Unified Communications : Breaking Down Barriers

Unified Communications (UC), as defined by International Electro-technical
Commission, is the breaking down of communication barriers. In its simplest
form, the telephone breaks distance and time barriers so that people can
communicate when they are not together. UC in broad sense includes telephony,
instant messaging (IM), voice-mail, e-mail and video conferencing across
different interfaces like PC, PDA, mobile handsets, laptops, web-based clients,
etc. UC, today, is a very convenient communi­cation tool for all communities
like desktop workers, frequent travellers, remote/home workers and campus
roamers.

“The largest single value of UC is the ability to reduce human latency. In
other words, improving worker productivity,” pointed out Niranjan Limaye,
Regional Director-West, Enkay India.

The technology allows employees to conduct virtual interactions that provide
a rich and effective collaborative experience. This way, a newly formed team
becomes agile and productive quicker, without having to travel constantly for
meetings. The team might make contact first through a phone call or audio
conference, before switching to a richer form of interaction, such as
web-conferencing for collaborating on documents or video conferencing, when
'human' element is required.

The difference

UC provides integrated access to people and information and supports decision
making. The end result is that a business runs faster and smoother. Video
conferencing and telepresence is a necessity, rather than a luxury for
companies. It has become imperative for them to embrace this technology to
control cost and expenses such as airfare and other related costs like,
accommodation. UC also saves times and increases productivity.

“Our partnerships with IP telephony players like Tandberg and Polycom is
'democratizing' video conference- conferencing for the masses with more and more
number of people now conferencing sitting on the desktop, whether at home,
airport, or office,” said Sanjay Manchanda, Director-Business Division,
Microsoft India.

“With the adoption of effective cost saving business communication solutions,
companies will continue to maintain healthy customer relationship and efficient
business processes,” said Samir Gulve, Chairman and MD, Avaya India.

Within the broad portfolio of products described as UC, there are
opportunities for companies to achieve savings in their IT budgets, especially
with consolidation of infrastructure and applications. Companies are already on
their way to consolidating e-mail and messaging, as well as rationalizing the
number of directories.

Challenges

Indian market is price sensitive and cost of endpoints such as VoIP and
video phones continue to be a bottleneck in wide scale adoption of UC,
especially during the current economic climate.

“Quick implementation of deregulations on IP communication is the other
issue. We have seen the announcement of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's
move on removing restrictions on IP communi­cations more than six months ago.
However, quickly converting the recommendations to actions for bringing the
benefits to consumers would help a long way in spreading the benefits of UC,”
said Natarajan S, VP-R&D, D-Link India.

Other major roadblocks are the intero­perability of different modes of
communication in a seamless experience for the user and the lack of awareness of
the need to boost Internet speeds.

The growth verticals

The market adoption of UC has been slow so far, however according to IDC,
the UC market is expected to expand annually at a rate of 25 percent to reach
$1,320 million by 2011. According to a report by Frost and Sullivan, the total
size of the UC market in India is close to $670 million. Majority of this
includes enterprise IP telephony (almost 50 percent) and applications like
presence, mobility and conferencing and collaboration are around 10 percent. The
highest growth area is around applications, which add maximum value to
end-users.

“UC find a strong traction in segments that are closer to the consumer
segment. Service providers, government, defense, PSUs, infrastructure companies,
security shall see significant growth in demand. These segments can benefit from
the integrated deployment of UC to optimize costs and gain business targets
quicker,” said Vishal Singh, Country Manager, Tadiran Telecom.

While commenting on the future of UC, Shivasankar K, Country Manager-India,
LifeSize Communications, said, “UC need not be completely new way of getting a
solution. It is a means of making communi­cations easier, more intuitive and
functional, taking away the pains of setting up each call, checking
interoperability and making every call a pleasant experience both qualitatively
and operationally. With the communication becoming simple, we expect higher
adoption by users thereby contributing to higher efficiencies in the
organization,” he added.

Unified messaging, conferencing and collaboration, presence, and mobility are
anticipated to be key growth segments in the future. With the slowdown showing
no signs of abating, more and more companies are now looking at UC technologies
such as video and web-conferencing or collaboration as the way to go forward.

Akhilesh Shukla

akhileshs@cybermedia.co.in