What Is Unified Communications Today?

The term Unified Communications was coined in the mid-1990s.  Before that time we were happy calling things what they were – Videoconferencing (newfangled), Telephony (mature), etc. When tools that could detect a user’s presence were inserted into the mix it just made sense to have all the communication methods come together and share common information - so users could easily “escalate” their collaboration between the formerly separate processes.

At the IMCCA we often speak about the factors that make Unified Communications the only “technology” that has been “launching” for nearly twenty years. These have included outdated, silo based management at user organizations, intentional obfuscation and incompatibility by manufacturers, and most importantly, an overall focus on the technology instead of the user experience at far too many organizations.  While enterprise technology offerings are better today than they were all those years ago, improvements alone would not have caused the disruptive change the industry is experiencing.  The democratization of technology is the biggest factor in today’s world of UC.

In the recent past, users were forced to work with only the tools their IT gatekeepers provided to them.  IT took on the role of “rule police” at many organizations.  Nowadays, every “no” from IT just drives the user into the “shadow IT” of picking their own apps.  It is this widespread availability of many consumer facing tools that has driven the most progress in Unified Communication.  Our smart devices have taught us that videoconferencing shouldn’t be hard; that good VOIP is possible; that team chat applications can help drive productivity at an organization - and that none of it should be very expensive.  As an active example, the collaboration industry is poised to go through another hype-cycle around Electronic Interactive White Board products, which will most likely end the same way the last hype-cycle around “Telepresence” did – with user organizations realizing that they don’t have to pay nearly as much as the larger manufacturers want for these systems because start-up / smaller firms and apps will democratize the space.

So while we may call our tools Unified Communications (UC), Unified Communication and Collaboration (UC&C), Universal Communications, Workstream Communications / Team Chat, or anything else, it’s important to remember the adage about the rose by any other name.  To achieve a successful collaboration strategy, organizations must first speak with their user base, understand what business outcomes and user experiences are truly needed, and then deploy simple, interoperable, secure (and usually inexpensive) tools to help achieve them. 

About the authors:

Carol Zelkin is the Executive Director of the IMCCA.  She can be reached at Czelkin@imcca.org .

David Danto is the IMCCA’s Director of Emerging Technology.  See www.Danto.info for his details.

THE IMCCA IS A NON-PROFIT INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION RESOLVED TO STRENGTHEN AND GROW THE OVERALL UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS AND COLLABORATION INDUSTRY BY PROVIDING THOUGHT LEADERSHIP, IMPARTIAL INFORMATION AND EDUCATION. GO TO www.IMCCA.org FOR FURTHER INFO.