Here at the Lync Conference in Las Vegas, I met Ken Willoughby, a solutions engineer at Verba, which bills itself as a "complete collaboration recording solution." What that means is they do recording systems not just for voice, but for video as well.
Which, when you think about it, makes sense--at least if you believe that, sooner or later, video contact centers will be a thing. Indeed, later on the same morning that I met Ken Willoughby, the Microsoft keynote featured a demonstration with the following scenario: A customer goes to a health care website and runs through a routine that begins with text chat and culminates with an impromptu video consult with a doctor. Maybe not commonplace today, but the kind of application the industry is pushing heavily as a major value for next-gen communications.
So if voice contact centers need recording for (as they like to say) monitoring purposes, presumably they will need video recording. And in an industry like healthcare, you'd have to figure recording would be a must--not only for regulatory compliance, but as a standard practice to protect the company in the event of malpractice suits.
And of course, such an immense volume of recorded video will have to be searchable, which Ken Willoughby assured me is possible with Verba's solutions--another layer of sophistication in the technology.
Verba's story seems pretty encouraging; Ken Willoughby explained that the company is 14 years old, and started off with TDM technology. They migrated to VOIP and now to video as the industry matured. Not only are they keeping up with the evolution of the media, they're also staying current with the platform, offering it on virtual servers.
This is just one example of one company partnered with a handful of vendors--they also support Cisco, Avaya, and BroadSoft--to provide a range of solutions from legacy technology to the cutting edge. But I think Verba represents a pretty good microcosm of how the industry is moving forward: It's no longer about monolithic platforms or big vendors providing all the features. Instead, a company with a specialty can aggressively seek out opportunities for their piece of the technology solution to play a role in a larger ecosystem.
Microsoft has been very effective in building an ecosystem around Lync, just as they've done with many of their other products. But other communications vendors are ramping up their developer programs as well, and it's paying off with an ever-growing range of companies building solutions that fit into larger enterprise communications implementations.
That's one of the main reasons why the show floor at Enterprise Connect next month is going to be bigger than it's ever been before: There are so many companies getting into our market, wanting to work with the strategic vendors that enterprise decision-makers have partnered with, and wanting to integrate with the solutions that enterprises are implementing either with their own internal staff, or with VARs, SIs, or consultants.
There's never been more opportunity in this industry for innovators, whether they're startups or established small companies that have kept their edge. You're going to be impressed when you see the exhibit floor at Enterprise Connect--both by its size, and the quality of the companies showing off their wares. I hope you can join us in Orlando the week of March 17.
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