To UC or Not to UC Point 5To UC or Not to UC Point 5

UC makes sense to any business user that captures a feature or set of features that enhances "better, faster, cheaper, easier to use and maintain for their users."

Nick Jones of Gartner wrote, "Worse still, UC is technically unachievable because many communications channels such as SMS and MMS aren’t accessible to enterprise servers, the only place where everything actually comes together is on your mobile handset." Nick later wrote after a reader challenged his thinking, "Enterprise has no point to intercept an SMS or MMS directed to me to put it in some form of unified inbox. It will arrive on my handset, not in the enterprise email queue or the enterprise IM system. That's why the only true point of unification is the mobile handsets."

This unification that Nick speaks of comes at a cost for enterpris, while for the carriers it would be highly profitable. Why would enterprise want to continue to use either SMS or MMS as a platform when simply using the UC client negates paying for them? Cost avoidance is always an ideal in any enterprise so the SMS/MMS being in the inbox of UC clients isn't a priority. Lowering cost is and I don’t think it will matter that enterprise can’t intercept SMS/MMS destined for mobile endpoints as much as it will be important to extend communications from the enterprise to the mobile users. So to some degree Nick is right and UC still remains a tool destined for the mobile phone and laptop that depend upon the cell operators' networks. I think what enterprise needs to do is determine where the best value remains and then justify leaving SMS/MMS active on their mobile accounts.

UC acts as a communications enabler by using various methods or channels of communications. That's the whole point. As I've stated before, UC is simply a natural order of convergence for business communications tools to coexist on the same platform. One of the best characteristics about UC is there is no singular definition and just like the various features across the numerous platforms and devices, UC makes sense to any business user that captures a feature or set of features that enhances "better, faster, cheaper, easier to use and maintain for their users."

Nick does argue another point and that is the grip that the cellular operators will retain because either way--the cell plan by way of minutes or the data plan by way of data usage--the operators will retain their hooks in customers. Still there are those that argue the desktop phones life is limited but I don’t think that's likely to occur either.

For an upcoming post, I spoke with another company that many may not recognize by their product name. Their presence is long known in the industry and their solutions are respected. What’s interesting about this company is their IP telephony solution doesn’t mention IP-PBX--it's billed simply as "Unified Communications."

Sorell Slaymaker has written some really cool stuff and you shouldn't miss it because he delivers understanding in the sense of the UC opportunity. You see, the incredible world of communications that we live and thrive in is more than just technology. Sorell hits on key issues of funding and justification of UC (building business case), architecture and a holistic view of UC (design), people (needs/wants/solutions) and the process of communications and lastly the devices (tools available to the worker). You see, UC extends availability of the worker, and while everyone is focused on system, network and resource availability, the availability of the workforce can't be overlooked.