Mobility Misfiring at VoiceConMobility Misfiring at VoiceCon

Is mobility a dead end in UC? Not at all, it's just happening without the PBX vendors.

Mobility is sweeping through the enterprise, but the IP-PBX vendors are on the receiving side of the broom. The crowd at VoiceCon (now renamed "Enterprise Connect") was abuzz with the announcement of Microsoft's Office Communications Server 14 (OCS "14"), but with the exception of a few minor announcements like support for PBX mobile UC clients on iPhones, the feeling seemed to be that last year's mobility suite was good enough.For the second time I hosted the Integrating Mobility and UC vendor panel, which featured 10 vendors responding to a mock RFP--mobility requirements for 1,000 users in 27 locations; 560 of those users were mobile in and out of the office and 440 were mobile but only within the office. I also specify the percentage of voice calling that occurs within range of a company WLAN or public Hot Spot. The potential to offload cellular traffic onto Wi-Fi is significant, and the clear message is that network costs, particularly cellular usage, far outweighs the cost of the elements that the vendors are providing.

Microsoft, who did not participate in the panel, is at an awkward point in their evolving mobility strategy. Their current Office Communicator Mobile (OCM) will work with OCS "14", but it is based on their current version of the Windows Mobile Operating System. Later this year, Microsoft will be introducing a new version of Windows Mobile, designated Windows Phone 7, and they have already confirmed that it will not support any of the existing Windows Mobile applications. If the new version of OCM is based on the more iPhone-like Phone 7, it will require new handsets. In the meantime, the current Windows Mobile has been universally panned with even Microsoft's Steve Ballmer piling on, so it will not be a strong contender going forward.

The RFP for Integrating Mobility and UC is designed to allow the widest range of potential solutions. The wide area vendors can stay with cellular-only mobile UC solutions, but to take advantage of the cost savings potential of migrating voice traffic to Wi-Fi, many opt for either traditional Wi-Fi/cellular solutions or carrier-provided dual mode Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) like T-Mobile's Wi-Fi Calling for Business. Those taking full advantage of the Wi-Fi cost savings could reduce the user's cellular costs by over $500,000, or 26%, over 3-years. Many of those who went for one of the Wi-Fi options found that the savings could cover the entire cost of their local and wide area mobile solutions.

For the in-building mobile users the vendors could opt for cellular service, voice over Wi-Fi, or DECT. Interestingly, while we specified that all of the customer's facilities had voice-capable wireless LANs, three of the vendors found they could deliver a more cost effective solution using DECT. The DECT implementation required infrastructure in all 27 locations, however the handset costs were so much lower than with VoWLAN devices that the overall solution was cheaper.

While I was quite impressed with the creativity the vendors brought to the challenge, they seemed to have more trouble with the big question: Why don't these things sell? Dual mode and voice over WLAN solutions are clearly languishing, and the vendors seemed to have stopped developing new features for their voice over WLAN handsets. Cisco didn't even bid their 7921 or 7925 VoWLAN handsets as part of their solution!

So the vendors have a mobile capability that is not only free, it can actually save you money, but they still can't get customers to take it (not even "buy it", just "take it"!). Let's look at the mobile UC offerings in the context of basic marketing's Four-P's:

* Product: With integrated on-board directory, calendar, games, and other capabilities of a modern smartphone, the users are already getting a good mobile experience. The Mobile UC clients being offered by the PBX vendors are simply not worth the effort.

* Price: Unless they pay the customers to take, the price can't get any lower.

* Promotion: Based on the low take rate for their mobility offerings, the PBX vendors seem to have given up. However, demonstrating some non-salable mobile knick-knack is still de rigueur for any VoiceCon keynote.

* Place: Mobility is a separate discipline inside of IT, and the PBX vendors are simply not reaching the parties that control mobility with a proposition that interests them.

So is mobility a dead end in UC? Not at all, it's just happening without the PBX vendors. For now, RIM is singularly notable for its efforts to excel in enterprise mobility. It has built a product geared towards the needs of enterprise users, developed a collaborative business model with the carriers (subsidize my smartphone and you can charge enterprise users $45 each per month), augmented that with non-threatening capabilities like the MVS to integrate with PBXs, and client software to access OCS and Sametime presence. And RIM has attacked the market through the people who are responsible for mobility. In short, RIM has developed a business model that delivers a compelling enterprise mobility solution and works around the PBX!

However, RIM adamantly refuses to open any of their solutions to non-BlackBerry devices, so users are left with a partial solution for their overall mobility needs. There seems to be an opportunity someone could capitalize on--assuming the PBX vendors haven't given up already.Is mobility a dead end in UC? Not at all, it's just happening without the PBX vendors.