Unified communications and convergence have been predicted to change the voice game for years now – and changes now surfacing could make 2010 the year that actually happens.
Enhanced mobility, the consumerization of enterprise technologies, and the bundling of cloud applications are driving more faster adoption of UC in the enterprise. And that means that hosted VoIP is becoming part of a larger conversation – casting in doubt its future as a standalone business.
“We’ve seen unified communications really starting to take off,” Charles Studt, IntelePeer Inc.'s vice president of product management. “Last year was still focused on ‘how do we cut costs.’ Now, organizations are more interested in providing a way to have more efficient enterprise collaboration, video and ways to better integrate with enterprise work flow.”
To meet the shift, IntelePeer is working with Microsoft to enable the hosted unified communications solutions delivered from the cloud by Microsoft’s channel partners. The IntelePeer Voice Peering Network has been qualified to provide SIP trunking for Microsoft OCS.
Low upfront costs have made hosted VoIP a growth area in the recession. As the recession lifts, many believe the low-cost hosted IP delivery model will still win out in the end because of other attractive qualities, like instantaneous moves, adds and changes, and the ability to manage the system online. The thing is, what’s being hosted and delivered is poised to rapidly change, as cloud services become more accepted.
Cloud computing and virtualization will also take on a more visible role as vendors release more formal offerings, according to Paul McMillan, director of unified communications technical vision and strategy at Siemens Enterprise Communications. He predicts that in 2010, “the cloud-based transformation of the enterprise desktop and the enterprise workspace emerges due to increased reliance on collaboration and social networking applications.”
Siemens sees social software and enhancements in video and mobility, among others, as key growth areas for business communications for any provider. “As technology advances and improves in availability and speed, users will demand that business communications keep up the pace with consumer technologies and the two will continue to merge,” says McMillan. “It’s an innovation engine, with really no ceiling on what could potentially be delivered. And service providers are going to need to be ready to do this with the right cost structure.”
The other big driving factor in the sunsetting of standalone hosted VoIP is mobility. Specifically, the importing of iPhone-like app strategies to the enterprise market might marginalize single-purpose, dedicated services.
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