BT announced today they are extending their existing SIP trunking capability in the UK to the US, Holland, Belgium and Germany with Spain to follow. They also extended their Onevoice product to support Microsoft’s OCS R2. Press release here
BT today announced two further voice initiatives on its converged communications platform, BT Onevoice. To enable larger organisations to accelerate the adoption of communications applications to the desktop, BT is launching SIP trunking in a number of countries, delivering a clear migration path to unified communications. At the same time, BT has the global Microsoft qualification of BT Onevoice for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2.
BT Onevoice’s SIP trunking provides full connectivity between domestic country voice services and BT’s Onevoice global VPN to help customers reduce telephony costs and rapidly deploy converged applications. The service offers local numbering for both outgoing and incoming call traffic that can be delivered anywhere on a user’s network. Already available in the UK the services will be rolled out to the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France and the US in the coming months, with further regions, including Spain, to follow. In addition, by utilising SIP trunking, customers can reduce rental for access lines, reduce call costs, and improve collaboration for users, whether they be office based, on the move or based remotely.
BT also announced a guaranteed 25% reduction on voice communications for customers who already have a data network with BT, spend £700k on voice communications and then move their voice traffic to BT’s Onevoice product. Devil of course will be in the detail.
Interesting to see another large incumbent telco start to broaden their UC offer to include support for products such as OCS and also start to offer guaranteed savings into the mix. While I fully expect the number of voice and video minutes to increase within an enterprise the per unit pricing will fall dramatically which creates real financial challenges for incumbents such as BT, AT%T, D-Telecom.
Ok Google so just stop teasing us poor Europeans with all the blogs on the additional features that can be found in Google Voice/Mail
Michael Bolognino just released a blog post on Google Voice Blog explaining some of the really nice features that Voice/Gmail has built in, in case any of you lucky North Americans who has a Voice account didn’t know here are a few really nice features:
Chrome click to dial extension: see a number in Chrome and simply click to dial. In my experience click to dial is the most popular feature when a UC system is deployed
Call recording: click 4 and both parties are informed that the call is being recorded (I don’t think it is transcribed)
Switch calls: a large number of calls require moving from one phone to another (eg from a mobile to landline or vice versa) Google Voice allows the user to quickly switch the call from a chosen list of devices
I’m not sure Google/Cisco/IBM and Microsoft fully appreciate that voice remains at the centre of the UC&C tower – I think Cisco probably understand this more. If one company can capture the voice element they will have an extremely good opportunity to attack email, instant messaging and collaboration platforms that are multi billion pound/dollar markets. If Google keep innovating Voice they have a real chance at creating a spearhead for their Google Apps business……now please Google can you launch in Europe?
Rumours persist that Cisco are looking into buying Skype. I’d be very interested to understand why Cisco would wish to buy Skype. Is it for their consumer user base, IP or potential revenue streams?
I personally don’t see the fit, unlike the excellent recent aquisition of Tandberg. Is it a defensive move to prevent voice minutes leeking away from Cisco’s business CUCM product range or is it a pure consumer play?
I’ve decided to broaden the scope of the blog to include Collaboration. While I may not have too much commentary on the subject I can at least sign post to some really great resource.
If you are interested in Microsoft’s BPOS take a look over at Brett’s Blog. It contains everything you need to know to get started with BPOS.
Fire up the UC use case folder. Chris over at his blog has detailed a fantastic looking app that integrates Bing Translator with the Communication Server “14″ platform. This allows IM conversations to be translated into 32 different languages. For further details go take a look at Chris’ blog post.
This has got me thinking as to the potential use for this application. I’m sure there are many more use cases but here are a few off the top of my head:
Multi language helpdesk/website support. The UC platform already allows an organisation to embed IM into their website, enabling Bing Translation now allows an organisation to support customers in multiple languages without investing in costly translation services or multi language resource
Emergency translation services. Although limited in number there are times when organisations/individuals need immediate contact to answer an emergency call and there is a lag if a translator is required. A quick IM conversation could answer the call without having to search for the translator
Clearly within the multinational business environment the ability to seamlessly communicate across boundaries without everyone having to rely on a single language is a significant benefit and there will be many different use case generated by such organisations
And perhaps more exciting is for the SME market place. Large organisations can devote resources to overcome language barriers (or simply dictate a primary language) but for the SME that is venturing into a foreign market for the first time language can be a significant challenge. Such a solution could help a business overcome the challenge.
Unified Communications coupled with critical mass and an open platform deployed within an organisation can dramatically change how that organisation operates, this is just one small example of the countless possibilities that UC can deliver.
IBM continue to invest in their Sametime product line. The Lotus User Group are giving a webcast on the 14th September to brief everyone on what’s new in the 8.5.1 Sametime release.
A reminder from our energetic LotusUserGroup.org community and the Virtual User Group program: join Lotus product managers Rob Ingram and Kathleen Cooke on September 14, 2011 for a brief, but information-packed 30 minute webcast on what’s new in IBM Lotus® Sametime® 8.5.1 and IBM Lotus Sametime Unified Telephony 8.5.1 software:
Come see what the 8.5.1 release looks like on the Mac 10.6, Linux, and other popular desktop and mobile device environments.
Discover how the new Sametime Unified Telephony 8.5.1 release provides support for additional client platforms and simplifies client deployment.
See how to reduce calling costs with softphone, call management, and aggregated presence awareness.
Get a peek at what a real consistent user communications experience looks like with a demonstration of telephony presence, incoming call management, click-to-call, click-to-conference, and softphone capability
Learn how to activate telephony features via administrator policies
A recent TechCrunch guest poster Nikhyl Singhal states the phone number is dying out? After using a UC system for almost 12 months now I can totally agree with Nikhyl. Dialling numbers seem an alien concept. Either my contact is available via a simple click or if they are external I place them in my contacts and never see their number again. I’m positive that dialing a contact from a mobile phone rather than having to look up a number from a landline has led to a large increase in mobile minutes in the enterprise and a decline in fixed line calls. It’s a regular occurrence in an office to see two people talking on the mobile when they are in the same location.
The 10 digit number of course will still be around but there will be a new UI between the user and the dialled number. The closest analogy I can think of is IP addressing. Every form of communication on the internet requires an IP address but less than 1% of people use IP addresses to access content or read a web page.
Soon enough when you want to contact someone you’ll find a contact button on their facebook, twitter or corporate communication system and click to dial. Dialing a number will be a thing of the past.
I’m certain my grandkids will never dial a phone number, or even have one. It’s time to say goodbye to ten digits along with the world’s oldest social network. While we’re at it, let’s kill phone-tree mazes, do-not-call lists…everything associated with phone numbers.
Don’t misconstrue what I’m saying. This isn’t the demise of phone calls. Far from it. People will still talk on their phones. They just want the service to be simple and fun, which won’t entail punching digits into a device to start a conversation.
The purchasing arm of the UK government recently awarded a teleheath framework agreement to TeleHealth Solutions who are a UK company supplying technology and consulting to the Health sector who require telehealth services.
Again not normally a big fan of these types of video, they tend not to pitch at the right level. But this one is quite good, of course there is the standard corporate look and feel but don’t let that distract you from the central message that deploying UC can enable significant and tangible benefits within your business/project. Take a look at the video but here are some points I would like to draw out. Both positive and negative.
Good messages:
Human Lag is the No1 reason why projects get delayed. Unified Communications can significantly reduce that lag
Federation between councils and vendors helps further reduce lag
The Live Meeting saved $50 in audio conferencing costs
And saved carbon output by not having to travel three other members from around the country
Negative:
The video is misleading when it highlights how simple it is to set a live meeting up, especially when visiting another office. The sales guy simply walked into the meeting and established the live meeting with the roundtable. I’ve never seen this implemented so smoothly. Also the desktop sharing and some of the video looked a little too swift in certain sections
There is no point having such great functionality when it is difficult to set up and can not always be relied upon during a vital sales pitch. If UC vendors can work through the usability issues the benefits expressed in the video are certainly achievable.
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