Jump-Starting The Unified Communications Market

Prospective buyers of unified communications (UC) systems are becoming more aware of the potential benefits, but UC trial and deployment activity remains stagnant. Many buyers are waiting for interoperability — or at least a credible promise of future interoperability — to reduce the financial and technical risks they undertake when deploying UC systems. Like Vladimir and Estragon in Samuel Beckett's Waiting For Godot, they are not sure exactly what they are waiting for, but they continue to wait nonetheless. Vendors will accelerate the UC market by selling systems based on open standards like Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP), and SIP for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions (SIMPLE) to a combination of IT, business management, and financial buyers. Systems original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) need the cooperation of channel partners, particularly those that offer a range of UC management capabilities, from simple on-site management to cloud-based UC solutions.