico, and there are more than 40 confirmed cases scattered throughout the United States from Texas to Michigan and from California to New York.

With Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano declaring a health emergency in the United States and the World Health Organization (WHO) raising the pandemic alert level to Phase 4, people around the world are concerned.

Unified communications already presents a solid business case for cutting costs and streamlining business processes, but a situation like the current swine flu outbreak makes that case even stronger. When the world is healthy organizations can enjoy the cost savings of conducting voice and video conferences and collaborating online rather than spending money traveling around the world. With a swine flu epidemic threatening to grow into an official pandemic conducting voice and video conferences remotely rather than traveling and meeting face to face becomes a business imperative and a piece of a solid business continuity gameplan.

Minimizing travel and face to face exposure allows organizations to continue to meet with partners and customers, collaborate with coworkers, and conduct business while minimizing or eliminating the risk of exposure to infectious disease like the swine flu.

Save the planet and yourself. Use unified communications.

12% Annual Growth Predicted for Unified Communications

As this TMCNet.com article on unified communications points out, unified communications is difficult to define as a market in and of itself. The components that make up unified communications cut across a variety of existing markets including “conferencing (Web, audio, video and multi-media); voice, fax and email messaging; instant messaging; mobility; presence; phone systems; communications-enabled business processes and hosted collaboration or voice services.”

But, when you combine the component markets that make up unified communications and look at the unified communications market as a whole, it appears that what was a $21.5 billion market in 2008 is on track for 12% annual growth and is predicted to grow to a $37.3 billion market by 2013. With a global economy in recession its nice to see an IT segment with strong growth. It is probably no coincidence that it is a market segment that has the most potential to result in more efficient and streamlined business processes and enable organizations to cut costs in a variety of ways.

VoIP in the Cloud

Voice over IP (VoIP) has been hot for a while now. Companies have sold and implemented VoIP hardware and software for customers. VoIP then evolved into being offered as a hosted service- but still with a dedicated infrastructure per customer. The next step is to simply offer VoIP from the cloud as a managed services offering.

Fulcrum Group, a Dallas-based MSP (managed services provider) is working to make that shift. According to the article from Business Solutions Fulcrum Group co-founder and vice president David Johnson “knows managed VoIP is a viable business model because companies like Avaya and Nortel have been successful at it in the enterprise space, which makes him confident of turning a profit.”

BT Expands OneVoice VPN with Unified Communications

BT is expanding their OneVoice voice-oriented VPN service and incorporating unified communications capabilities. OneVoice already allows customers to realize cost savings and make calls around the world, but the new and improved service will include SIP connectivity and bring unified communications features such as presence to the OneVoice service.

Presence will allow users to see whether or not their intended recipient is available to receive a call or not. That insight can help them to communicate more efficiently and enable them to determine the best method of communicating given the urgency (or lack thereof) of the message being delivered.

SmartSIP - So Simple a Kid Can Understand It

One of  the most anticipated innovations in Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 was the introduction of the ability to connect OCS directly to a SIP trunk. One caveat to that excitement was that Microsoft only provides that connectivity with two chosen SIP trunk providers. That seriously limits the potential of direct SIP trunking.

Evangelyze Communications is coming to the rescue though with SmartSIP. SmartSIP enables organizations to connect OCS with….wait. I can’t possibly explain SmartSIP any better than this video overview. The clip is less than a minute long and well worth the time. Check it out for yourself.

Microsoft Unified Communications Virtual User Group

What exemplifies the spirit of unified communications more than a virtual user group?

The Microsoft Unified Communications Virtual User Group (UCVUG) has been established with the stated purpose ”to provide resources, education, and collaboration to professionals who are interested in Microsoft Unified Communications products.”

The group, which is not officially sanctioned by Microsoft, will meet on a quarterly basis online via Microsoft virtual meeting tools such as Live Meeting. Membership is free and you can join by filling out a simple registration form.  

The group’s first meeting is scheduled for May 21st at 7pm Eastern time and will feature a presentation from Evangelyze Communications’ Mike Stacy. Stacy will discuss Evangelyze Communications innovative SmartSIP product that extends Microsoft OCS connectivity to virtually any SIP trunk provider and any SIP phone / device.

Perzonae Looks to Enter UC Arena

A Dutch startup called Perzonae Unified Communications entered the battle for unified communications market share with the release this week of the public beta version of their service.

The service combines email and instant messaging and Perzonae has plans to incorporate voice capabilities when the official release is made available. According to the article Perzonae feels their product can replace Outlook, Thunderbird, MSN / Live email, Hotmail, Skype, and GMail among others. Seems like a pretty tall order for a startup to take on Microsoft, Mozilla, and Google all before their product is even officially released.

The official release is not expected for another 6 months or so and the beta only runs on Windows XP- so they have some work to do. I don’t think that a company or product like this provides any serious concern to Microsoft or other enterprise-class unified communications providers. It remains to be seen what Perzonae will bring to the table and whether consumers or smaller businesses might be willing to pay Perzonae for services they can currently get for free using Windows Live Messenger or Google’s services such as GMail or Google Talk.

BT Extends UC Functionality with Finder

BT, a leading global IT consultancy and service provider and a key partner for Microsoft Unified Communications, has developed an innovative new tool that extends the functionality of Microsoft Office Communications Server.

BT’s Finder utility allows users of Microsoft Unified Communications to determine how and when communications get to them. Finder can be configured to filter communications based on specified criteria and reroute them to other users or groups while a user is away on business or out on vacation. Urgent or critical communications can be automatically converted from email text to speech and forwarded to voicemail or to a mobile phone in order to communicate with users without immediate access to email. 

Finder accelerates delivery of critical information to the right person at the right time. It allows users to focus on business issues while the system handles presence, preference and device attributes in the background. In addition, Finder is another illustration of the impact of software-powered voice and the potential that exists when communications can be managed in a way that improves efficiency and enhances productivity.

Unified Communications Can Save Planet Earth

That is my sort of ‘Twitter-friendly’ way of restating the message from the recent report by the WWF (No. Not the Hulk Hogan WWF- the World Wrestling Federation. The report is from the other WWF - the World Wildlife Fund). In a report titled Virtual Meetings and Climate Innovation in the 21st Century, the WWF describes how the increasing adoption of video conferencing and other virtual meeting technologies reduces the carbon output and helps save the environment.

Many organizations are cutting back on travel and leveraging unified communications to enhance their ability to meet and collaborate in real-time no matter where in the world the participants might be. Granted, most are doing so for purely fiscal reasons rather than environmental altruism. Travel is expensive and the economy is hurting many companies. But, the result is the same.

The GreenBiz.com blog though points out that there is still significant room for improvement. They cite “concerns about effectiveness of the technology; limited access to bandwidth and equipment; weak vendor incentives to push large-scale use; misalignment of user incentives and; a lack of strategic impetus in many organizations; and poor information about the benefits” as factors behind the slow adoption of these technologies.

The combined message then is this: we are headed in the right direction, but we have a ways to go and we could be going faster. Unified communications helps organizations operate more efficiently and save money in a variety of ways. As a bonus to the benefits inherent in unified communications, it also reduces carbon emissions and helps save the planet. Seems like a win-win.

Death of the Desk Phone

At Voicecon 2009 in Orlando last week, Microsoft’s Gurdeep Singh Pall, vice president of the unified communications group, pointed out that the desk phone is a ‘dead man walking’. Organizations spend an average of $300 per phone, plus the additional cost of running the necessary cabling and jacks to each desk and the power consumption of having the phones plugged in. For one or two users it may not be a big deal, but for organizations with 500, or 5,000, or 50,000 users the cost adds up quickly.

Microsoft Unified Communications, and using Microsoft Office Communicator to replace the desk phone, enables organizations to eliminate those costs. The computer is already there. It is already plugged in. It already has the necessary cables and connectivity installed. It can perform the same functions as the desk phone and then some, so it is a redundant waste of money to have a phone sitting there next to the computer.

Pall also described some success stories around Microsoft Office Communications Server including Swiss telecommunications company Swisscom. According to this Network World article, Swisscom’s head of collaboration services, Andreas Arrigoni said “The software helped shorten sales cycles by 20% and freed up 20 minutes per person per day with efficiencies that left time to do more work.” He then added “The system also supports federated presence so workers at Swisscom can see whether individuals at partner companies are available and by what means.”

RIP desk phone. It has been nice knowing you.