Unified Communications is taking us away from being reliant on feature rich telephony devices like proprietary IP Telephony handsets and corporate mobile devices.

I’ve been looking at the concept for a while and On Accenture’s Trivergence blog, Andy Zimmerman coins the “trivergence” phrase, I can link to the explanation.

The reason I picked it up is that one of the key aspects of this trivergence (type of convergence) is to abstract a user interface to any application, away from the devices that you use, onto the network, and accessible via the PC screen or browser.

To a degree I guess this has been happening since the demise of the typewriter, but this will continue into disruptive communications solutions. Perhaps its why Gartner warn against buying handsets with screens.

As an example, the Ipod is easier to stuff full of music when using iTunes, rather than navigating and downloading from a website from a screen measuring 2 inches square.

Further, he relates

About two years ago, when Accenture’s Innovation Center was researching Trivergence, we mocked up an application that transferred certain cellphone controls from the handset to a PC display, which we dubbed a SoftPanel. In focus groups, cellphone users were asked to perform a set of tasks (managing contact lists, sifting through voice mail, buying ring tones, etc.) first on the cellphone itself and then on the SoftPanel.

The results were unambiguous. Nearly 100% of respondents said they preferred using the SoftPanel for these tasks. It was clear to almost everyone that there should be a seamless integration between the PC and the handset – with each device doing what it does best, and doing it on a regular basis.

Also he says

one of Accenture’s analysts sent me these comments from a discussion on cellphone usability:

“Mobile devices are still not intuitive enough for average users to navigate, and consumers do not have the time or interest to go through carriers’ service catalogues to figure out just exactly what is available to them.

“As carriers continue to layer on services, discovery mechanisms on mobile handsets are critical to enabling users to access desired applications and services with the simple touch of a button.”

Personally, I use Google Reader because I can access the pre-configured reader and articles when on the train through a browser. It is an example of application control being browser based rather than being developed specifically for each device individually. The application persists across whicever device I happen to be using, and this only succeeds if the application server is browser based.

Another post from the Trivergence blog, around Grand Central, shows how a very feature rich call control of an inbound telephony service has been abstracted from telephone devices all together by being browser based.

We’ve all used dozens of phone devices in our time, perhaps future phones will be simpler instead of more complex.