Waiting for Open UC

The Bell System network was an American marvel of technology, its “universal service” mantra aspired for a phone in every home; regardless of social class. It connected every home and business in the country, comparable in scope to the nation’s highway and road system, but with instantaneous communications. It made instant communication a reality on a scale never before accomplished, very likely inconceivable to many.

The Bell system belonged to a corporation, centrally designed per a master plan. The entire solution, including the switches, endpoints, wiring, and protocols were vertically integrated and designed in one of the most famous (and privately owned) laboratories in the world: Bell Labs. The network’s hardware was predominately produced to exact specifications by Bell’s manufacturing arm, Western Electric.

Today the Internet holds the title of the most popular and ubiquitous public network. It is not owned (or regulated) by a private corporation. It is completely decentralized in ownership, design, and management. Nor are the hardware and services centrally managed, but rather a result of innovative approaches to communications - email, presence, Napster, Bit-Torrent, iPhones, even Netflix streaming came from a free market of ingenuity rather than a central plan. The web and email are largely completely platform independent. Mac, PC, HP, IBM - it just doesn’t matter; interaction, shopping, and more take place regardless of computer brand (remote or local), device type, or location. The Internet has transformed communications globally, affecting every industry and life as we knew it.

Three major organizations ensure the most basic of compatibilities with detailed standards: ITU, IETF, and IEEE. But don’t confuse standards compliance with interoperability. Unfortunately, the Internet is rapidly moving toward a closed proprietary, yet standards compliant, network; particularly around UC.

The majority of proprietary VoIP telephone systems introduced over the past decade are H.323 standards compliant. The closest standards based solution for VoIP interoperability comes from SIP which is severely limited in interoperability and functionality. Ask any proprietary VoIP vendor why they don’t use SIP and the top response is consistently “features.” Voice systems went proprietary with the digital revolution around the 80s, so there’s a degree of tolerance associated with that, the bigger challenge now is UC.

Imagine if you could only send email to users on the same system or network, it just would not be nearly as useful. But that’s how IM, presence, and most desktop video solutions work. IM and presence are powerful tools, that’s why I use so many of them. I also have three useful video chat tools. I use Skype for Thomas and Google for Travis. Good thing the three of us rarely chat as that would require someone to defect from their preferred method. I mostly use Google Docs to share and collaborate on documents; but this only reliably works with other Google users. Even the private link option (read only) doesn’t work for everyone. I also interact with Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn users via separate account logins. I have more inboxes than socks.  

The openness of the Internet that transformed communications with ubiquitous communications is under attack, and the closed islands are winning. The largest victor (this week) is Facebook - a private corporation that controls the rules and policies of its extensive network (Theodore Vail would be proud). The very notion of neutrality on the Internet is under attack; the wheels of modern progress appear to be rolling in reverse.

There are glimmers of hope which deserve recognition and support. The first is the UCIF (UC Interoperability Forum) which wants to, as an industry consortium, improve interoperability through existing standards. The model of an industry consortium to agree on how standards are implemented is not unique. Today, we enjoy ubiquitous Wi-Fi networks thanks to the Wi-Fi Alliance. Or consider the reliability of USB devices that just work with every USB port, thanks to the USB Implementors Forum. These consortiums start where the standards organizations stop, by agreeing on implementation and hand-off parameters that standards do not specify. The UCIF is almost a year old and specifications are starting to trickle out, 40 companies joined up in its first few months.

For the UCIF to be successful requires commitment from both end-users and vendors. End users need to insist on demonstrable interoperable progress such as UCIF participation. As for vendors, it seems nearly every vendor has a party line of being committed to interoperability, yet the actual goal still remains elusive, even further away. Reminds me of the quote “America is inching towards the metric system.” The UCIF provides a multi-vendor forum for improving interoperability. That should be more effective than attempting to solve the problem independently. 

There are other forms of interop showing up albeit few. Mitel just launched a new Technical Accreditation Program (TAP) that utilizes certifications from other vendors. For example, a Mitel Virtualized Voice Specialist utilizes certifications from Cisco, VMware, HP, and Juniper. A Mitel Mobility Specialist includes a requirement for certification in RIM’s Mobile Voice System. This multivendor approach toward dealer certification is very rare, but makes a lot of sense as it more accurately represents real world deployments.

APIs are changing the landscape impressively. It isn’t quite true interoperability, but an increasing powerful alternative that enables multi platform cooperation. APIs enable mash-ups and some very creative solutions are emerging in lieu of interoperability. APIs are a great example of the power of openness, enabling end users to create solutions that vendors never considered. They are rapidly becoming expected as the new norm in an interconnected world and offer an intriguing alternative (and sometimes burden) to single vendor solutions.

Another source of progress comes from the innovation of startups. Several young companies are filling interoperability gaps with clever solutions. Enterprise users typically can’t share free/busy times with external users and finding a common available time to meet is difficult. Tungle.me fills this gap by allowing users to exchange details and book appointments across calendaring systems and organizations. The unbranded/individual version is free and fills a huge interoperability hole around a very real problem created by modern calendaring systems.

The openness of the Internet revolutionized communications. It eliminated the artificial boundaries imposed by brands. It gives individuals to large organizations equal ability to communicate around the nation, continent, and globe at nearly the speed of light. It is open to all users and traffic types. Yet, everywhere walls are being built, services rendered to members only, be it Facebook, Twitter, IM, or video chat.

Stephen Colbert nailed it on Feb 16, 2011 while describing Rupert Murdoch’s new iPad application called the Daily: "All the convenience of using your iPad to read the news online, but without the Internet's annoying habit of being completely free."

Dave Michels, Principal Analyst at Verge1, also has a blog at PinDropSoup.com.