Investments In UC Soft-Clients To Gain Traction In 2009

UC is being viewed as a technology whose adoption will see a rise among organisations with an agenda to improve productivity and reduce operational expenditure (OPEX). Geoff Johnson, research VP, Gartner, gives us an insight into UC adoption trends and its future.

How far is total convergence of the environment possible? What about the cost factor?

Convergence comes in many ways in a business organisation. UC is about managing disparate network access opportunities under a single device. Cost is always an issue in business and particularly in IT. However, UC does not involve major capital expenditure. The perception that UC relies on a ‘rip-and-replace’ technique is not correct. UC builds on the separate communication networks that we already have and manages them in a more comprehensive way.

Apart from increasing revenues, how can organisations leverage this technology?

UC is most likely to be used in two important ways. Since it improves communication within the organisation, it improves personal productivity and corporate productivity across the organisation. It provides an opportunity for workgroups to use different platforms like audio, video or Web conferencing.

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Apart from productivity, customer service is an important part. Abbreviated processes usually improve customer service because people can communicate in a particular mode that suits them. Important technology in improving customer service is the availability of Presence. Presence is about understanding the status of their availability.

What UC trends do you foresee in 2009?

UC developments in 2009 for most organisations are going to be about stabilising their communication infrastructure and preparing for UC as a tool on top of all communication approaches. In 2009, we expect to see continued investments in communication infrastructure like traffic moving from PBX to IP telephony etc. Thus, investments in communication channels and modest investment in UC soft-clients required to manage the former will be the foremost trends.

Can you elaborate on SOA-based UC modules?

SOA and some other related architectures are going to be very important to the future of UC. The move to UC is a decade-long transition. If we look forward ten years in time, we see UC as an essential but interim toolset that will be used in a more sophisticated way in the future. Principally, it is to make communication possible from within applications in IT platforms. SOA and other architectures like WAN-driven architecture are important because it is an area, which we describe as communications-enabled business process, where voice or video is natively available within IT applications to support business processes.