Thursday at VoiceCon Orlando 2009 was summit day, a series of panel discussions on Cloud Computing, Unified Communications and an end user forum. A few highlights from the final day:
* The Cloud Computing panel featured representatives of Cisco, Avaya, AT&T, Verizon and IBM, and all made the case for network-based infrastructure as a service delivery platform for communications. Of the various justifications for why this made sense, the one I found most compelling came from Chris Kimm of Verizon Business, who noted that, as communications moves toward a software architecture, enterprises can use service providers' ability to handle the continuous upgrades and version advances that would be difficult and complex for IT to maintain.
The best question of this session came from an audience member who asked, "If cloud computing is so great, how come the #1 opportunity for UC ROI is to install audioconferencing bridges on premises?" What this elicited was a discussion about cloud computing as a strategic initiative versus the not-insignificant tactical gains to be had from such moves as taking conferencing in house. My co-moderator on this session, Zeus Kerravala, noted that Microsoft has been touting audioconferencing via OCS R2 for its two-month ROI, and asked the panel what cloud computing application had a two-month ROI. There didn't seem to be an easy answer.
* Speaking of ROI, the subject was of course a major topic in our User Forum. Karen Bailey of Wells Fargo said in her company, no project can go forward without a 12-month ROI. Joe Abate of Westchester County, NY-based Mt. Kisco Health Care said that in his vertical industry, there's uncertainty about what kinds of regulations and new government initiatives are coming down, so "my approach is to do as much as I can while I can."
Asked about their greatest challenges in implementing VOIP and Unified Communications, several mentioned "blocking and tackling" issues like making sure that facilities could support the power and other physical requirements of IP communications. Bob Butler, CIO of the Hay Group, a management consulting firm, also singled out the ongoing organizational challenges of IT staff taking ownership of voice services.
Another noteworthy point: All of the panelists were open to the idea of eliminating some portion of the desk phones, in favor of softphones or mobiles. The farthest along this path was Karen Bailey of Wells Fargo who said she expects that half of her 220,000 end users will be off of desk phones by the time Wells Fargo's migration is complete. She said she is stressing to end users that "this is not a like for like" swapout, that it's a business process change that they can use to improve those processes. Indeed, she said that she believes it's her company's internal application development teams that will build the communications integrations that drive productivity.
* That theme of business process enhancement with communications also dominated the concluding locknote session. VoiceCon GM and program co-chairman Fred Knight asked the panel of analysts and consultants what their predictions were for what we'll be talking about at VoiceCon Orlando 2010. There was general agreement that as enterprises struggle through what promises to be a difficult economic year, they'll look to the potential for unified communications to produce major savings via these business process enhancements.
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And that wraps up another VoiceCon. VoiceCon San Francisco takes place November 2-5 at the Moscone Convention Center. We hope to see you there.
