Unified Communications : Heating Up

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Unified communications is fast transitioning from being an ill-defined buzzword to a business must have. However, as businesses cut costs, this could lead to the start of a broader adoption of unified communications and demand will rise once the recession lifts. As unified communications applications become more prevalent in the workplace, organizations are realizing the benefits associated with them.

Enterprises are beginning to see that they will be left behind if they do not take a decision on unified communications because this is the future. Work-life balance, and providing tele-workers with the choice to work from anywhere and collaborate are becoming the order. The tremendous growth of IP telephony and mobility services will also boost the adoption of unified communications in India.

Large enterprises view unified communications as an evolution from convergence that organizations must adopt. Although, several enterprises are implementing only specific applications to meet their current needs, it is anticipated that these enterprises would mature in their outlook and seek to further augment their unified communications experience in the future.

Growth Drivers
The multitude of benefits that unified communications offers and the need to propagate differentiators in the market place of intense competition are just some of the factors pushing enterprises to adopt it.

The multiple connectivity challenges faced by enterprises across India contribute significantly to the growth of the unified communications market. These challenges revolve around simplifying and managing communications while cutting through the complexity of multiple devices. Unified communications breaks down the barriers between voice, video, email, instant messaging and presence/based and other applications to improve communication and collaboration across enterprises.

IP-PBX phones, soft phones and other solutions easily enable unified communications, while offering a smooth migration path from existing telephony environments. Another key capability of unified communications is that it offers a method to integrate communication functions directly with business applications.

The other factors which have significantly contributed to the growth are reduction in the cost of communications and improved employee productivity with unified communications solutions. Other prominent drivers, which have instigated this growth, include high availability of bandwidth with reduced costs and availability of affordable VoIP solutions, which are a great replacement for the traditional analog system.

The increasing growth and demand for IP telephony, email, instant messaging, mobile communication, and audio and video web-conferencing have paved the way for unified communications, which is a convergence of all the above.

The integration of unified communications, critical business enterprise, and business processes such as CRM, ERP, etc, are seen as a development which would enable enterprise customers to view unified communications as a significant value proposition.

Latest Arrivals
There has been a significant technological change in the market in the recent years. For Avaya, the latest technology addition is One-X Unified Access Suite of applications enabling access to business communication tools both real-time and non-real-time multi media communication regardless of location and device.

Also Avaya's 'personal assistant' speech access One-X Speech can set the calendar, and read emails with speech commands. When one's hands are engaged Nortel and Microsoft have introduced four new joint unified communications solutions designed to transform how people around the world connect, communicate and collaborate. The joint products include the Converged Office Unified Communication Suite, Multimedia Conferencing and solutions for branch offices and hosted service providers.

During 2008-09, Nortel along with Microsoft focused attention on delivering solutions which included:

Fully hosted unified communications providing the same user experience as the on-premise converged office solution.
Contact center integration-Integrating Nortel's contact center applications with office communications server to deliver real-time multi-modal capabilities enabling new customer touch points.

For Datacraft, the latest technology addition in the fiscal year 2008-09, is presence and identity (status of the person in the IM) and location will soon be added. Integration of unified communications with third party applications is another latest technology addition in Datacraft's product portfolio.

Another major player in this space is Cisco which has added the following new technologies during the fiscal year 2008-09:

Cisco Unified Communications system Release 7.0-With this new system, almost every element of the Cisco Unified Communications portfolio has been updated to offer important improvements in ease of use.
Cisco Telepresence Expert on demand-A next generation collaboration application that transforms the way organizations deliver high-touch consumer service and point-of-sale service.
Web 2.0 Application Platform- Cisco WebEx-An on/demand platform that combines instant messaging, team spaces and business applications to bring people, data and processes together.

Hurdles
Although, there is a significant interest in unified communications from many enterprises, it remains a daunting and confusing topic. The availability of good broadband infrastructure and high cost of bandwidth are among the biggest obstacles to boost the market adoption for unified communications.

Lack of awareness and government regulation on VoIP interconnections, which restrict companies from deploying the complete solutions are major limitations in the Indian market. Also, the global downturn might delay the adoption of new technologies and concepts until the upturn starts.

Other challenges include:

Government regulations on PSTN and VoIP interconnections.
Connectivity issues in terms of last mile connectivity and the availability of good broadband infrastructure and low cost of bandwidth.

Outlook

According to Frost & Sullivan, unified communications has the tremendous potential to transform the enterprise communications landscape. Unified communications not only provides reduced travel time but better sales closure and increased revenue generation.

With recession looming large, more and more enterprises are looking at unified communications technologies such as video and web conferencing as a way to reduce travel expenses, and at the same time being eco-friendly.

Unified communications holds a bright future worldwide. According to an IDC report the market size is expected to reach $1,200 mn with a healthy CAGR of 25%. Though voice would be the core, the focus would shift to newer equipments and applications.

Arpita Prem
arpitap@cybermedia.co.in