What UC Trends Will Fizzle in 2014?

What UC Trends Will Fizzle in 2014?

By Michael F. Finneran January 27, 2014 3 Comments
AA Industry Buzz graphic
What UC Trends Will Fizzle in 2014? by Michael F. Finneran

In response to last week's Industry Buzz podcast, UCStrategies Experts Look Ahead to 2014, this week the Experts take turns predicting (and debating) UC trends that will fizzle in 2014. Among the discussion topics are BYOD, social business, federation, technology outsourcing, WebRTC, and on-premise video hardware. Michael Finneran moderates the podcast, and is joined by Phil Edholm, Blair Pleasant, Roberta J. Fox, Marty Parker, Dave Michels, Kevin Kieller, Steve Leaden, Dr. Joseph Williams, Jon Arnold, Don Van Doren, and Art Rosenberg.  

Refer to the time codes below for each speaker:

  • Michael Finneran
  • Phil Edholm (:28)
  • Blair Pleasant (2:55)
  • Roberta J. Fox (4:46)
  • Marty Parker (6:41)
  • Dave Michels (8:35)
  • Kevin Kieller (12:27)
  • Steve Leaden (15:01)
  • Joseph Williams (18:37)
  • Jon Arnold (21:28)
  • Don Van Doren (23:22)
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3 Responses to "What UC Trends Will Fizzle in 2014?" - Add Yours

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Art Rosenberg 1/29/2014 3:31:48 PM

As multimodal communications increase with screen-enabled smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktop PCs, all forms of business communications will exploit the need to simultaneously exchange visual information while having a real-time voice or video conversation. That means that the old ways of voice and video conferencing that have been key elements of UC, will be replaced by UC-enabled conferencing that will enable individual participants to flexibly select how they want to send or get information in real-time, as well as whether or not they want to be "on camera" or not.

Similarly, the old view of "unified messaging" (UM), which was mainly limited to email and voicemail storage and retrieval, will have to be expanded to include interoperability with all other modes of communication, especially automated notifications/alerts. So, with capabilities like Apple's Siri, voice messaging won't have to require an expensive and disruptive phone call, but can be initiated by voice and transmitted in text for asynchronous, quiet and private retrieval anywhere, anytime. Similarly, text messages can be selectively retrieved in voice, e.g., while driving a car.

UCaaS, especially when offered by familiar wireless service providers, will have an impact on how communications can be integrated and migrated cost efficiently
from legacy premise-based systems to hosted/managed private, public, and hybrid "cloud" services that will be endpoint device independent and will exploit cost-efficient IP connectivity and "contextual" contacts from online business process applications, rather than just the PSTN.

What will "fizzle" will be some of the old visions of UC that didn't include IP connectivity, video, social networking, consumers, mobile customer services, and the SMB markets.
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Roberta J. Fox 1/30/2014 1:21:18 PM

Discuss was interesting from our various perspectives, but I think the customer view of UC is that it still is a new marketing term that the industry has made up to try to ram things down their throats (according to what they tell us at FOXGROUP.ca).

Sometimes we spend more time trying to give them definition than describing what the technology parts are about. How sad is that?

One of the reasons I made a visual to show UC puzzle pieces. And this is without talking about the business enabled applications part.

Perhaps if the industry put themselves in the customers shoes more often, they may actually get the UC solution sale? And also...use what they sell???

How about they all give it a try as new trend for 2014? Can't hurt!
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Rahman Siddiqui 2/10/2014 9:58:00 AM

I agree with Roberta if we talk about UC awareness in our end users either private or public, but when we talk about understanding of those who makes buying decision in an organization, this may not be true. I believe once UC is available through cloud and public starts using it, then it will be easier for enterprise to adopt it at enterprise level. I think 2014 will witness wider adoption of UC Technologies...!!!

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