Communications Enabled Applications: Where are the ISVs?Communications Enabled Applications: Where are the ISVs?

Over the past year or so the industry has started talking much more about the concept of "communications enabled applications". This can mean many things, but to me it's the concept of taking the communications tools we use today, things like voice, messenger services and video, and embedding them into the desktop applications that we use on an everyday basis. The benefit for the end users is that we will be able to launch any communication tool without having to leave the applications that we use, making it much easier for us to work. The benefit to business process is even greater, in that many of today's tasks are built of notification - response systems can be fully automated.

Over the past year or so the industry has started talking much more about the concept of "communications enabled applications". This can mean many things, but to me it's the concept of taking the communications tools we use today, things like voice, messenger services and video, and embedding them into the desktop applications that we use on an everyday basis. The benefit for the end users is that we will be able to launch any communication tool without having to leave the applications that we use, making it much easier for us to work. The benefit to business process is even greater, in that many of today's tasks are built of notification - response systems can be fully automated.The vendor community has recognized this and responded accordingly with some interesting moves last year. Microsoft moved into unified communications, Citrix launched its own click to call application, NEC acquired Sphere to give them a software platform to build on, Avaya has been actively pushing their DevCentral community to build its own ecosystem and Siemens has shifted it's strategy into the continued development of the HiPath 8000, which is a pure software platform.

So the vision is here, and we have a number of vendors focused on building ISV and partner ecosystems around themselves, but yet there are very few real proof points delivering a "communications enabled application". So what's missing? Well, all the parts of the ecosystem appear to be here except the ISV - which in many ways is the most important part. The reason appears to be simple to explain but hard to solve. There's simply not enough end user demand right now. Not because there's no value in a communications enabled application, but the awareness is low, creating a chicken-egg situation.

Let me explain using a historical reference. Picture the era when the computing industry migrated from "green screen" mainframe terminals to Windows workstations. If a Windows developer had gone and asked a mainframe user the simple question "what kind of Windows application would you like?" the answer would have been "I have no idea what you mean by Windows application". Similarly, if there's an ISV that understands the concept of embedding communications into their application and they ask their customers "What kind of communications enabled applications would you like?" the most likely answer is that the customer really doesn't know. So the ISVs won't develop the applications until there is user demand, but there won't be user demand without the application development.

The pot of gold at the end of this rainbow is huge for the vendor that figures out how to make their platform the platform of choice for the ISVs. Going back to the Windows analogy; in the early days of Windows we actually had several vendors vying for market share. There was OS/2, Macintosh, several niche vendors and of course, Microsoft. Microsoft eventually became the winner and they haven't looked back, while OS/2 and many of the niche vendors are all but gone and MacOS remains tied to several niches. Clearly, it wasn't due to software quality, but because they created the best developer ecosystem the world has ever seen.

How Does the Demand Get Created? This is something I've been asked over and over, and there's no silver bullet answer for this one. It's not like one day users will wake up and say "Hey, I need to communications enable all of my business applications ASAP!". Moving this market forward will take a leap of faith from the communications industry and persistence to solve customer problems one at a time through the communications enablement of standard business applications and, more importantly, smaller vertical applications. Once there are a few, good examples available, the user and ISV interest will create a snowball effect that gets more and more companies involved, like what happened in the Windows world.

To date though, only Avaya has aggressively pushed their developer community, and an ISV focus has been very recent. As much as other communication vendors talk about this, there has been very little in the way of actual development of a community. I don't think it's realistic for all the communications vendors to develop their own developer community, but the vendor does need to find a way to tap into some other developer environment, which is the tactic Mitel is using with the Microsoft community and Siemens with the IBM community. The most notable vendor to lack a solid strategy here is Cisco. As large as Cisco is and as many companies that they have in their ecosystem, there should be some sort of community similar to what Intel has with Intel Developer Forum or Microsoft's Developer Network.

When Are We Likely to See More User Demand? I fully expect that 2008 will be the year we see significant user and ISV interest, for a few reasons. First, I do believe the evangelizing that Avaya has been doing will pay them dividends this year. Avaya's bought into believing that this will create the ultimate winners and losers in UC and has stuck with the development of DevConnect. Additionally, having real software vendors like Citrix, Microsoft and IBM will create greater interest from their software partners, creating a "rising tide" that will help the whole industry.

In the meantime, users should think about their applications and processes and try to understand where communications enablement will help. Vendors need to think more broadly about "ecosystem" and understand that what you've created is a platform more than an actual application. The more you help the ISV community be successful, the more successful you will be.