Resellers to grow fat off UC interoperability delta
Lack of progress among vendors means resellers will be needed to tie the systems together, Gartner analyst argues
Resellers will be the main beneficiaries of the lack of progress unified communications (UC) vendors are making on interoperability, according to a forceful blog post by a Gartner analyst.
Ken Agress, a research director at the analyst, argued that VARs will remain responsible for tying the various systems together because "interoperability will continue to be hard and enterprises shouldn't expect the vendors to address this directly".
According to Agress, this was the message emanating from the big UC vendors in a panel session – focused on the question, "Are we in a post-PBX era?" – at this week's Enterprise Connect show in Orlando, Florida.
"But rather than drawing my attention with a particularly well-formulated argument to support or refute that suggestion, the panellists all settled on a relatively common statement – the most critical part of interoperability that enterprises will be leveraging in the near future is their VAR," he wrote, in a blog post.
Agress labelled the current lack of UC interoperability as "ludicrous", arguing it is hurting the market's growth by limiting its applications.
Enterprises need UC platforms to work together so they can carry out bring-your-own-device projects, draw on cloud-based services effectively and connect to business partners, clients and suppliers, he explained.
Agress gave the example of an enterprise wanting to adopt a hybrid deployment model that mixes on-premise and cloud services to address different user communities.
"There won't be standards to support that, so pick your platforms carefully," he said.
Agress said the onus lies partly with end users themselves, and counselled that they must signal their appetite for interoperability through their purchasing decisions.
"The question is, are the vendors saying what they're saying because enterprises haven't convinced the market that they're serious?" he asked.
"If so, then it may be wise to increase your budget projects for services from your VAR as you look towards the cloud or direct connections to other enterprises."
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