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CEBP Is Here ... Again

They say that patience is a virtue, and having worked in the field of communications since the early 1980s, I would be less than honest if I called myself a virtuous person. Now, before you start thinking unsavory things about me, I come by this character flaw honestly. For the past 30-plus years, I have been bombarded with stories of how the latest idea is going to revolutionize my industry. Mind you, some really were great ideas, but people rarely buy ideas no matter how clever marketing departments make them out to be. People buy ideas when those ideas exist within products that exist within a framework that allows those products to be relevant.

For example, I was one of the developers of a desktop video product that my marketing folks swore would sell in the millions. The year was 1993, and I doubt that we sold more than a few thousand dollars' worth of the stuff before someone finally pulled the plug. It's not that it wasn't a good product - it was. It's just that it tried to solve a problem in a way that didn't make sense for the times.

Slow forward 20 years and people have finally come around to video. Compared to what I helped develop back in the early '90s, today's products are inexpensive, easy to install, easy to use, and are often part of a much larger offering. For instance, you buy an iPhone and FaceTime comes for free. That iPhone can then connect to a network that is video ready. Finally, there are millions of iPhones out there that can act as the recipient of a video call. Win, win, win equals wide-scale adoption.

Communications Enabled Business Processes (CEBP) falls into the announced-way-too-early category. I can't remember the first time I heard someone talk about CEBP, but I would bet that it was at least 10 years ago. Like video, it too was going to revolutionize the world. However, for far too long, we have been awash in use cases with very few implementations that we can actually touch or feel.

Don't get me wrong. CEBP wasn't a bad idea. The notion of adding communications functionality to business applications and workflows was - and still is - a very powerful concept, and thankfully, the communications ecosystem has finally evolved to the point where CEBP is more than just a good idea.

Why? What changed to finally make CEBP a possibility?

The Underpinnings of CEBP Have Matured
Back when CEBP was first announced, we had computer telephony integration (CTI) toolkits like TAPI (Telephony Application Programming Interface) and TSAPI (Telephony Services Application Programming Interface). While both were revolutionary in their own right, they were difficult to use, and every implementation was different enough to make interoperability a nightmare. Cross-platform development was completely unheard of.

Those tools have been largely replaced by standardized interfaces such as Web services. Web services allow you to write an application once and run it anywhere without having to worry about vendor or platform. It doesn't matter if the application's platform is Windows, Macintosh, or Linux. Web services is the great neutralizer.

Additionally, products such as Avaya's Collaboration Environment provide CEBP developers and integrators with a drag-and-drop platform that fosters the nearly instantaneous gluing of business workflows to communications. CEBP development almost becomes as simple as point, click, run.

Communications Platforms Are More Open
It wasn't all that long ago that your communications system was a monolithic PBX that "owned" a call from the moment it left one phone to the moment it arrived at another. While it was possible to add value to a call at endpoints, the PBX was the master of everything in-between.

The IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) and similar open frameworks let applications gain access to those in-between parts of a call. This is accomplished by exposing "trigger points" that allow CEBP applications to create, control, and monitor all forms of IP communications at any point in the call flow.

Do you want to prevent a call from being made? Do you want to change the destination mid-call? Do you want to use an external data source to determine call creation, routing, and disposition? Do you want to turn a phone call into a text message or email? The triggers in an IMS-enabled communications systems allow all this and more.

The Internet of Everything Turns Every Device into a Potential Decision Maker
It used to be that only traditional server-based applications could participate in CEBP, but now that just about everything has an IP address, the number of players has grown exponentially.

We suddenly live in a world where a temperature sensor can create a conference call and a pressure gauge can send a text message. When even the lowliest of devices is able to live on an IP network, the distribution of control, influence, and data gathering is enormous.

WebRTC is Changing Everything
Some might argue that WebRTC doesn't belong in a discussion about CEBP, but I say it does. WebRTC, and similar browser-based technologies that will follow in its wake, bring CEBP to the user no matter where he or she might be. When the Web browser becomes the de facto interface for communications, the touch points between users and business processes are limitless. Like the Internet of Everything does for devices, these integrated HTML technologies essentially brand an IP address onto every user's forehead.

We Finally Understand Security
The Internet has shown us that bad people will take advantage of every virtual door left unlocked and unprotected. Thankfully, the tools and methodologies finally exist to create a properly protected, authenticated, and fully encrypted system. Knowing that business data, media, signaling, and metadata are safe and secure allows both the IT director and the business unit owner to sleep at night.

Mobility and the Rise of the Smartphone and Tablet
Once upon a time, you only had two ways to connect with me in real-time – call me at work or call me at home. Now, for better or worse, I am reachable anywhere at any time on any device. Not only that, I am reachable in any number of different ways. You can talk to me, text me, email me, tag me, or, if so inclined, you can see me. You can even do them all at the same time.

The Cloud Continues to Accelerate the Paradigm Shift
As applications and communications functionality moves off-premises and into the cloud, they become ubiquitous. No matter where you are, who you are, or what device you choose to hold in your hand, place on your desk, or wear on your body, you can access anything at any time. Conversely, you can also be universally accessed. Combine cloud availability with IMS-style frameworks, Web services, and the Internet of Everything, and CEBP becomes part of the very fabric of the Web.

Okay, that's enough pontificating. We will remain stuck on the use case merry-go-round until there are concrete examples. So, here are two real world products that fully embrace the promise of CEBP as it exists today. The first one is CEBP for the masses, and the second is targeted at the health care industry.

For my first example, I invite you to take a look at ifttt.com. This powerful Web application implements something called if-this-then-that. If-this-then-that is a Boolean-based process that takes input from a variety of sources and when the right conditions are met, performs a pre-defined set of actions. For example, I could create a "recipe" that goes something like this. "If it's 8:00 in the morning, the sun is shining, and there is an open tee-time at the Highland golf course, make a reservation and send me a confirmation via SMS text." I don't know about you, but I think this is an amazingly cool implementation of CEBP that wasn't possible a few short years ago.

My second example is a true business case. Extension Healthcare created a CEBP product for hospitals and healthcare facilities that gathers, analyzes, quantifies, prioritizes, and takes action on the never-ending streams of patient data that healthcare professionals are required to deal with. Walk through any hospital corridor and you will hear the constant sound of beeps and buzzes from the various pieces of patient monitoring equipment. Some of those beeps require immediate action, while others can wait. Extension Engage makes sense of that clamor and notifies the correct person or persons of actionable items in real-time through voice or text messages. Quality of care increases and alarm fatigue is greatly reduced.

Don't get me wrong. I am still an impatient man. Even so, I have learned that good things generally come to life. CEBP simply required all the stars to line-up correctly, and as I look out my window tonight, Jupiter has aligned with Mars. The wait is finally over.