Jason Alley has a useful post over at Vanguard Communications' blog, mulling over the specific dilemma that Nortel's troubles pose for contact center implementers.Jason's much closer to and versed in the contact center market than I am, so I find it noteworthy that he sees the situation as being so fluid. My first thought on the subject was that Nortel's difficulties could be a real opportunity for Avaya in the contact center--Avaya's the clear market leader in this segment and also seems to have the most universally admired product capabilities.
At the same time, Jason's right that the only really safe bets right now in the communications market as a whole are Cisco and Microsoft, neither of whom have the best of breed solution for the contact center.
This may be one area in which the conflation of UC and Contact Center actually does a disservice to the contact center. As Jason points out, the UC marketplace is very fluid right now; at the same time, the contact center is so rich in metrics and measurements that, if your situation suggests a migration to IP-based systems, you easily have the wherewithal to build the business case and make an investment now. And there are market leaders--not just Avaya and Aspect, but notably Genesys as well--with contact center-focused products that can deliver on the business case if you can make it.
Does your contact center have to be part of your larger UC strategy--a strategy that may be getting slow-rolled as budgets tighten? And if it doesn't have to be part of that strategy, does this mean that, as Allan Sulkin has suggested, UC really is just another term for CTI?
