If anyone has any doubts that Google aren’t making a major push into the UC market place TechCrunch highlight how Google are just about to launch Gmail and Google Talk integration. This is another clear sign that Google want to attack Skype in the consumer market and Microsoft/Cisco et al in the business market.
I think TechCrunch may have scooped the launch given that the Google Voice Blog entry has September as a post date.
Now all we need is for Google to release Google Voice outside of the US/Canada
I don’t normally like the arguments between vendors but this video is quite funny and the message to Cisco is loud and clear – unify your Unified Communications product range. Until you do you will be open to this type of attack from your competitors.
AT&T yesterday announced that their enterprise customers can take advantage of integrated VoiP solutions when they take private IP VPN from AT&T. This makes a great deal of sense for customers who would like to experiment with VoiP services on an existing network platform. The press release makes special mention of OCS SIP trunking.
AT&T* announced today that new and existing virtual private network (VPN) customers may add VoIP service to the network solution delivered over AT&T’s global network cloud.
This converged solution will enable customers to consolidate their separate voice and data networks, reduce equipment and maintenance costs, and simplify migrating these complimentary capabilities to a common, secure infrastructure. By migrating to a common infrastructure, customers are able to take advantage of additional applications as AT&T makes them available, such as unified communications capabilities.
The AT&T VoIP portfolio is also certified for interoperability with leading industry providers of IP-PBX systems, such as SIP Trunking services qualified for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2, providing support for businesses planning to incorporate a comprehensive unified communications solution in the future.
Unified Communications – especially presence, skill search, interactive real time applications and video – can and will revolutionise health care. It’s great to see that everyday their are articles related to the investment in Telemedicine across the world.
UC can reduce the cost of providing health care and provide faster and wider access to specialist skills. Given the amount of examples I’ll be keeping a running score of articles I come across.
From FireceTelecom California has recently launched a Telemedicine network:
California residents will now be able to tap into new health care capabilities as the state officially launched its California Telehealth Network (CTN) this week.
The CTN, which was announced by Arnold Schwarzenegger, California’s governor, and U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra at the UC Davis Cancer Center in Sacramento, will connect more than 800 California healthcare facilities to a statewide medical-grade network of healthcare and emergency services.
And the growing nations of India, Brazil, Russia and China are also investing, from Heatlhcareitnews:
DALLAS – A new research report from MarketsandMarkets (M&M), a U.S.-based global market research and consulting firm, shows that the telemedicine market in Brazil, Russia, India and China can be expected grow to nearly half a billion dollars in the coming years.
The study, “Telemedicine Market in Brazil, Russia, India, China (BRIC) – Advanced Technologies, Global Forecast,” shows that the telemedicine sector in those fast-emerging economies is expected to reach a market size of $418.4 million by the year 2014, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.8 percent from 2009 to 2014.
Everyone who works in a large corporate environment appreciates how audio conferencing has become a much used technology within an organisation. Audio conferencing minutes can easily reach tens of millions of minutes in global organisations. As a very rough rule of thumb I would use 1million audio minutes per year per 1000 employees.
Dave Grady catches the frustration exceptionally well in his 5 minute video. Watch out for Nigel from the UK.
This started me thinking on how much time is wasted on audio calls waiting for the meeting to start? 3 to 5 minutes on every call?
It’s always good to see UC technology implemented in any organisation but when the deployment is generating operational benefits for the UN’s World Health Programme you can’t help but smile. I assume that the WFP will be treated as a charity and receive the software for a significantly reduced rate.
Take a look at the video from Twisted Pair Solutions on how they utilise their Wave solution to combine OCS, Radio systems, Mobiles and presence aware mapping.
Google may not be on many UC technology roadmaps today but I guarantee within 12 – 18 months if they keep developing Voice, Apps, Android, Docs, Talk, Chat and Chrome they will be.
While their development seems scattergun if they can consolidate their products into a single competitor to Office and deliver via their cloud infrastructure they have a shot at taking a slice of Microsoft’s $16billion market.
Here’s another example of how they are bringing together their Chrome, Android and most importantly their cloud platform.
The BBC reported over the weekend that a county in England (West Sussex) is trialing self service prescription vending machines. One of the major concerns with the self service model is the lack of specialist advice on hand from pharmacists. Unified Communications however is coming to rescue with PharmaTrust who have developed a vending machine with video conference capabilities, allowing patients to quickly access any advice they may need.
There is no doubt that UC can help deliver improved service to patients and make healthcare more effective, we need leaders in the healthcare industry to embrace the change and start to utilise the technology available to ensure the maximum available money is spent on patients.
Quote from the BBC;
Each year, 886 million prescription drug items are dispensed in England and it is hoped this new technology can streamline the process.
There are questions though over if it is safe to break the patient-pharmacist link, if drugs stored in the machine will be safe from thieves and if people could fraudulently pick up the medicine meant for others. Two different types of machines are being trialled with the aim of national roll-out across England. The supermarket chain Sainsbury’s is currently piloting a scheme in two of its West Sussex stores. After a year it will look at customer feedback, before deciding whether to extend to other stores. It is hoped the machines will speed up customer queuing times.
I posted at the start of the year that I believe video will play a significant role in an enterprise’s communication tool kit and the first four months of this year have done nothing to change that view. I’ve been helping a global organisation to roll out desktop VC to 2000+ users (still a relatively small percentage of the workforce) and the uptake has been outstanding, not just in usage minutes but also the breadth of use that business users have applied the technology. The range of use has in fact been beyond imagination and far beyond our use cases we developed to help justify the pilot, here are a few quick examples:
IT service management teams holding ad hoc VCs responding to Sev 1 incidents – biggest request from this team has been the ability to bring in supplier VC streams
One to One meetings, pretty obvious in a large global organisation but VC has allowed managers and employees to see each other face to face for the first time
Forums held over VC – an interesting use case, a team located in a central location wishing to hold a user forum with three remote locations created a VC with the three locations and the central team took questions over video from the remote locations
Travellers who find themselves away from home for a prolonged period would like to VC into their family at night
Team meetings held over VC
Many people avoiding travel and using VC as an alternative
Plenty examples of employees who have moved from the central hub locations to emerging markets keeping in touch with their teams via VC
Many requests for external VC access to suppliers
These examples are based on the desktop VC service, there still remains a place for Telepresence and Room based VC but the ease of use and day to day availability of desktop VC will see desktop quickly overtake Telepresence and Room based VC usage.
IT shops need to respond quickly to this demand, not just by providing the necessary software/hardware and policies but also the bandwidth in their networks. For those IT shops that get it right they’ll be contributing to the overall effectiveness of their organisation and for those that don’t…well it will just be seen by the business (rightly or wrongly) as another example of IT adding limited value to the business.
Quick hat tip to Cisco, in my view Cisco understand the impact that video will have on enterprise more than any other vendor/supplier. The Cisco purchase of Tandberg is a real win-win for Cisco, not only do they pick up major VC technology that can be pumped through the Cisco sales channel, they pick up the tech that they should eventually integrate with Comms Manager to meet the growing demand and best of all by by selling all this video technology into their base they get new infrastructure spend as organisations and service providers have to upgrade their networks to cope with the demand.
The short answer has to be yes. OCS R2 while adding a whole bunch of new UC and client functionality missed a few key areas of PBX functionality that prevents most organisations from deploying OCS R2 as their only PBX. R2 currently works well as an overlay to an existing PBX (although interoperability issues remain). The overlay and integrate approach however should only be seen as a migration step and not a long term strategy. Wave 14 allows consideration to be given to an MS only PBX estate.
What is missing in R2 and what is now in W14?
Call Access Control and 999/911 support – Network guys are a conservative bunch and R2 has no control mechanism in place to prevent calls being made on the network or support legal requirements for emergency calls. W14 introduces a server that will specifically handle CAC thus removing such an objection from the network guys. The server will also support 999/911 support that also turns into a nice location application that not only lets W14 know your whereabouts for emergency calls it also lets all your team mates know your location via the OCS client.
Remote Survivability – Another absolute must for businesses is the ability for voice to remain active if connectivity is lost to the data centre, R2 required a complex mix of mediation servers andconfiguration to meet this requirement which put off all but the hardiest of organisations. W14 announced a number of vendors who will provide gateways that will include remote survivability into a combined gateway…now if only that functionality could be combined in a Cisco router or a combined router/gateway (watch this space HP?).
Support for standalone and Analog phones – While it is fair to assume that plenty of voice traffic will move away from the traditional phone it is clear there will remain a considerable rump of standalone phones, W14 will support this requirement.
So W14 may not be right for every organisation but if you are considering a PBX replacement/refresh W14 should now be on your list as a credible player in the market. At the very least W14 will be a good price deflator against the traditional PBX players. There is also the fact W14 provides an extremely good UC solution but discussing UC versus PBX replacement is a whole different discussion/blog post.
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