Conversationware

It’s a safe bet that most technology people that read this blog will be interested in the popular mechanics awards for breakthrough technology for 2007.

Scroll down through to the products section and although there is precious little software listed, the iPhone does make it in. Even if the description talks about visual voicemail as the most important of the breakthroughs! (demo here)

Green technology for vehicles and wind power are to be expected, but a few things I had no idea existed. Such as the make anything machine which is a kind of 3d printer that uses silicon plastic to make whatever is modelled on your screen - early days methinks.

Microsoft surface computing of course, but flash memory of up to 64GB was a nice surprise and we can thus expect laptops to be getting greener and quieter. A bit like seating your girlfriend next to a superior specimen, or so goes one of the email jokes lately.

The most career minded of chemists at just 18, is cleaning up the water supply.

But, I think they missed one - to certain caffeine addicts then the new kettle I found from Magimix (who?) is just one of my favourite new objects. It has mauve neon, and is made up of stainless steel…..with a three year guarantee. Making tea was never so much fun? It looks like it should be orbiting mars or something.

Oh, and my wife wants someone to put the following into production.  I don’t know if she thinks podcasts will tempt me into volunteering more often.

And, I may as well use up my only other joke learned this month. If the leaning tower of piza had a clock at the top, it would have both the time and the inclination.

The business case for Unified Communications usually centres around individual productivity and time savings. But generally ROI for UC is thought to be quite hard.

Yet, there is definitely a wider case to be made.

Yes, we can save individuals time, but that rarely impresses the people with the cheque books. Although, if those wallets are fat enough and the industry competitive enough, then small advantages count towards communications companies getting orders.

An important string to the ROI bow has been ‘on premise’ conferencing.

Companies are increasingly spending substantial amounts on conferencing, and even more when there is a web element involved. Outsourced Audio conferencing is an easy target for a new GUI driven system.

But, in terms of ROI, there’s more to Web conferencing equipment than meets the eye.

Because of the pressured nature of Webinars to customers, plus peaky traffic often meaning a big system for sporadic requirements, and not forgetting costs of critical support and failover, it can make this a tough pitch at premises level.

For large organisations, one of the best returns for Unified Communications is the promise of reduction in premises overhead.

Technology makes it possible. For as the PC (Laptop) swallows yet another device, the phone, the desktop footprint of an employee is shrinking, and becoming ever more portable.

I know its obvious, but 25 years ago, if you wanted to work at home, you might have needed

• Typewriter
• Copier
• Fax machine
• Mobile Phone (measuring about a foot square)
• Your own franking machine
• Calculator (measuring about a foot square)

More than that, your telephone extension was practically nailed to your desk, and you couldn’t transfer calls out of the building. Your terminal definitely not!

Being able to plug in anywhere, in or out of the building, and maintaining consistent high rates of productivity is enabling shared work spaces and driving down property costs, for both growing organisations, and yes, even the old school.

One public sector organisation (a UK council) recently stated their decision to reduce their property portfolio by 30%, would comfortably provide the means to pay for all the new technology to make anywhere working a dramatic possibility. A UK Council leading the charge towards communications technology is news indeed. But, this is by no means isolated.

Even small companies are enabled by UC, probably most very small service companies (2-5) could now work without any premises at all.

Unified Communications is just one element, alongside broadband and networking, but it is an important one.

This isn’t new, but Presence and Conferencing become more useful when people are not in the same room.

This time next year Rodney……..(for Only Fools and Horses fans)

This linked article from Red Herring shows Jajah has linked up with eHarmony dating site - I wonder who made the first move?

Whoever, it’s a great idea, and the service will presumably hide your number from people you’re not sure you want to know! I picked this snippet up from Alec of Iotum who also looks to treat voice only as a component part of a wider application.

The article, and Jajah’s website shows their burgeoning integrations list, and I feel this will be absolutely key to winning mindshare in the voice application market…even the hosted one.

In fact, voice right now is very reminiscent of the early fax market.

The market in the early 90’s seemed to be dominated by Unix based proprietary systems - check out this quote from Network Computing in the 90’s

Fax servers today are more or less tied to the software delivered with them, at least on the server side. Some fax servers support the Communications Applications Specification (CAS) and can therefore work with a desktop application that supports CAS. So to an extent, you can plug in the desktop client of choice, but you may end up losing some of the unique abilities of the server (such as sharing common phone books or accounting).

(more…)

Being in business is fast becoming a celebrity shoot out.

Isn’t buying an iPod very similar to calling a number and voting for our favourite singer, dancer, aspiring business person, whatever? ….It’s a contract, we buy, and Steve Jobs promises to come back next week to entertain and delight us with his designs and deliver us a unique experience.

I’m tempted to compare the iPhone purchase to a tactical vote - because ’the public’ likes the look of the current vote leaders even less. Looking at it like that, then it’s no suprise people will pay more ($550) to keep their favourite in the game. It’s just the equivalent to phoning in twice.

On some mass level, the public longs to buy into and be a part of the corporate celebrity story, if only to give it more legs (cue a kate moss clothing joke), and give us the next chapter in the soap that is corporate stardom.

(more…)

Now I don’t know if Mitel have proof that Shoretel ’stole’ their ideas, but from the comment in this post, it would seem that the recent patent claims are so broad as to be laughable. I await the details with interest.
More than that, to file a complaint such as this on the morning of the Shoretel IPO, no less, even if it turned out the infringements were justified, is going to inflict maximum cost and negative publicity. In the wrong light, it could be viewed as a form sabotage, and it has to make you wonder just how desperate Mitel are starting to look, in an industry in turmoil (once more)
The patent system itself would seem to have just managed to achieve precisely the opposite of what it was designed to do. The little guy was supposed to be protected, and instead you can see innovators becoming dead meat. Incidentally, some people don’t deserve to own an idea - particularly those who are terrible at executing them.
Because of the timing, I’m sure Mitel have shot themselves in the foot. I for one am not sure their motives will escape the inevitable scrutiny.

A useful article here, which has gartner predicting that enterprise IM will go from 25 to 100% penetration in enterprises by the end of the decade, and it has some market figures.

There are some other predictions, like “by 2012, presence technology will be offered independently of IM and email products”

I thought this sort of thing was called a busy lamp field in days gone by, but I could be wrong.

There is more to being effective than just being efficient.

It’s been at the back of my mind that we ‘communication technology people’ are still only part way through making life easier, helping us all contact people more quickly and efficiently, and reducing the cost of doing so.

But once that job is finished, how are users helped to be more EFFECTIVE once the conversation is in progress.

A far more elegant description of the difference between efficient and effective can be found in this article from the boss of Parlano

Nick muses that we lack an ROI model for this collaboration technology, but it seems obvious that getting a purchasing decision should be easier once the tools to measure effectiveness are in place.

But, perhaps instead of tools we just need a new breed of business analysts who enjoy a challenge, whilst being given a full remit to change by those in charge.

Lots of people are working on this aspect of micro and macro productivity and Parlano have an interesting proposition which blurs the line between real time and messaging with group productivity around topics.

When I chose the name for this blog, it was partly because the word conversation does allow for extended communications around a subject over a sustained period via multiple modes and channels.

To sum up then, Unified Communications is just where we start, to enhance and speed connectivity…and as I comment, we can lead the horse to water more quickly, but effectiveness will need yet further ‘tools’. 

I admit to being interested in such toolkits, before I get any comments from colleagues, many thanks.

I’m blatantly borrowing this quote from someone who was also borrowing it.

The phrase is aimed at us marketing and sales types who fall into the trap of falling in love with technology from time to time.

“We keep talking about 1/4 inch drills - and keep arguing over different ways to describe the specifications of the drill.  The market is buying 1/4 inch holes - and cares little about the tools that are used to produce them. ”

Being in technology, you might still be tempted to argue that the market is focussing on the wrong ‘bit’…

..but , good reminder thanks, we’d better start selling holes.

Wait a minute, does that mean customers will buy whichever solution has the  best holes or just the most holes?

Looking at companies who got very big over the last 15 years, I suspect the latter.