Metaswitch eNews - August 2007

Unified Communications - Creating New Value For Businesses

By Jon Arnold, Principal, J Arnold & Associates

For businesses of all sizes, Unified Communications is one of the hottest topics in 2007. The term encompasses many things, and represents a solution for a host of challenges facing businesses today. While no universal definition is in place yet, it is easy to understand the appeal of the basic idea. IP - Internet Protocol - may have given us more tools for communicating, but that has also made the process of communicating more complex, and in many ways, less efficient. Unified Communications aims to use IP-based tools to reverse that process and help employees be more productive, as well as give businesses a better return on their technology investment.

Unified Communications is really an evolution from Unified Messaging, and builds on the concept of the single inbox for all messages. This itself was a big step forward, as earlier solutions were discrete - telephone, email, fax, etc. operated in separate silos, with no integration. Unified Messaging solved a lot of communications problems, but Unified Communications takes things even further.

By leveraging the power of SIP and presence, Unified Communications brings richer capabilities for integration across all modes in real time. For example, an IM session can be escalated on the fly into a VoIP call, and from there to a conference call, and even further to a video conference call. All of this can be done seamlessly from the desktop, with the caller simply using click-to-call from their directory every step of the way.

So what does this mean for businesses, and more specifically, the types of businesses that are typically served by Metaswitch's customers? The simple answer is improved productivity, and in our research we characterize this further as The Four C's of UC:

• Connecting
• Communicating
• Collaborating
• Community

Each of these "C's" represents a distinct benefit for the business, but they also build on each other for further synergies, which we feel creates the real value for Unified Communications. First and foremost is connecting - the ability to connect people in real time. Productivity improvements start with reaching people on the first attempt, so the communications process can begin.

Only when people are connected, can they start communicating, which is the second "C". The power of Unified Communications really starts here, by supporting multiple modes - wireline, wireless, text-based, voice-based, and video-based. Perhaps more importantly, employees are able to choose the most appropriate mode for the task at hand. Utilizing presence, it becomes possible to know which mode to use before initiating contact, so time is not wasted trying different modes during the process of communicating.

Once people are actively communicating, Unified Communications adds richness in the form of collaborating. A dispersed and mobile workforce is quickly becoming the norm, and is largely made possible by IP-based technology. This has many advantages, especially for smaller businesses that need lean operations to be competitive. On the downside, it becomes difficult for people to meet and work together in one place. Unified Communications mitigates that by supporting virtual teamwork through conferencing, file sharing and whiteboarding applications.

Community is an intangible benefit that is a culmination of all the other C's. By communicating effectively across modes, across teams, and across geographies, the end result is a stronger community. This is really a by-product of Unified Communications rather than a stated objective, and adds considerable intrinsic value to any business. Community is why people stay in their jobs, why they are attracted to a particular company, and is often why customers choose to do business with you.

Achieving all of this is desirable for any business. Metaswitch's platform is but one example, and businesses must carefully consider their needs against the available solutions. There are a variety of architectural models to choose from, and each has its distinct merits. At a high level, Unified Communications solutions can be either hardware or software-based. Hardware solutions can come from premises-based telecom vendors, or network-based softswitch vendors (such as Metaswitch). These approaches seem to be best suited for businesses that are comfortable with the status quo, but still want to take advantage of IP-based services.

The software-based route is more adventurous, as it is typically provided by vendors from outside the telecom world. These solutions are based either on a software platform or operating system, or can even be delivered via the Web. There are inherent cost advantages here, but they lack the voice legacy that the other solutions have. While software-based solutions offer some compelling possibilities, they require a leap of faith to fully embrace for most businesses.

It is not easy to choose which of these approaches is most suitable, and we feel that businesses need to be open-minded in their thinking. We say this not just in considering the approaches, but also in the decision-making criteria. Since traditional ROI metrics are not very applicable for Unified Communications, leading vendors such as Metaswitch recognize the need for carriers to help their business customers with these business considerations, and to this end have developed innovative support programs such as MarketVisions. Unified Communications is strategic to the business as the objective is to make the company more competitive rather than to update the telephone system.

Businesses that embrace this thinking will immediately recognize the value of Unified Communications, and stand to create competitive advantage if the right decisions are made. Unified Communications is still a work in progress, but enough of the pieces are in place today to make this a winning strategy. To achieve this, the business must work closely with its vendor partner, especially to align their needs with the solution across all areas of operations. This requires a holistic view of communications - our Four C's - and the vendors that understand this are the ones we believe will ultimately be successful.

Back to the August 2007 newsletter