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Avaya has been investing heavily in familiarizing corporate customers with
unified communication. Mun Yuen Leong observes that globally most enterprises
have taken UC very well and expects a similar uptake in India
What, according to you, is the reason behind slow acceptance of unified
communication (UC) amongst SMBs in India?
What I have seen about the Indian working pattern is that the various
communication systems are not functional. This is because most of these
organizations use very basic communication systems. I personally feel that this
status quo is just a matter of time. These corporate houses will need some time
to take decisions on how to invest correctly on the right kind of technologies,
which will up their employee productivity. But this is bound to happen, sooner
than later.
Many Indian organizations feel that video conferencing (VC) can give UC a
run for its money. Do you agree with this belief?
Today, video and voice are integrated within a communication system.
Companies go for VC or UC depending on their requirement. There are dedicated VC
systems, which can successfully support the communication network. But this is
only if there is a need for room conferencing.
At the same time, UC is a totally different ballgame. It seamlessly joins the
various communication devices in an organization in such a way that the
employees are accessible at all time. This in turn cuts down on the decision
making turnaround time, thereby increasing productivity, cutting costs and
minimizing delays.
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Mun Yuen Leong
VP, CTO and Chief Architect, Avaya Inc |
Good business prospects are often lost because information is not furnished
to the client instantly, either due to the relevant employee being unavailable
or because the approvals need a particular person. This situation can be
eliminated with UC, because a real-time update is visible for all the employees,
which translates into quicker decision making. At the same time, the solution
providers largely drive the adoption of these technologies. Once they understand
well which technology will fit which client requirements and budgets, they can
pitch in with the right solution.
How do you view the UC business, given that there are many components to
it today?
Avaya looks at UC in three different levels. The first level is integrated
desktops featured with data, voice, video, and conferencing. The next level is
communication. For instance, systems are integrated in a way that if people
can't attend calls at office, those calls get diverted to either their desired
cell phones or home phones. In the US, people are already working with mobile
handsets, which can be tuned to a virtual private number (VPN), which means they
are on the corporate network at all times. The third phase is not just people to
people-it's system to people. This is the most important facet of our
communications messaging today because we are saying that our communication
solutions will not negate the need for human intervention.
What is your technology road map for this year?
We have two primary business areas-UC and contact business. Avaya commands
40 percent of the global market in contact center business. We are continuing
our investment to enable contact centers, IP contact centers, and video contact
centers. In UC, we are going to invest with Microsoft and IBM.
Our latest product is the Intelligent Presence Server software that gives a
real-time presence-based view of the employees on a single dashboard. This is a
collaborative effort that we are undertaking with our business partners like IBM
and Microsoft.
Besides this, we are also working on communication applications based on the
social networking phenomenon. With sites like Facebook, the current generation
is sharing their personal information online and this is where UC can play a
very important role.
ARCHANA SWAMY
archanas@cybermedia.co.in Page(s) 1
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