The Cloud-Based UC Revolution is Here
The Cloud-Based UC Revolution is Here by Revolabs
Conference calls “in the cloud” are a matter of course today, but many organizations are embracing the cloud for all of their communications. This means decommissioning existing phone systems and moving those services to the cloud, making some existing infrastructure, analog handsets and other legacy devices currently in use obsolete. As we enter what many predict to be an explosion of cloud-based unified communication services, how will everyone in the UC sphere be affected by this rapid evolution?
By delivering value-added, complimentary services such as training, expertise, and specialty equipment, the UC partner community is a major beneficiary of the transition to cloud. Legacy voice and professional Audio/Video partners are also finding ways to reposition their value to customers relative to virtualized networks with innovative services that allow non-collocated audiences to share sound and video experiences. However, as customers move away from on premise-based solutions to the cloud, the role of the local integrator has diminished: less labor is required to maintain and update on-site phone systems. That service is now most likely delivered directly as part of a monthly cloud service.
Is Conferencing the Same As Collaboration?
Let’s first take a look at how cloud conferencing services work. Once you identify a service provider (and there are lots of them out there), you buy a monthly subscription, receive a download link to get the client, and install it on your Windows or MAC machine and/or mobile devices. Then you set up your credentials, user ID and password, and you’ve got a virtual conference service.
To use the service, someone sends out an invite email to all the participants and everyone dials into the provided number using a passcode. They virtually “meet” in some type of cloud-based conference room, which is a space that the service provider hosts. The equipment or infrastructure that enables everyone to take part in that call isn’t located where anyone is calling in from; it resides with the service provider datacenter.
These services are appealing because you don't have to buy any infrastructure, you don't have to have an IT staff to support it, and there are a multitude of service providers available who make it very easy to do business with them.
As conferencing services evolved, they started to add other services to that cloud offering, such as video conferencing. There are a multitude of players in the video conferencing world including Vidyo, Lifesize®, GoToMeeting® and WebExTM to name a few. The limitation in these environments, however, is that they’re really designed for audio and video conferencing, and not collaboration. In today’s workplace and in the UC-sphere, collaboration is a critical service offering.
When it comes to true collaboration, there are three major market players: Microsoft, Cisco, and Avaya. They take all of the conferencing "core service elements" – video conferencing, audio conferencing, and the ability to integrate into Outlook – and go a step further. They allow for real-time collaboration where participants can actually mark up and annotate materials presented by others in the virtual meeting.
Huddle Up
In response to changes in the way people work, the equipment used for conferencing has, by necessity, become more user-friendly and easy to deploy. Product offerings today have demystified boardroom implementations. While this has reduced the role of IT professional services, it has sparked innovation in the development community.
The concept of "huddle rooms," as opposed to large conference rooms, is gaining in popularity. Instead of large format meeting rooms with a big boardroom table and 20 chairs, four smaller conference rooms may be created out of that same footprint. Each of these smaller "huddle rooms" may be designed to accommodate 4 to 6 people.
Now organizations are looking for simplistic, easy-to-use solutions in the huddle room space that are more aligned with what huddle room users need from a desktop experience perspective. And companies do not want disparate audio or video conferencing services or solutions used throughout the company, which would only cause confusion when meeting in different spaces. Ideally, the communications solutions should feature a common interface to users’ desktops that would facilitate user adoption, acceptance and adoption in the huddle room scenario.
An important element to the cloud equation is choosing a high performance audio solution that's easy to support and configure with their cloud-based audio/video conferencing service. With the right audio equipment, achieving high quality audio for your cloud services can be a plug-and-play proposition. You should be able to simply connect your laptop to your audio device via USB and change some settings to basically say, "Don't use the microphone and speaker on the laptop, use it on the UC device.” This ease of use is important from a business benefit perspective as many people work from home or have remote offices. Solutions should be easy for non-technical, remote employees who don’t have IT staff to support them.
An Ever-Expanding Cloud
Today cloud-based services have expanded beyond conferencing and collaboration. Organizations are saying goodbye to their dial tone and using companies like Microsoft, Avaya and Cisco for hosted voice services. They offer cloud-based voice solutions that you can buy by the user, by the department, or geographic region. These providers will host, maintain and update the system in addition to helping you migrate from the premise-based phone system to the cloud. Many companies find this option is too good of a financial deal to pass up.
But what about their old phones? Say for example a company chooses Microsoft’s Skype for Business for its voice system, when available. Everyone keeps their same phone numbers, and voicemails can be set up using Exchange. But what do they use as a device for audio calls? The old analog technology phone system and the old handsets won't work with any of the new cloud solutions. That’s where some type of intelligent high performance audio device, such as software-based phones, come into play. They can run on your desktop and you'll be able to make calls hands-free, thereby extending your desktop experience (with good audio hardware to enhance intelligibility and communications).
From a market climate perspective, the cloud-based UC market continues to grow. A big driver is the fact that organizations are moving away from brick and mortar, so they're closing regional offices or canceling contracts with expensive hotel conferencing centers. With more and more people working remotely, you want that experience for all users to be as good as if they were in the same office with access to the same tools and all of the same experience. From the huddle room to the home office to the road warrior, their collaboration in the cloud should be transparent to the outside world and sound exactly the same, no matter where they are.
By Mike Gompers, National Account Manager, Revolabs Inc.