Unified Communication (UC) will be going through a rapid innovative digital transformation that will be held by the mobility solutions, innovation in communication technology and the transforming vendor landscape. In terms of the vendor, we see the rapid transformation in the scenarios with the Microsoft Lync that is currently challenging the Avaya and Cisco. The already set market is driven by the UC vendors that have dominated the market over the last decade, while the different technology transformations are driving the new UC providers in the market. The new cloud-based providers promise to allow the IT to scrap its own legacy servers, disown the centralized technology budget and also assign the service as a technology reducing the cost.
Unified Communication technology is evolving to include the wider line of communication technology to improve the collaboration between the endpoints. The need for an extended version of communication that can satisfy the demand for both voice, and video mode of communication for desktop and mobile web browsers. The UC providers are integrating the wired and wireless communication technology to better serve the growing base of both unwired who usually prefer the wireless communication technology i.e. smartphones and tablets than the wired communication technology. Even the video calls have moved from the only conference oriented aim, they now have to be an integral part of the collaboration and content sharing between the enterprises.
Here are the four trends are drastically changing the way enterprises are deploying cloud technology and how the enterprises professional communicate:
Cloud-based Unified Communication (UC)
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) will change the enterprises spend as they move over from the legacy devices and technology that is cost dependent. Over 90 percent of the enterprises are using the Software as a Service application for their business. Enterprises are adopting the SaaS-based solution because of the lack of in-house expertise that can actually accelerate the transformation and also improve the deployment. SaaS has the benefit of being flexible with the resources planning and also the investment in the required resources. Investing in the cloud-based solution allows enterprises to eliminate capital spending. It improves the costing plan by eliminating the unwanted resources and also pay only depending on the requirement. SaaS is actually a single service that you can deploy according to the needs of enterprises. Cloud Unified Communication (UC) cannot be applicable for all the enterprises. The larger the user base the cloud service will be much more expensive compared to the on-premise enterprise applications according to the Nemertes Research.
For example, consider an IP telephone situation wherein the 2,500 users cannot directly depend on cloud services. As the cloud services also don’t allow the direct customization of the UC technology and it might become cumbersome based on the security regulations when dealing with sensitive user data. Many of the enterprises are adopting the combination of cloud and on-premise environment that adopts the integration of all the innovative technology from the third party providers. The multiple cloud strategy might become a barrier as it might require a more developer and admin resource to manage them.
Mobile Unified Communication (UC)
Enterprises are quickly adopting cloud solutions when they want to bring in the mobility feature in their offerings. If enterprises want to improve the worker productivity they need to support the different mobile devices and also a wide range of operating system that will enable the Unified Communication application. Employees constantly demand the mobility solutions combined with application management solutions for their devices such as tablets or smartphones or even their personal desktop. For IT supporting the mobile worker’s real-time applications performance on the already crowded wireless network.
Video: Moving From the Conferencing Situation
The video is soon set to become a central communication technology for the collaboration along with text-based communication. The video is a universal conferencing tool that can transform the enterprises sharing of content. The technology development in the video conferencing part wherein the new codecs such as H.264 high profile and the H.264 scalable Video Conferencing are reducing the network impact on the video even enabling high definition video across the internet or the public 3G / 4G wireless networks. The codecs of H.265 offer the same benefits that are being built with the standard protocol that enables the interoperability based on the video vendors. Cloud-based services such as Blue Jeans Network and Vidtel offer a range of conferencing solutions that cover all the devices without any capital cost for the multipoint conference unit.
WebRTC: Voice and Video Solution for All Devices
WebRTC enables the web browsers to function as a voice and video endpoints without the need for the separate app and browser plug-in. The users can directly enable the click to call from within the webpage or mobile app without picking up the phone. WebRTC is aimed to provide a complete end to end solution for telephone and video conferencing almost for anyone. Despite all the technology development, WebRTC is still close to the Infancy, developments such as Chrome and Firefox implementation aren’t being directly supported by internet exposure or safari. The current Video Codec standards aren’t just universally defined and the common telephone features such as a voice codecs. WebRTC represents one of the most exciting and potentially transformation development in Unified Communication.
Conclusion
Unified Communication technology is based on the demand for faster communication technology that can both intuitive and futuristic. Many of the current communication technology actually demand formal training to use them rather than just a solution. So far the cloud-based solutions or legacy solutions lack the required flexibility to ease the operation demands.
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