Enterprise Connect: A Product Idea Factory
Enterprise Connect: A Product Idea Factory by Kevin Kieller
I wear many hats; one that I wear with great pride is my “developer hat.” I began programming many years ago and had my first commercial success with a game called “Jack Attack” for the Commodore 64, named after then president of Commodore Jack Tramiel. Jack Attack went on to be nominated for game of the year (1988) and ever since I often view the world through the eyes of a developer.
And so, it was with some surprise, but great interest, that several Enterprise Connect sessions and exhibitors appealed to my developer roots.
Enterprise Connect is always a great source of product information. You can meet and talk to all the major PBX and UC vendors, talk to numerous hosted (“cloud”) VoIP and UC providers, and test more headsets and view more video conferencing solutions than you can imagine.
But for me this year, Enterprise Connect was also a great source of new product ideas. The reason for this was that several key technology components were in the exhibit hall and included in the sessions. Fellow UC Strategist Dave Michels ran a session entitled “The Role of APIs in Integrating Communications with the Business,” perhaps the longest title of any session, but also a session that tweaked my developer senses. For those non-developers, APIs are application programming interfaces, that is to say, APIs are the secret handshakes that enable developers to tie components together in order to build a complete solution. In fact, APIs are really only of use to developers, as they cannot, without developers be used by end-users or CIOs or telecom managers; this fact is what made this session so interesting.
4.5 Idea Components
I saw four and one half fantastic building blocks while in Orlando:
1. Twilio
Twilio is a cloud-based set of services accessible via APIs that supports building communication applications. With Twilio you have access to on-demand phone numbers; you can place calls, receive calls, play messages, record calls, amongst other things. You can also send and receive text messages (SMS). Twilio also supports WebRTC clients.
2. Plivo
Plivo is also cloud-based platform that allows developers to quickly create applications that place and receive phone calls, send and receive text messages (SMS), connect to SIP endpoints and WebRTC clients.
There are certainly differences between Twilio and Plivo, however, they are more the same than different. The exciting thing is that with Twilio or Plivo developers can extend the capabilities of existing applications or build entirely new applications that provide exciting communications capabilities on a global basis. For instance, Twilio and Plivo make it easy to notify a specific user (think account balance warning) or a whole community of users (think school notification system) by voice or text when a particular event occurs. Either would help you build entire contact center applications. Both could expedite workflow notifications. Ideas, ideas, ideas.
During the API session, a great demo (which happened to use Twilio) registered an on-demand phone number that was then projected on the screen. Attendees were asked to call the phone number and as they did so a graphic on the screen added a colored wedge to a pie chart. The application played “circus music” for all the connected callers. Once 50 people had called in, the pie chart twirled and randomly selected one of the wedges associated with a specific inbound caller and then connected the audio stream so the winner could be informed that they had won. A nice touch was that callers beyond the allowed 50 who dialed in were sent a text message saying that they did not dial fast enough and also providing them with links to additional information.
3. Dolby spatial audio conferencing
This was one thing that truly needs to be heard to be understood. The Dolby team gave me a great demonstration of how this spatial audio technology made it far easier for multiple parties to talk and be heard during audio conferencing. By making the voices seem to be coming from different points in space, it virtually eliminated the awkward problem when multiple people start talking at the same time during audio conferences. I can’t wait for this technology to be incorporated into many existing UC solutions. (BT plans to offer Dolby audio conferencing in Q3 2013.)
4. WebRTC
WebRTC primarily, but not exclusively, provides the potential for some current, and many future browsers, to act as a communication endpoint for audio and video calls. More specifically, this means users of the latest version of Chrome and Firefox browsers, and perhaps in the future Internet Explorer and Safari, will be able to simply click to start an audio or video call with any other browser user. No downloads. No separate apps.
WebRTC is an exciting solution component because it extends the reach of many existing communication platforms, including traditional PBXs, call center applications, and UC platforms (e.g. Lync and Cisco Jabber) to millions, or maybe even billions, of users who happen to have a browser. In addition, WebRTC may very well enable some new communications possibilities especially for web-based games. (Note that the WebRTC technology is not limited to use in a
Browser, but browser-based communications is the “low hanging fruit.”)
And the Half
The above were the four key idea components I saw at Enterprise Connect. Each were exciting because they could allow developers to build some new and unique communication and collaboration solutions.
I assigned the remaining “half component” to Microsoft Lync. Both in the “Living with Lync” session that I moderated and in the “Designing and Implementing CEBP for Your Organization” session led by Marty Parker, the concept of Microsoft Lync as a UC platform was discussed; albeit at a high-level. Microsoft Lync is truly a “platform” and it will truly enable future product solutions (as I illustrated by using Trivia Engine for Lync to give away some prizes in my session); however, most people at present are simply working on installing and implementing the “out of the box” Lync experience. Lync is a solution component but perhaps only half the people realize it.
Given all the ideas Enterprise Connect 2013 fostered, it has taken me several weeks to organize my thoughts in writing. I’m not suggesting that all corporate developers attend Enterprise Connect 2014, but I do believe that senior architects and senior developers that have a good grasp of business communication issues may want to add Enterprise Connect to the conferences they choose to attend. New and unique ideas for those of us who choose to wear a “developer hat” are priceless.
I now look forward to attending the UC Summit at the end of this month where I can look to have great discussions with key members of the UC channel and other consultants related to how these new communication components are opening opportunities and changing their business.