Communications breakdown
The irony of unified communications is that no two vendors seem able to agree on what it actually is. Now there's unity for you
The latest definition of unified communications builds on the old idea that unifying messages is enough. These days, you need video and data thrown into the mix before you reach the nirvana of perfect information.
Research firm Yankee Group defines this as unified collaborative communications (UCC), in which a user experiences audio, video, web and data collaboration to break down all distance, time and media barriers.
The idea is that people can not only communicate with each other, but work too, anywhere and anytime, using any device and across any medium.
That's all very well. But are we anywhere close to that goal yet? Videoconferencing has been promising to do this for half a century without ever delivering on most of its pledges. The addition of webconferencing added a lot to this, but we're still a long way from maturity.
Who could possibly take on the integration of all of these different types of media to make UCC workable? Who could rise to the challenge of such a vast variety of handsets, desktops and PDAs too eclectic to make UCC a reality?
Does any vendor actually have any users out there using this stuff? Or partners working on tying it all together? Or resellers willing to actually implement it all?
The list of questions is endless. And the answer to all of them seems to lie with Microsoft. As the leader of the software world Microsoft is building alliances with everyone to make sure that, if we do ever achieve true UCC, there will be one area of the mixture in which there's very little variation; the office software that sits in front of the user.
We may be able to use any type of input device to get into a 'virtual meeting', and the variety of communications media might run from wireless LANs to satellite, but the applications viewed at the heart of these will be from one vendor only.
Video game
Granted, Microsoft hasn't got the market to itself. There is an increasing number of solutions becoming available, which bears testament to the growing strategic importance of integrating collaborative communications.
Microsoft may be at the hub of things, as ever, with its Live Meeting and Live Communications Server products, but Lotus Workplace, Tandberg and Webex all integrate voice with web and dataconferencing. The end game for everyone is to integrate video.
This gives the video vendors something of a head start. Polycom, the Microsoft of the video world, is in a very strong position here because it's the only company with an end-to-end solution, based on open standards, that truly integrates all components of UCC.
We've had unified messaging for some time now. It's long been possible to get all of your phone calls and emails read out to you, by a robotically voiced automation, as you find a quiet moment to pick up all of your messages while travelling or sitting in your hotel room. Although those that have used the product don't always give it a glowing testimonial.
"Unified messaging was useful because it cut down on messages that were lost and was the first foray into providing access to email on the move," says Rufus Grig, chief technology officer at communications integrator Azzurri Communications.
The speech access part of unified communications was useful, he concedes, but it had its limitations. "There was nothing more dreadful that using an early unified messaging system to read your emails while stuck on the M25 on a Friday afternoon," he says.
The good thing about these systems is that they introduced the idea of integrating Microsoft Outlook and Notes with a speech interface. The next stage would be to create a unified link with the rest of the application, so that scheduling and contacts would be available.
IP and you know it?
In the meantime, there's a lot of scepticism among resellers about what opportunities lie ahead for them.
"Unified communications is a great idea, but it is too expensive and too complicated," says Steve North, director of SwitchIP, a reseller that, given its name, one would expect to be excited about all forms of convergence around IP. Not so.
"We see lots of new products come and go, and most fail because not enough is put into channel training."
At the moment, resellers need convincing that unified communications isn't another trendy concept that is ultimately going to lose them money.
The rise of IP as a unifying force exemplifies how difficult it is to make any predictions for the future of this technology. Who could have envisaged this would have been the glue that brings together telephony, video and applications?
When IP was designed, after all, it was never intended for real-time communications such as voice and video. No one is denying that it isn't fit for the purpose of unified communications, but its adoption seems to illustrate that it never ever seems to go to any plan in IT.
Before end-user and reseller confidence can be established, there needs to be a convincing story on each of the three main areas of communications that are going to be converged.
According to some analysts, including Yankee Group, the desktop will be the key integration point for convergence, and will serve as a central hub for UCC. Portals will offer aggregated corporate information, messaging and 'presence information' (which answers the questions such as: where is everybody I want to speak to, and are they available?).
Upwardly mobile
Some experts argue the real value will be found among mobile users. In which case, a more pressing requirement will be mobile email. Once this has been achieved, the more important work of giving access to corporate information on the same device, along with presence and location-based data, will need to be done.
"From a reseller's perspective, there's probably more opportunities in providing mobile email solutions now," says Mark Blowers, senior research analyst at the Butler Group.
He advises that resellers should concentrate on being able to provide a solution for both email and back-end system access, rather than focusing on integrating different technologies into one box.
"Integration will be easier once users are in the IP world," says Blowers. But this will only happen when corporations have converged their networks.
George Hamilton, unified communications analyst at Yankee Group, says IP telephony will pave the way for this, and introduce some of the necessary standards on which UCC will be built. "As organisations extend voice over IP [VoIP], more interest will be generated in video over IP," Hamilton says.
However, the real work to be done is in changing perceptions of video. Videoconferencing has always been sold as a way to cut travel costs. The value proposition needs to be repackaged for UCC. Video and webconferencing are not a cost-saving technology but a productivity tool.
Important decision makers should spend less time away from the office and more 'face to face' time with clients.
But only when conferencing and collaboration can be tightly integrated will they produce any real productivity benefits. The good news is that they can. The bad news is that conferencing technology seems to be fractured right now.
Some vendors have tried to popularise conferencing technology by producing cheaper systems. The latest 'affordable' desktop videoconferencing system, from Polycom, costs £1,300 and uses a TV set to act as a monitor.
Will these systems be able to support online collaboration over applications such as PowerPoint, spreadsheets and word documents?
Perhaps resellers would be better served working with service providers such as Webex.
On the product integration issue there is still a lot to be settled yet. The problem is that the components of UCC are so eclectic. Alongside the voice and data network infrastructure, systems are now expected to cater for handsets, end-points, audio systems and various PC types.
True conferencing is all about seamless integration of voice, video, data and web. The goal is to allow you to hold a 'virtual' meeting (no matter where the participants are) using whatever communications systems come to hand.
It shouldn't matter whether you use your smart mobile phone, VoIP phone, videoconferencing system or just a plain old PC with a plain old phone system.
We are slowly getting there, however. Phone vendors such as Avaya are starting to work with Polycom to integrate real-time conference systems with a phone interface. Avaya recently announced it is integrating Polycom's ViaVideo II desktop conferencing system with its own Softphone.
Instant messaging systems are the key to enabling voice, video and webconferencing. It's the only mechanism to tell you exactly who is available, and what systems they have available.
"With a message systems buddy list, setting up a virtual meeting is as easy as pointing and clicking," promises Polycom's EMEA marketing director Tony Heyworth.
So this is a plug-and-play, point-and- click sort of product? The channel is more sceptical about this. How many times have we heard that promise before?
Darren Lewitt, audiovisual (AV) business manager at distributor at Midwich, maintains that apart from some corporate resellers, the IT channel isn't ready to sell videoconferencing, and by implication, UCC.
"Polycom puts its videoconferencing products through specialist AV disties, so it can't have much confidence in the IT channel," he says.
Meanwhile, Microsoft continues to quietly integrate voice and video functions into its Live Meeting product. Recently, Mitel agreed to develop a signalling and media gateway for Microsoft's Live Communications Server. This followed in the wake of Siemens, which linked its OpenScape unified messaging platform to the Live Communications Server in 2003.
Integration stations
Before real-time collaboration is a reality, admits Anoop Gupta, vice-president of Microsoft's real-time collaboration business group, Microsoft needs to do some integration of its own.
"When Live Communications Server and Live Meeting are unified, that will be a milestone for integration of communications into one desktop experience," Gupta says. However, he does not give any concrete dates for completion of this vital task. Final code is due to ship in the first half of this year.
The eventual goal is 'integrated functionality'. This means every type of activity from CRM to ERP will be embedded into a conferencing system. The target for achieving this, Polycom says, is 2006.
Ultimately, the unifying force need to bring about UCC may be Polycom, not Microsoft, or even IP. Analyst Gartner states that the real driver for organisations to deploy IP networks is video.
"This could be because the benefits of video are easily understood, which is not always the case for IP telephony [IPT]," says Heyworth. It could be that video drives IPT sales. "Once a network is ready for video, then IPT can be viewed as a benefit," he adds.
It seems this would then be a good moment to start investing time in understanding unified communications.
CONTACTS
Avaya (0800) 698 3619
www.avaya.com
Azzurri (01635) 520 360
www.azzu.co.uk
Butler Group (01482) 608 380
www.butlergroup.com
Microsoft (0870) 601 0100
www.microsoft.com
Mitel (01291) 430 000
www.mitel.com
Polycom (00 800) 00 33 44 55
www.polycom.com
SwitchIP (0208) 664 5554
www.switchip.co.uk
Yankee Group (001) 617 956 5000
www.yankeegroup.com