The PBX Isn’t Dead – But It Is Certainly Changing Roles
The PBX Isn’t Dead – But It Is Certainly Changing Roles by Marty Parker
Discussing A New Gartner Research Report: “Microsoft Lync: The 'Death of the PBX' and Other Misconceptions” ID Number G00218912 ($195), By Bern Elliot, Matthew W. Cain
The "Death of the PBX" continues to be a great debate topic in the enterprise communications community. It seems that phrase will always draw an audience, whether on web sites or at industry conferences. However, that’s the wrong question, as has been explained in many ways here at UCStrategies.com.
Gartner published a new research report on Sept. 29, 2011, which discusses the "Death of the PBX" in context of Microsoft Lync. Before commenting on the report, let’s set the context as Unified Communications, rather than only Microsoft Lync. (You can speed read the next four paragraphs if you’re a regular visitor to UCStrategies.com.)
UC represents the application of the best selection of communication tools for any specific business problem or business process. We define this as "communications integrated to optimize business processes." We also point out that the "integration" can be as simple as providing the tools and appropriate cultural support to the organization and relying on employee creativity to optimize the process (UC – U for "User Productivity") or can be as comprehensive as integrating the UC tools into workflows or business application software (UC-B for "Business Process").
The excitement of UC is that so many new technologies have arrived on the scene. These new technologies enable businesses to solve problems in entirely new ways, so as to re-optimize their business processes. Certainly, this happened when the PBX arrived in the ’70s and ’80s. Certainly, this happened when e-mail arrived in the ’80s and ’90s. And now it is happening as the marketplace adds many new UC technologies to our toolkit including presence, instant messaging, social networks, voice/video/web conferencing, collaboration software, shared workspaces, mobile networks, smart mobile devices, ubiquitous IP networking, new IP protocols (SIP, HTML5, etc.), and modular software-based UC products with published application programing interfaces (APIs). Cloud deployment options and virtual machine flexibility further enhance the value of these new UC tools. Whew, that’s sure a lot of new capability. With few exceptions, software and standard protocols allow the selection, integration and deployment of exactly the functionality needed for each process that is being optimized.
The PBX is still in this mix, providing some very important functions for voice calling, contact centers, and other applications. These functions will have value for many decades into the future, for sure. Thus, the PBX will not die, but will have an evolving and different role. In some cases, it may still be the central communication component. But in many of the new UC applications, the PBX plays a minor role, or is bypassed entirely.
The key UC action for enterprises is to develop a UC Roadmap. Successful roadmaps are based on identifying the major opportunities for UC-based business process optimizations and then detailing out the use case designs and UC components to make the optimizations possible.
So, what does Gartner have to say on this topic? Here are a few highlights; if these resonate for you, we recommend you get and read the entire report (i.e. if your firm subscribes to Gartner or by a direct purchase from Gartner).
In the intro, Gartner says the marketplace is being redefined: “The emerging ‘post-PC, post-telephony’ world of communications is driving new needs, markets and suppliers.” Our view of this is stated above.
As to Microsoft Lync, Gartner says that, “Lync 2010, Microsoft’s latest release in the Unified Communications (UC) market, adds new voice and telephony functionality that differs significantly from approaches taken by established telephony vendors.” Gartner goes on to say that, “… this non-traditional approach… has clients evaluating what role Lync could/should play… and how it should interoperate with existing investments and how best to leverage it.” Gartner answers this question later in the report when Gartner says that, “… most (companies) that have implemented Lync have deployed it to support a subset of users, and have retained some or all (of) their PBXs for other users and functions.” This is very compatible with advice both here and from Gartner to evaluate user and business communication requirements as the basis for investment planning.
Gartner recommends that action “… for enterprises interested in using Lync for telephony is to target those individuals where broader UC capabilities will be particularly useful…”
From those introductory remarks, Gartner then reviews five (5) misconceptions as referenced in the report title. Here are the five misconception headings, but it’s really necessary to read those in detail to get the most value from the report.
- Microsoft Lync Will Displace PBXs
- Enterprises Can Walk Away From Their Telephony
- Money Can Always Be Saved by Replacing Hard Phones With Lync Desktop Soft Clients
- Microsoft Must Displace the IP-PBX to Succeed in the UC Market
- Cloud UC Solutions (UCaaS) Will Displace On-Premises UC Deployments
As you can infer from the Gartner quotes above and from the prior sections of this article, these are misconceptions primarily when viewed in all-or-nothing terms. The key point in each case is to understand the major market shifts represented by UC. It is then possible to apply that knowledge via business process reviews and use case designs to create a step-by-step UC roadmap. The UC roadmap will then guide the selection and application of the best technologies.
Proof that this is feasible and highly rewarding continues to be posted as new UC case studies (far beyond just VoIP savings) on leading UC vendors’ web sites.
Best of success as you cut through the misconceptions and plan out your UC future.