I was glad to see you raise the issue of doing the homework to justify UC implementations. As you and Brent pointed out, IT is in no position to provide solutions when they don't know exactly what the problems are, who is affected, nor the value of fixing those problems. I suspect that even business operational management may see the symptoms of the problems, but don't know how to fix them best. As I have often stated about new technology,"If it was perfect and I gave it you for free, but you don't know what to do with it, what good is it?"
I still believe that you are missing the boat by suggesting that IT still buy and own all UC technology. For a number of reasons, enterprise IT better start looking at hosted device independent software services as the flexible solution for the future, rather than traditional CPE or customer owned hardware and software. It's getting way too complex and dynamic for enterprise IT responsibility to develop and maintain such technologies, as opposed to simply manage changing usage needs. The service concept is really old, going back to my early days of shared mainframe computer "time-sharing" in the '60's that enabled the first practical form of interactive (online) computing for individual end users. It was also the beginning of the Internet concept. Unfortunately, it was killed in infancy by the advent of the personal PC that did away with the need to share anything. Now that the Web is making both information and people communication "virtual," we are finally going back to that early vision.
I still believe that you are missing the boat by suggesting that IT still buy and own all UC technology. For a number of reasons, enterprise IT better start looking at hosted device independent software services as the flexible solution for the future, rather than traditional CPE or customer owned hardware and software. It's getting way too complex and dynamic for enterprise IT responsibility to develop and maintain such technologies, as opposed to simply manage changing usage needs. The service concept is really old, going back to my early days of shared mainframe computer "time-sharing" in the '60's that enabled the first practical form of interactive (online) computing for individual end users. It was also the beginning of the Internet concept. Unfortunately, it was killed in infancy by the advent of the personal PC that did away with the need to share anything. Now that the Web is making both information and people communication "virtual," we are finally going back to that early vision.
