Unified Communications Suffers An Identity Crisis

Is unified communications (UC) suffering from an identity crisis? The results of InformationWeek’s “2012 Unified Communications Survey” suggest vendors that are looking to sell IT departments on UC solutions are having a tough go of it, primarily due to a fog that develops in the minds of customers over what UC is exactly.

“We’re in the midst of a major transition in business communications,” explains Michael Finneran, principal, dBrn Associates, and author of the report. “For the most part, it appears the buying community is hopelessly confused regarding the real meaning of unified communications. Vendors’ marketing, particularly with their change in direction with regard to which elements of UC they promote, has aided that confusion.”

Restless marketing executives are tacking on new capabilities and adding modifiers such as "collaboration" and "social business" to UC offerings in an effort to gain traction, while simultaneously abandoning the "UC" terminology. Cisco has already purged the term, the report notes.

“It’s restlessness amongst the vendors to try to look as though they have something different. That’s the core reason why they change,” he continues. “To a degree, the users don’t seem to have come up with a good understanding of what UC is. If they could express it, I think it’d come out as, ‘It’s an IP/PBX with conferencing and collaboration capabilities.' That seems to be the part of the messaging they’ve caught onto.”

With that said, vendors are keenly aware customers aren’t cluing in to what UC represents. “They [customers] don’t quite know what it is--they can’t express the value proposition or see the ROI--so [vendors think] let’s try collaboration for awhile,” Finneran adds.

Need a straightforward definition as to what UC is? Finneran, through his work with UC Strategies, defines it as “communications integrated to optimize business processes.” This is a nice, wide definition that covers a multitude of evils, he jokes.

Actually, according to a slightly earlier InformationWeek Research trending survey, confusion is not the only problem hindering wider enterprise adoption of UC. Two years ago, 30% of respondents reported having UC deployed. That number has now risen to 36%. Why so little traction? Today, as was the case two years ago, other projects just have a higher priority.

Meanwhile, expansionism has been an ongoing trend, the new report finds. From the idea of unified messaging, where a single mailbox would collect all of a user's non-real-time communications--including email, voice mail and fax--UC moved into the realm of real-time communications, providing a dashboard to initiate one-to-one audio and video connections and instant messaging chats.

The focus has now expanded further to include collaboration tools for conferencing via audio, video and the Web, as well as desktop sharing to help employees work together more effectively. The next iteration will add a set of social networking capabilities. “As the products have evolved, there are new attributes being continuously added to UC,” he says. “From the vendor’s standpoint, you change your marketing to highlight those. But my preference is to stick with the name we’ve got.”

And with the continuous evolution of UC functionality comes the identity crisis the term appears to be suffering from. “We’re moving to these tools, but the users don’t actually get it,” says Finneran “Of the drivers for UC among those that adopted it, the top two drivers are unified messaging and collaboration. The adoption of a full-blown UC client and people moving into this form of communications is not a natural event. People have to be led to it . . . if all they think of UC is unified messaging and collaboration, I think they’re missing the point.”

The new report also advises that IT professionals keep an eye on mobility conferencing. It’s the millennials in your organization that could, in time, tip the balance on today’s videoconferencing giants with their use of tools such as Skype, FaceTime, and Google Talk.

“Absolutely it’s a threat. The mobile video market seems to be generationally driven. Older folks like me couldn’t care less,” Finneran remarks. “I might use Skype from time to time, but my 25-year-old son uses iChat as frequently as phone calls.”

When asked what IT departments should focus on in light of the UC confusion, Finneran advises first and foremost to learn what UC is about: “Engage with your users to determine what the requirements are for communications and where you can help them improve their business processes with it," he says. "Don’t think you can simply dump it on their desk and walk away. This is not a fire-and-forget weapon. You have to promote and train people on it. As people catch on, there’s an enormous potential for social media interactions in a business.”

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