Colleague Dan Taylor called my attention to this, and I confess, I've read it several times as I figured out what my own thoughts are:

Article on Unified Communications

Jeff Vance has recently written a fine article on unified communications. It's on CIO Update, and it's a refreshing and reasoned piece on the status of unified communications in enterprise environments.

In the spirit of disclosure, I contributed to this piece and spoke with Jeff at length. I'm glad to see that he's done his homework. The subhead says it all:

While unified communications is a worthy goal, most carriers and IT departments are still sitting on the sidelines.

I wish there were more writing like this about the enterprise. In a world of IT media dominated by vendor hype about technologies, it's refreshing for IT managers to be able to learn that they are neither crazy nor alone.

Dan's a great resource and I put pretty high stock in his opinions. I couldn't agree more that there's a real lack of writing like this being available.

The article itself

Unified Communications: Still Waiting
By Jeff Vance
August 11, 2006: While unified communications is a worthy goal, most carriers and IT departments are still sitting on the sidelines.

Microsoft recently outlined its strategy for unified communications. By teaming up with such partners as HP, Motorola, Nortel, and Siemens, the company intends to leverage its software to create a platform that “breaks down today’s silos of email, instant messaging, mobile, and VoIP.”

It sounds like a worthy goal, but look at just two items in the above list: mobile and VoIP. To date, that mixture has been like gas and water and, to make matters worse, enterprises like Microsoft and HP have a vastly different approach to communications problems than the carriers—necessary participants if unified communications is to achieve broad adoption.

I think we all agree it's a worthy goal and we aren't there yet. Microsoft's strategy will be a driver for many large enterprises. Like it or not, Redmond steers the pace and direction of a great deal of technology adoption, but not all.

Vance compares the mix of VoIP and mobile to the mix of gas and water, complicated by the differences in appraoch the major players all take. He quotes Dan who points out the inertia that traditional circuit-switching still carries in the enterprise world. The fact that cellular providers are pretty heavily tied to the TDM legacy is key. They've made large investment and can't just toss that aside to move to a fully IP-connected solution. Amortizing costs in the TDM market has typically been a ten-year cycle. It's going to take some time.

On the flip side, IMS will provide more and more service integration. Integration will lead to service offerings. And those offerings will begin to make inroads. And small, innovative solutions from companies like BridgePort Networks, who offer fixed mobile convergence right now, will certainly see some adoption in pilots and trials as companies work to integrate all their voice and data communications.

Perhaps one of the highlights is a quote from Bern Elliot, an analyst at Gartner. In general Gartner recommend companies plan today for unified communications. Elliot said. “don’t let it just happen to you, take the time to understand your options and prepare accordingly.”

According to the article, Elliot seems to think unified communications will start rolling out in two to three years. I think the early rollouts are happening right now. They're small and below the radar, but the trickle is beginning. The trickle today will be a torrent in the future and I think it will be a larger torrent than Elliot seems to see.


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