There is a growing need for management tools so that IT can monitor what's going on within their organizations. The ability of enterprises to get a handle on how all the disparate systems are performing, secure those systems, and scale them to significant levels is all very much still a work in progress. Making these tools practical and pragmatic is a necessity.
"An awful lot of enterprises are flying blind," Knight said. "This is a battle that has by no means been won yet."
Another trend that has swept over the industry like a tidal wave is social networking. "We're seeing it more in a content space," said Knight, "where vendors have or will have significant tools that enable contact centers to use social networking to understand what their customers are saying about them -- whether it's negative or positive -- and provide appropriate responses." Keeping a handle on what's being said about your organization on the public Internet is becoming a core area to manage.
Microsoft's November 2010 announcement of the new Lync Server will play a large role in shaping the future of enterprise communications -- at least, so hopes Microsoft. "Lync is the latest iteration of a program called upon to develop a meaningful platform for enterprise communications," said Knight. It is the successor to Microsoft’s Office Communications Server product. It handles all the chores of corporate instant messaging, audio/video conferencing, and VoIP telephony in one package. It also plays nice with Exchange Server and SharePoint Server.
With Lync, Microsoft is trying to eliminate the PBX. Certainly the interest around Lync and what it does and doesn't do will be a focal point of Enterprise Connect and the year to come.
Last, video is everywhere, not just in enterprise meeting rooms. Knight indicated that the pricing for video services -- especially mobile video -- has dropped significantly in the last 12 months. With the lower price points and wider availability of video on products such as smartphones, Knight expects that Enterprise Connect's participants will have plenty of video products to show off.
Tablets
At VoiceCon 2010, Apple's iPad had yet to hit the market, so the tablet craze hadn't begun. Now that Apple and its competitors have begun to flood the market with tablets, Enterprise Connect is singling them out as an enterprise tool.
"Tablets are not on the periphery at all," noted Knight. "We have a session devoted just to tablets and what they mean for the enterprise." Aside from performing as highly mobile computers, tablets are another device that IT managers have to worry about securing and managing. In addition, managers need to ascertain exactly how they can be put to productive use in the enterprise rather than just serve as an add-on computing platform.
The role of tablets in enterprise communications -- and unified communications in particular -- can be quite prevalent as IT figures out how to fold tablets into their specific business's needs.
Subsea cable alternatives can provide a level of comfort for those concerned about disruptions. Realistically, they will continue to play a small, but critical role in the short term.
Maintaining existing network infrastructures often incurs huge technical debt before newer technologies are adopted over time.
Amid ongoing regional uncertainties, telecom infrastructure in the Middle East has expand to include terrestrial low-latency network infrastructure, which offers resilience and agility in navigating political complexities without relying solely on undersea networks.
