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The Blind Men and the Architecture

Several blind men traveled to Paris last week to attend Alcatel-Lucent's Dynamic Enterprise Tour. While there they encountered a next-generation architecture. Trying to understand what the architecture is, each of the blind men walked up, reached out his hands, and described what he felt.

The man grasping Genesys SIP Server at the core of the new architecture said, "It facilitates multivendor integration, extends Genesys technology to the enterprise, and demonstrates how the company is bringing together and more closely aligning its enterprise and contact center assets."

The man touching the Multimedia Resource Function and User Session Manager said, "It lets enterprises implement IMS technology that to date has been available mainly to carriers, and it shows how the Applications Software Group is cross-pollinating carrier and enterprise technology in order to grow a unique set of communications solutions."

The man holding on to OmniPCX Enterprise said, "It leverages mature communications platforms already adopted by Alcatel-Lucent customers, providing them investment protection as they implement the new architecture."

The man running his fingers across the "state-of-the-art SIP-to-the-core platform" that “federates existing communication systems including multi-vendor environments” said, "This is, at least in part, a response to the Avaya Aura, which also delivers a next-generation, SIP-based architecture that integrates diverse communications systems and applications."

Other blind men perceived a new marketing message around openness and interoperability, Bell Labs innovations being adapted for use in the enterprise, unusual new video conferencing solutions in the works, and a product platform delivered via an SOA framework.

Ok, that's more than enough parable for one day. If for no other reason than because casting myself in the role of the blind men clashes with the know-it-all persona industry analysts are supposed to keep up all the time. My point here is that Alcatel-Lucent's new, as-yet-unnamed architecture is big and grand with far-reaching implications that will likely mean different things to different Alcatel-Lucent customers depending on what they plan to get out of it.

The new architecture, a considerably more detailed overview of which I've prepared for Current Analysis’ syndicated service, is still a number of months away from being released. Paul Segre, president of Alcatel-Lucent's Applications Software Group, said the plan is for it to be code-complete by year’s end and available to both enterprise and carrier customers by mid-2011. At that point it will bring Alcatel-Lucent’s diverse enterprise, contact center and carrier infrastructure products into greater focus.... which I very carefully pronounce faux cuss in case Tom E. is reading this and is planning to moderate a panel I'm sitting on. Rather than separate product platforms deployed by enterprise IT shops, contact center operators and providers of cloud-based services, the new architecture is expected to provide a single platform for all of these.

Other things seen and heard at the Dynamic Enterprise Tour:

Immersive Communications. In a number of keynote presentations and breakout sessions Alcatel-Lucent referred to a solution it is calling Immersive Communications. Based on patented technology from Bell Labs, it appears to combine video conferencing and virtual world environments, providing a sort of virtual meeting room where participants appear to be gathered around a common table. It's not telepresence, not room-based video conferencing, and not desktop video. Alcatel-Lucent hopes to be able to demo its Immersive Communications solution next year and productize it by 2012.

HD Video Conferencing. One of the demo booths was showing off Alcatel-Lucent's video conferencing products, which come courtesy of technology partner LifeSize Communications. LifeSize is apparently the vidcon partner du jour, with Avaya having recently entered into an OEM relationship with them and Siemens Enterprise Communications having long worked with them as well.

OmniVista 8770. This is the management platform for the various products and platforms that fall under the umbrella of the new architecture. There's a bit of info on it in this video.

MyIC Phone. Alcatel-Lucent brought one of these to VoiceCon this past spring, but only showed it behind closed doors. This time it was out in the open for everyone to see this new way of interfacing with communications and business applications. There’s a decent demo-booth video of it here, and a slick marketing video here.

S-Book. A couple of the demo booths seemed a bit out of place at a conference geared to enterprise technology. One of these highlighted the Social Book, an ebook with integrated with social media. I timed out on demo time and wasn't able to talk with Alcatel-Lucent about this. Blair Pleasant saw it, though, and told me the plan was to sell it to schools and universities as a way students interact with each other and with teachers...so maybe not so out of place after all.

Other things seen and heard at the Dynamic Enterprise Tour:

Immersive Communications. In a number of keynote presentations and breakout sessions Alcatel-Lucent referred to a solution it is calling Immersive Communications. Based on patented technology from Bell Labs, it appears to combine video conferencing and virtual world environments, providing a sort of virtual meeting room where participants appear to be gathered around a common table. It's not telepresence, not room-based video conferencing, and not desktop video. Alcatel-Lucent hopes to be able to demo its Immersive Communications solution next year and productize it by 2012.

HD Video Conferencing. One of the demo booths was showing off Alcatel-Lucent's video conferencing products, which come courtesy of technology partner LifeSize Communications. LifeSize is apparently the vidcon partner du jour, with Avaya having recently entered into an OEM relationship with them and Siemens Enterprise Communications having long worked with them as well.

OmniVista 8770. This is the management platform for the various products and platforms that fall under the umbrella of the new architecture. There's a bit of info on it in this video.

MyIC Phone. Alcatel-Lucent brought one of these to VoiceCon this past spring, but only showed it behind closed doors. This time it was out in the open for everyone to see this new way of interfacing with communications and business applications. There’s a decent demo-booth video of it here, and a slick marketing video here.

S-Book. A couple of the demo booths seemed a bit out of place at a conference geared to enterprise technology. One of these highlighted the Social Book, an ebook with integrated with social media. I timed out on demo time and wasn't able to talk with Alcatel-Lucent about this. Blair Pleasant saw it, though, and told me the plan was to sell it to schools and universities as a way students interact with each other and with teachers...so maybe not so out of place after all.