Have You Written Your Last Telephony RFP?Have You Written Your Last Telephony RFP?

Tony Rybczynski of Nortel suggested that possibility during Don Van Doren's Intro to UC session this morning. His point was that enterprises need to start framing their purchase decisions in terms of UC capabilities rather than as simple telephony replacement procurements.

Tony Rybczynski of Nortel suggested that possibility during Don Van Doren's Intro to UC session this morning. His point was that enterprises need to start framing their purchase decisions in terms of UC capabilities rather than as simple telephony replacement procurements.Chris Thompson of Cisco categorically disagreed (not too surprisingly, I guess), arguing that there will always be a need for voice-only communications: "We are going to be writing telephony RFPs for as long as we're alive," he promised.

What's this conversation really about? I think the notion of "writing an RFP" is a stand-in for saying that a given technology is where you invest, instead of simply buying. Clearly right now, you invest in telephony and you buy UC (or you don't).

Have we really reached a point where the thoroughgoing, investment-grade decisions are made based on UC requirements rather than telephony requirements? Tony Ryb's a great guy, but I don't see it. I just don't think businesses have moved that far that fast, away from the way they've been operating since forever.

Having said that, I'm not totally in agreement with Chris Thompson, either. Just because we'll always be making voice calls, doesn't mean standalone voice is necessarily going to continue to be the core functionality. Several times in today's session, Chris held up his mobile phone as an example of a telephony service that's not going away. But there's no reason to see mobility as any more a voice-only service than desktop systems are. Indeed, the reason why mobility is such a critical part of UC is because it now operates in multiple modes (including video).

I'm too young to remember whether anyone ever said, "You've bought your last analog system" a couple of decades ago, but it's kind of become the thing to do; Cisco memorably said your current TDM PBX should be your last, and lately Microsoft touted the idea that the PBX is an "architectural dead end." Customers never have embraced these absolute ideas, and I don't expect they'll start now.