I said come on over, Baby
a whole lotta shakin' goin' on
I said come on over, Baby
Baby, you can't go wrong
we ain't fakin'
a whole lotta shakin' goin' on
- Dave "Curlee" Williams
There is a tectonic shift in how we transact business. For the longest time, the model has been that producers created branded products. For instance, Ford built cars. Those cars had unique names that carried the Ford label on the front grill and back hatch. The cars were sent to dealers around the world who sold them to people who were set on buying a Ford. Ford's marketing department was focused (pardon the pun) on making Ford's name and products instantly recognizable.
"Built Ford tough."
"Built for the road ahead."
"Have you driven a Ford lately?"
This producer/consumer relationship is based on the concept of creating and selling. Yes, there were nearly always companies in the middle that acted as resellers for a manufacturer's products, but the end result was still the same. Money was made by creating desirable products and then selling those products to willing customers.
What Ford did not do was sell access to their infrastructure that made those cars. They didn't allow a consumer to walk into one of their plants, purchase raw and finished materials, and build his or her own model of car. As much as I would love to design and make the "Andrew Car," Ford is not in the business of helping me do that.
But what if Ford did allow me to come in and build my own car? Sure, I would need the help of trained engineers and auto workers, but why couldn't they be part of the deal. I fly to Detroit, pay my money, and Ford provides me with the people and materials needed to build the Andrew Car.
What do Uber and Airbnb have in common? At a quick glance you might think nothing. One provides transportation and the other gives you a place to rest your head at the end of the night. However, they share one big attribute. Both allow you as a consumer to pick and choose between many unbranded, independent product providers. In the case of Uber, it's cars, and with Airbnb, it's bedrooms. In both cases, though, the place you go to contract those services produces and owns nothing tangible; neither produces or carries inventory. These places simply give you access to products that others own, maintain, and manage.
In this new world of commerce, the idea of inventory has become very fluid. It's the college kid who needs a few bucks and spontaneously decides that he can drive people around from 10:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. on a Saturday night. It's the homeowner who realizes she can rent out a room while her kid is off at camp for the month of July. It's also Amazon, which wants to recoup the cost of all the unused storage and processing power they have in their data centers by leasing it out.
Product, inventory, and how it is maintained are not what they used to be. While some aspects of their businesses have clearly moved to the cloud, Airbnb does not sell abstract bedrooms and Uber doesn't virtually move you from one place to another. They require physical resources that are owned and operated by people like you and me. Anyone can become a landlord or cabbie whenever he or she wishes to take on those roles.
Let's get back to Amazon for a moment. Amazon didn't set out to build its elastic cloud offering from the get-go. Instead, its goal was to create the number one online reseller. It just so happens that to do that they had to construct this huge Web-scale application called amazon.com.
Sometime in the early 2000s, Amazon realized that this massive infrastructure of servers and software could be commoditized and resold to companies that wanted the power of Amazon without having to invest the time and money to create it themselves. In 2006, Amazon EC2 was launched and has since become a significant source of their revenue.
So, why can't we take this further? If Amazon can turn its banks of servers and Web services software into a consumable product, what's stopping other companies from taking their infrastructures and excess capacity and turning it into revenue sources?
For as long as the PBX has been around, most companies have thought of it in terms of capital expense and operating costs. Yes, interdepartmental billing can be used to spread expenses around, but isn't that just one hand paying the other? It's not as if real revenue is coming in from outside sources?
But why can't it? With today's data center model for building an elastic enterprise communications platform, why can't enterprise communications be 'cloudified' and sold to individuals and companies that want telephony services, but don't want to build their own systems?
If Amazon can sell storage and processing, why can't Ford sell communications alongside its cars? And if Ford can do it, then why not UPS, Target, and General Electric? These Fortune 50 corporations undoubtedly have massive communications systems and, potentially, excess capacity. Like the college kid who needs a few extra bucks, why can't they periodically offer up their communications resources to those who need it, but don't want to put in the time and money to build out their own systems?
Yes, I am ignoring government regulations for the moment, but this is my dream and I don't want it to get bogged down in red tape. For now, allow me to focus on the idea and not on any non-technical roadblocks.
Remember that college student with time on his hands? What if his car was out of gas or in the shop for repairs? That would preclude him from becoming an Uber driver for the next few hours, wouldn't it?
However, what if he was really good at Microsoft Windows 10 and had a knack for helping people. Why not allow him to launch an app on his phone, mark himself as available, and start taking calls from perplexed computer users? What if the service driving that app had a variety of communications platforms to connect to and knew who was looking for Windows 10 expertise. Like Uber, you connect an on-demand consumer to an on-demand workforce with an on-demand infrastructure. Consumers get a choice of service providers, workers choose when they want to work, and businesses are able to sell unused communications horsepower. Win, win, win.
We are changing the ways we transact business. We are focused less on product and more on service, availability, and delivery. The cloud has shown us that we can get what we want without having to build it ourselves. If Airbnb can turn unused bedrooms into cash, why can't we apply this business model to all sorts of things, including communications?
Will it take time to work out all the kinks? Absolutely, but Amazon EC2 wasn't built in a day, either.
The business case for these on-demand, elastic services is there and the technology to make them happen is very real. All we need is someone willing to shake things up.
So, who's up for an earthquake?
Andrew Prokop writes about all things unified communications on his popular blog, SIP Adventures.
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