Unified communications enabling new ways to work together
UCC is likely to have quite an impact in the year ahead for a greater percentage of businesses. It is not about a single product or a single initiative, but more about a different way to interact between the business, its employees and even suppliers and customers. It is more than just deploying VoIP but instead looking at the breadth and capabilities of the devices and interfaces available to pull the organization together to address business needs in a more timely fashion. In the near future, you’ll see much greater use of the computing capabilities available to mine these various interactions (both text based as well as speech and video) and through the use of various context recognition techniques tagged so that it can be more effectively accessed. The security implications of the retention and tagging of this kind of material needs to be better understood within most organizations.
The use of more standardized UCC techniques will increase where the local needs can be met with a veneer of customization and integration, addressing the conflict between standardization and customization. Naturally the whole drive to BYOD will impact deployments and force even more flexibility into organizations IT planning.
There will be some big industry shifts in 2012, so IT organizations will need to keep tabs on what is going on and remain light on their feet, making adjustments along the way. Organizations who do not understand the fundamental nature of the shifts will likely end up with lower satisfaction of both their clients and their employees.
Where I’ll probably be focusing more attention on in the short term though is the benefits and methods for increased adoption.
