The UC CloudThe UC Cloud

The cloud/hosted market has matured to the point where it should be considered, particularly for small and branch offices.

Every Monday morning, at 11:00 AM PDT, the UCStrategies team has a conference call to discuss what's going on in the industry. We spend the last 10-15 minutes doing a podcast on topics of interest, and this week, the topic was about the site--www.ucstrategies.com--and some changes we plan for the near future. We also discussed how enterprise customers are using the site to help develop their UC strategies, and here's a link.One area that we will be adding to the site is information and analysis on cloud/hosted computing for the UC and SMB markets. I have been following the evolution of the cloud/hosted market, and it is finally at a stage where the technology and service have matured to the point where it should be considered, particularly for small and branch offices.

Microsoft and IBM have been talking about their UC cloud computing offerings for several years and while there have been a number of solutions offered by partners, the first complete product offerings from these two vendors won't be available for another year or so. IBM introduced its cloud computing concept at Lotusphere in January 2008. I found it very compelling in that it provides the customer the flexibility to balance how much and where they want services to reside--on-premise or in the cloud.

Mitel has been working on a somewhat similar concept. It has developed a virtualization strategy that allows customers to place Mitel communications software anywhere they want by building internal clouds.

Siemens is working with Amazon.com's EC2 cloud computing platform. They demonstrated the product at VoiceCon Orlando in March, and it looks like Siemens has gone a long way in solving the distribution problem of selling into the SMB market.

Over the next few years we will see major carriers around the globe jump on the bandwagon and offer UC cloud services. Some will partner (and already have) with Microsoft and other major vendors, while others will integrate the best-of-breed components for their offerings.

While some major UC vendors have been developing their cloud computing strategy (and products), a number of startups also have been delivering solutions in the space. Most started as hosted PBX services and have added basic UC-U--click-to-communicate features like presence and instant messaging. One of their challenges is addressing the UC-B market by helping customers integrate communications into business processes.

Call Tower is addressing the UC-B market by vertical markets, and has developed several on-demand UC solutions. Thinking Phone Networks works closely with its customers to integrate communications services into the customers' business process.

The biggest challenge for many smaller vendors is getting on the radar screen of potential customers. They are small companies with limited marketing budgets, and that's why the team at UCStrategies.com will be providing insight and analysis to help customers of all sizes develop a UC Strategy. My colleagues Dave Michels and Art Rosenberg have already posted articles on our site.

I am sure that I've overlooked a number of UC Cloud vendors, and I hope they'll get in touch so we can get to know what's being offered. If you have been developing a cloud-based UC strategy, contact me at [email protected].The cloud/hosted market has matured to the point where it should be considered, particularly for small and branch offices.