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Expanding Device Choices for Mobile UC

By themselves, network services, even network services enhanced with UC, can be pretty boring--but everyone loves a good device. We have certainly seen that maxim hold true in the mobile space where the selection of the mobile operator is an annoying afterthought once we’ve settled on the coolest mobile gadget you’ve ever seen. However, an enterprise user’s UC experience is going to be a function of that device and how smoothly it works with the underlying network to deliver voice, video, text, email, and applications access to optimize business processes.

When it comes to communicating devices, I divide the world into two classes: stationary and mobile. Desktop phones, PCs and laptops fall into the "Stationary" category, and I include laptops, because I’ve never seen anyone checking their email on a laptop while walking down the hall or dashing through an airport.

For many years, the cell phone was the sole "mobile" device. I remember a talk some years ago where the speaker identified voice as the only true mobile application because "you can do something else while you're talking on the phone". Smartphones have apparently spurred the development of new environmental awareness skills, as we all seem to be able to move through a crowded area checking our emails without causing countless embarrassing collisions.

What got me to thinking about this was the growing interest in tablet computers and how they will make their way into our UC lives. When the iPad was first announced, I questioned the overall concept, but I changed my mind completely as soon as I got to use one. While it won't fit in your pocket like a smartphone, the iPad delivers one heck of an engaging experience and I have no doubt that devices of this type are going to find their way into a wide variety of knowledge worker and task worker functions.

However, I don't think that the iPad in its current form delivers what an enterprise user is going to need in a tablet. The problem is that it is geared for consuming rather than creating content. It’s great for viewing Web pages or videos and reading emails or eBooks, but the touch screen entry mechanism makes it about as functional as a smartphone for taking notes, capturing drawings, or for any of the other myriad pen-and-paper tasks people do in the course of a workday. Voice recognition might address part of that, but handwriting recognition and free-form drawing capture will still be needed.

The other key feature with a tablet in a UC environment is that you will likely have it with you at all times while you’re in the office, so we can track its location and update your presence status. That can also be said of your Wi-Fi equipped smartphone, and maybe we can intuit something regarding your presence status if your smartphone (typically in your pocket) is one place and your tablet is someplace else.

Avaya and Cisco have now jumped into the tablet fray, though their offerings seem to be shaped by their "videophilia" bent; that's clearly the case with Avaya’s and we’ve yet to get our hands on the Cisco Cius.

And now RIM has entered the market. With both front and back facing cameras, it appears the new RIM PlayBook is taken with video as well (we'll have more on the PlayBook later this week).

That video focus seems to assume that what people do while stationary they’ll want to do while on the move--a very questionable assumption. I know Apple has been running a lot of those heart-warming ads about video on an iPhone, but if you notice, none of the people in those ads are moving when they use the video capability.

While it will take some time for us to figure out the model, there are simply too many things tablets excel at for them not to be adopted as a major platform, particularly if they help people to work better and more efficiently. Those of us who work in offices will think in terms of office tasks, but I can envision any number of mobile communications-enabled business processes that could include a tablet. Those stretch from bedside data capture and drug dispensing in a health care environment to retrieving product specs, stock checking and roaming check-out in retail.

I just wonder if voice is going to move to the tablet or if I’m still going to have a cell phone in my pocket?