The Commodization of Unified Communications

[Podcast]
Last week's blog was my first attempt at blogging on the go. I typed it up on my Nokia smartphone while sitting at the skating rink. It was actually pretty easy to upload it directly to my blog site. Kudos to blogger.com for nailing the usability factor!

This week I got to thinking about a relatively new topic, reflecting on where enterprise technology is today and where it's going. Unified Communications (UC) has become such a common way of describing the current evolution of everything from IP telephony to video. When UC really took off in mainstream enterprise discussions it relegated IP Telephony to a commodity-based conversation. To use IP Telephony as a term today sounds so legacy. Now it's all about UC. But is Unified Communications suffering the same fate? Has UC become commoditized? Is it time for a TRANSITION to a new form of UC? I believe the answer is yes to all three.

Consider this - last year Microsoft spent approximately $250M on marketing Unified Communications. This was great for the industry in general but, in my mind, really sealed the fate on UC as a commodity. All the major UC players (traditional and emerging) have had a hand in this - some more than others:

• Microsoft has been positioning it's Unified Messaging solution as "free" and most of their conversations with customers focus on codecs and front-ending existing legacy PBX's (sound familiar?). Also thanks to Microsoft, the term "VoIP" has been revived from the dead and is now being associated with UC.
  

• Nortel basically gave away the farm to Microsoft in their attempt to stay relevant. Word out of VoiceCon this year is that Microsoft spent more time talking about it's relationship with Avaya than it did about the ICA with Nortel.

• Cisco could be accused of some commoditization of UC as well. If you include call control in the definition of UC, one could argue that they've commoditized UC by embedding so much of it into the network and positioning it as just another network service.
  

• Google is moving into the enterprise space with their unique "free" business model (though they haven't crossed into UC yet...but they are close with their mobile phone initiatives).
  

• Avaya - A recent headline I came across reads:

  "Avaya banks on recession to push cheap comms kit"

  Here's an excerpt from the article, "Avaya has launched a bargain basement version of its unified communications offering which is aimed to appeal to customers worried about the economic downturn."

The Avaya article mentions a cost of $0.15 /user/day...to be fair it also references a Cisco UC offering of $0.32 /user/day (to my point earlier). Regardless, it's clear to me that something has to change. Unified Communications, as we know it today, is on it's way to becoming the next legacy technology just like its predecessors - IP Telephony, VoIP, and Digital TDM and Analog.

Next week's blog will focus on the next generation of UC and it's tight linkage to Web 2.0. Perhaps in it's next iteration we'll start calling it UC 2.0...or not!

A Few Simple Examples

[Podcast]
I thought it would be cool to try posting this week's blog from my mobile phone. Usability and mobility are cornerstone principles of Web 2.0...so let's put them to the test.

But enough preamble, on with the blog! I find it interesting to see the different ways corporations are starting to adopt Web 2.0. The adoption model I've seen is similar to how IM and Blackberry got started. Penetration is happening at the departmental or work group level - below the radar and often out of sight of IT and senior management. This is representative of the viral nature of Web 2.0. With that we are really starting see adoption transcend generations and blur the lines between our social lives and our corporate lives.

An example I've been seeing involves LinkedIn - think of it as facebook for grownups ;o) It is designed to allow professionals to network with other professionals and collegues. Users can even proactively (or by request) provide written recommendations for coworkers or subordinates.

After 7 years with the same company I switched jobs about 8 months ago. I joined LinkedIn as a way to stay in touch with former colleagues. That's just one of the ways people use this Web 2.0 application. I've found that an increasing number of HR professionals use it for recruiting talent. Users can see the job titles of who's looked at their profiles.

I've also started including a link in my email signature to various Web 2.0 applications I use for professional purposes, including this blog, del.icio.us, zoominfo and linkedIn. I have a number of partners, colleagues and customers join my linkedin network because of it.

Zoominfo.com is a great application for researching contacts for customers and partners. Del.icio.us is another cool tool for researching topics and industry articles and information.

These are just a few simple examples of how Web 2.0 is making its way into the corporate world. I encourage you to add your thoughts and comments on this topic (afterall that's what a blog format is all about). Let us know how you are using applications like linkedin, del.icio.us, zoominfo and others.

Emerging Generation Gaps

Recently, my two brothers came to Chicago for a visit. It's always an interesting time when the three of us get together as we are quite the diverse group. I have a bachelor's degree in sociology and am right smack in the middle of Generation X. Now I don't consider myself a typical GenX-type when it comes to technology. I've spent 13 years in technology and have studied Web 2.0 I'm pretty well versed in what's going on (at least from a tech standpoint). Conversely, my brother "the professor", is also part of GenX - but he is an Academic. He has a PhD in ancient philosophy. He doesn't own a cell phone. He doesn't have an iPod (not even a Zune). He doesn't know about blogging, wiki's, etc. He lives in an academe fantasyto be frank.

Then there is my youngest brother, "the student"...born in the mid '80s - a true Millennial/GenY'er. He's a junior in college. If you send him an email or call him you'll never connect with him. Only way to reach him is via IM. Only way to know what he's up to is via Facebook. He watches tv on Youtube, he listens to his music on Pandora. He epitomizes the Web 2.0 generation where his online life and his offline life are really one in the same. He is the polar opposite of my academic brother.

While they were here visiting the student and I started talking about a web application that could transfer music from an iPod to a PC (vs. the normal way iTunes works). The professor asked how it worked and the conversation led to Wikipedia. That's where things got really interesting. As soon as Wikipedia came out of the student's mouth the professor starting freaking out. He was bad mouthing it's credibility and basically said that if any of his students cited Wikipedia as a reference that he would automatically fail them. Of course, this set the student off on how much of a help it is, etc. This led to a LONG debate that drew some very defined lines between the family. The professor's whole point was that information on Wikipedia was not valid because it did not have a formal "peer review" process to validate the information. The student's counterpoint was that, rather than just getting the view point from a few stuffy professors, Wikipedia's wiki-format created a much broader field from which the information was compiled. That's a core principle of Web 2.0 - leveraging the "wisdom of crowds" or "harnessing the collective intelligence".

In my opinion, I think part of the fear shared by the professor and his peers is that Wikipedia, and Web 2.0 in general, challenges the hierarchical foundation that the education system is built on. The notion of flattening the traditional command-and-control model and evolving to a truly collaborative learning environment would destroy academia. In some regards, it's a valid point but if it meant improving a student's propensity to learn doesn't it make sense?!?

From what I understand, this discussion continued on their 9 hour drive back home the next day. A few days later the student went to Wikipedia and looked up "peer review process". This is what he found: Wikipedia Peer Review Process - it's an article that outlines Wikipedia's own peer review process! Of course, he took the opportunity to email the professor the link - destroying the basis of his whole argument. The student has yet to receive a response ;o)

Next-Gen Directory Services

A few weeks back we started to discuss the idea of a "UC Folksonomy" and I said we'd peel back the layers on that concept a bit the following week. Well I got distracted and went off on a couple of side-bar blogs. Fear not, we're back on track - assuming anyone even noticed in the first place...not a single comment to call me out ;O)

Let' press on. How can we tie next-generation directory services into our UC story and leverage as part of the UC Folksonomy?

Next-generation directory services play a very important role in facilitating work-based social networking. These advanced services can be used to create these dynamic, ad hoc teams. Here we can introduce concepts similar to "social book marking" and "tagging". For reference, sites like del.icio.us provide these kinds of Web 2.0 services on the Internet. Instead of book marking a site to store in your browser's Favorites folder, del.icio.us allows you to store them on a centralized website so that you can access them from any browser on any device. Users "tag" sites as a way to categorize or index them. One of the really cool concepts is that any del.icio.us user can view any other user's tag library. That way, if I want to know what sites others are tagging as "Web 2.0" it allows me to LEVERAGE THE COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE OF THE WEB to find more than I could on my own. Try it out for yourself. My tag library is at: http://del.icio.us/boscorob. You can search to see what things I have tagged both socially and for work.

In a corporate context we can leverage the concepts of social book marking and enterprise tagging as next-generation directory services. For example, If we had the ability to "tag" ourselves or even another employee as an expert in a certain field (i.e. competitive, UC, Web 2.0, class action law suits, Six Sigma, etc.) and publish/share that tag via the corporate directory it would make it easy for others to find key resources. In turn, I could easily go to the directory and search on the field of expertise I needed. From there each employee could create customized “expert” lists of their favorite resources in an enterprise IM/presence client. The value could be further exemplified by creating a "locate experts" mashup via Google Maps and the next-gen directory where it would show you the location, availability and communication preference of resources (i.e. how they prefer to be interrupted – via phone, IM, email, video. Sometimes referred to as their “interruptibility”). The idea here is to make it easy for employees to get creative in how they service customers with speed, flexibility and precision…ultimately driving deeper, more profitable customer relationships.