Avaya's View of the UC Market

Art Rosenberg 11/25/2013 8:18:51 AM

One of the big reasons that UC will take off is, as mentioned, the rise of mobility and BYOD. UC was really never too useful at the wired desktop, but its flexibility of dynamic communication choice for mobile users has always been the real target. That applies particularly to all forms of messaging, where contact initiators and contact recipients have different situational user interface needs, and can't always be "available" for a voice or video conversation.

As asynchronous messaging activity has increased significantly with mobile devices, including not only person-to-person exchanges, but also personalized interactions with automated business process applications, there is now a more contextual and efficient way to initiate real-time synchronous contacts with people, rather than "blind" phone calls that usually fail or are very disruptive. I am referring to business contacts that are initiated from within online applications or informational data, as well as from messages, rather than having to know a person's phone number. This approach will be of particular value in customer services, where "click-for-assistance" can be done contextually from any online interaction, rather than initiating a traditional, toll-free PSTN phone call.

While UC will be useful for interanl staff collaborative interactions, the bigger ROIs will come from customer interactions using smartphones and tablets for self-services that are UC-enabled. So, UC is certainly not "dead," but will become strategically embedded in online "mobile apps" that will be increasingly used by both business users and consumer/customers.