Conversationware

I was reading the press release here, on Nortel’s website, and although the detail was very clear about Exchange 2007 and unified messaging and Nortel’s support of the Microsoft software, there was absolutely no mention of CallPilot UM. Is Callpilot the unloved stepchild perhaps?

Maybe that’s a question for Nortel’s CTO, now that he’s started a blog! Quite brave, and refreshing. I’m wondering if he has colleagues to help with the deluge of comments from existing customers that will need dealing with.

I can imagine communications applications vendors ceding the user interface to Microsoft, after all, it’s in the interests of the ‘user’ to have one main software interface for messaging, or real time communications for that matter. But I do question whether customers ought to throw years of back end application development away in favour of a shiny product marketing plan.

I saw a tender today asking for a voicemail solution, that would support the use of shared extensions - something that older products will have been quite used to from the 80’s…but surely new (microsoft?) product managers will have never imagined that sort of thing important? Ditto Voice forms, and distribution lists that only permit certain users to send to, etcetera etcetara - all run of the mill, unless you haven’t been in the business before. It’s going to take time. Also, why have a unified messaging system that only gets talking via the Nortel channel?

A shameless plug should go to AVST, that have supported any telephone system for years, plus any email system, but especially exchange (and Notes). Solid, reliable and they never take any obscure features away.

P.S Just in case I haven’t mentioned it before, it is a bugbear of mine, nobody needs VOIP to have unified messaging.

The telecoms industry people that I talk to, often speak about ‘Presence’ as if it were the holy grail of telecoms and Unified Communications.

They maintain that if we could just sort that out - including showing where people are, whether the phone is engaged or not, and transmitting some manually invoked ’status’, this would open up a massive ‘reason to buy’ and increase the comms applications market for us all.

I just feel there is so much to learn before I could agree with my fellow industrees (what’s the right word for people in the same industry?)

A manually invoked status couldn’t possibly be updated enough during a day - anyhow, I’d want a status per person. “Is it a good time to speak” isn’t a good question, because you’ve already interrupted.

It’s just so much pot luck.

Alec Saunders of Iotum coined a phrase, “willingness to engage” and the company definitely has some thought leadership around this area. I love the idea of being able to schedule contact much more easily - almost in proportion as hating the though of having to manage my willingness to engage with each acquaintance that passes through.

I’m wondering if ‘Presence’ is going to be too intrusive, or interruptive, for even the most assumed of relationships. My opinion is that software won’t ever be clever enough to work out whether the circusmtances are right to open, or continue any particular conversation.

This linked post shows how Instant Messaging has the power to interrupt, and plenty of comments show why presence in the enterprise is not considered as essential as email.

I can see how IM adds value, it certainly reduces email, but that little green light may well be the worst thing to happen to my day. Interruption is not good.  

My conclusions are leaning towards finding easier ways to book conversations in advance, some sort of brokering - plus a good way to record progress and to escalate actions to myself or other people on any particular topic.

In particular, something that stops me putting the phone down, and then instantly remembering I had three other things I should have been talking about with that person or group - now that would be very handy.

Matt

I hope that BCR don’t mind me promoting their reports, and using their article on UC adoption. Particularly interesting was that Unified Communications hasn’t often been a simultaneous purchase with the VOIP system (See picture). I think this is because the proposition is not yet understood by many.

 I enjoyed the article, and it is apparent that the vendors are   scrambling to define UC, and it’s associated ROI and benefits.

Unlike BCR, I find it useful to align technology to the user interface, and therefore would keep UM separate, as this uses the existing email client.

I personally believe that Real Time IM, telephony, and multi media conferencing (multiparty audio, web and video) will use the IM or presence front end, with or without the most convenient voice device, whether pot, Ip phone or mobile. VOIP is only a transport, not a software interface.

Because users will adopt extra functionality in their existing interface much more easily than adopting a new interface for existing functionality - i guess that Sametime and LCS have opened their front ends for the real time telephony play.

In addition, presence needs to be proliferated amongs other applications, like email, portals, chat and communityware, and therefore the single sign on and user management of MS and Lotus will attract users and admin staff alike.

The existing UC benefits will be personal and team productivity, and location independent working, which could pay for the technology quite easily, but Business Process based communications is unlikely to be served by either of these front ends.

Instead, there is a requirement for a ‘work area’ that could be defined loosely as ‘workflow’ for knowledge workers. This should be with an easy to use interface, of a wiki, or mindgenius for example, and topic based advancement and discussions. I’m pretty sure Sharepoint doesn’t yet fit that bill, even with it’s wiki plugins because of a heavy IT involvement.

Not to digress too much, but there is also whole missing piece of the jigsaw with the personal inbound contact management being poorly served and standards free. I expect this will be delivered by some net driven technology eventually.

I don’t suppose many companies have taken much notice of Gmail, google’s email application. In terms of how relevant it may be to them, the notion must intitially be alien - after all, security is such a barrier for enterprises when considering hosted applications.

However, with the ability of google mail to support a companies existing email addresses - instead of user@gmail.com, companies should perhaps then look at the costs that can be saved, here - $8M per year is pause for thought! Plus, gmail is even available on your blackberry.

A recent article in the economist (which is premium content) provides further arguments, and Rod Boothby looks in more detail.

The ability for gmail to deliver instant disaster recovery is for me probably the most persuasive of arguments for smaller to medium companies.

The fact that gmail also reduces the difficulty and cost of introducing collaboration technology (IM) will also be important to organisations, as the Return On Investment case for collaboration is rarely instantly visible, and has resulted in slow adoption. 

This article is the crux of google’s disruptive technology at work, which is a huge competitive advantage.

Disruptive technology happens where an incumbent supplier makes things so feature rich (complex), and charges, or induces costs that are more than customers are really prepared to pay.

The popularity of outsourcing means that companies are finding IT hard to manage themselves, now we’re an ‘always on’ society, gmail makes things a bit easier.

It’s working for me, and I’m sure that many many new bloggers also started with this in mind so if you haven’t started yet, this is another good reason.  - Amen.