The Killer Application for Unified Communications
Two industry shows in the last 2 weeks, both asking the same question: “What is the killer application for Unified Communications?” Having attended both, it is fair to say that the question was not answered.
There has, however, been lot’s of attempts to re-brand a lot of legacy technologies as Unified Communications.
I’ve made two observations:
From one perspective, you can make the observation that “Presence” is the killer application for Unified Communications – Introducing pervasive presence information as a horizontal feature across a range of isolated applications provides immediate value; “Presence” becomes the enabler to improve technology disconnects and drive instant event-based communication.
The second observation is that trying to define a killer application for UC forms something of misleading question. The application is really just “communications”, and it’s not really even an application but a platform. It’s the unification of disconnected communications silos that is killer, much in the same way that the web provides a connected and contextual framework for vast amounts of data through hyperlinking.
The true value to your organisation comes from being able to build on and leverage this platform level presence into existing killer applications and business process. Just imagine what can be achieved by embedding contextual and relevant presence information into existing processes; and then further by extending this presence into key customers and partners.
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