Unified communications

In the industry of the Telecommunications and Office automation , one indicates by unified Communications (in English Unified Communications ) a whole of new services intended for the professionals in company making it possible to integrate (“to unify”) narrowly:

means of communication interpersonal real-time, like fixed telephony and mobile, video-telephony, the bridges of audio/video conference…
work tools collaboratif (like the instant messaging, the presence, the systems of conferences by the Web, division and management of documents…).
data-processing environment, in particular tools of office automation, like the customer of email, the diary, the word processing or the software of visionnage of presentations.

The users can thus reach the communications tools while continuing to use in parallel the computer tools which theirs are necessary for their work to the daily newspaper.

An intuitive single interface for the access to the services

The user reaches the services by means of a single, simple and convivial interface, discreetly integrated in his usual work environment. This interface takes the form of icons to the center for example of Microsoft Outlook or IBM Lotus Notes, or of a " gate web" accessible starting from navigator Internet, or of an embarked software providing an interface adapted to the mobile terminals.

Which are the principal uses with the daily newspaper?

The list of the functions available varies from one supplier to another. In general, the user can carry out the following operations, nonexhaustive, starting from his desktop machine or of his portable PC:

To manage its contacts and its diary
To communicate by email
To know the state of presence of a colleague (connected, on the telephone, in meeting etc)
To initiate a voice communication or Visio, is on its PC directly (mode click-to ) or of course its telephone with a certain level of coupling with the PC (telephony on the station, services multi-media on the PC).
To send a message text to its interlocutor according to his availability.
To manage its joignability behind a single call number: the gate Web makes it possible to the professional to modify to him even the rules of routing and presentation of the calls. For example of 9:00 to 17:30, to make sound my fixed telephone, then at the end of three ringings, my mobile phone; 17:30 with 9:00, to rebook the call to my residence for such or such appealing; etc
To program meetings, to check the availability of the guests, to follow the answers to the invitations; To animate and take part in an audio or video meeting; To publish and modify a document in real-time with several.
To consult its text messages, faxes received
To transfer quickly and in a protected way a document
etc

Taking into account of mobility and the nomadism

As indicated higher, the access to the services is generally done starting from the desktop machine or of a portable PC, with sometimes a certain coupling between the PC and the fixed telephone.

According to the product, certain functions are sometimes available also for the collaborators in displacement starting from terminals with radio interface dated GPRS, UMTS, CDMA or WiFi such as mobile phone, Smartphone or personal assistant (PDA).

Integration with the trade applications

In certain cases, the departments of communication unified can also be integrated with the applications “trade” of the company, the business packages of the internal processes (ERP), of management of the client relationship (CRM) or of '' back office ''.

Implementation: waiter dedicated or in mode ASP

According to the case, the unified communications can be proposed to the collaborators of the company by means of a dedicated waiter, had into clean and exploited in-house by the engineering teams of the company.

Or the service can be delivered through network IP VPN or Internet by a waiter lodged in a subcontractor such as for example an integrator or an operator in telecommunications. The waiter can be dedicated to the company (offers to measure) or mutualized between a very great number of companies (frequent on the segment of SME). One speaks then about mode ASP or SaaS ( Software ace has Service ).

Implementation: principal protocols

These services utilize various standardized protocols of the world of the Internet, in particular Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), SIP Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions (SIMPLE) or extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP). These protocols are particularly well adapted for the implementation of multimedia services.

Which are the benefit for the company?

The communication products unified aim in a general way at to improve the productivity of the collaborators of the company while allowing and/or while making more effective control, management, the integration and the use with the daily newspaper of several forms of communications.

For example:

To invite without effort on a simple click of mouse starting from the contact list
To allow an exchange fast, in the same building or remote of information, for example to advance a meeting.
To transfer remotely a document more effectively (ex alternate more effective with the sending of an enclosure in a mail)
To remotely take part in a conference, a formation, a presentation of products
To limit useless displacements, virtual meeting room, plus need to use a conference room dedicated with expensive video equipment.

Certain services, in particular those of certain operators in telecommunications, support the communications unified not only between collaborators of the same company, but also in mode B to B , i.e. between different companies working in network, divided teams e.g. financial community, certain professionals (cabinets of architect or lawyer), research organizations and industrialists organized in poles of competitiveness.

Which incidences on the employees?

Super-productivity and hyperconnectivity: The employee recreates his professional environment of communications in any place in the company (ex from its office, another office, since a meeting room…), even in displacement outside the company (hotel, airport, hot-spot, in residence since an access high banc…)
risks: the employees are more easily available at any moment during and apart from the professional hours, which can lead to an increase in the stress, a greater dependence with regard to work (addiction) and of the employer.

Main actors of the market

One can distinguish three groups from suppliers:

the software publishers of office automation, who historically have a strong expertise at the applicatif level and a quasi-monopolistic influence on the work station (diary, customer of transport, word processing…). One finds in this group IBM and Microsoft which is present in 95 % of the companies. They developed work tools collaboratif (instant messaging, division of applications and documents, organization of meetings) and are adding complementary functions to it (telephony, Visio, conference…) by developing them in-house, by signing various types of agreements (technical interfunctioning, distribution, exchange of patents…) or both.
equipment suppliers in telecommunications, which historically have strong experience of the market of the telephony of company (technical expertise, accesses to the market, aspects operational). One finds in this group in particular Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, Cisco Systems, Nortel or Siemens AG. Some developed their own communication software unified “house”, which comes to supplement or be integrated in their waiter of ToIP and which comes to be integrated in one or the other of the office automation environments mentioned above. Other suppliers sign agreements with the suppliers of the other groups to deliver the solution. Finally of other suppliers make both (in-house development and sign agreements).
Certain suppliers of management tools electronics of process ( workflow ) like Adobe Systems or Citrix or of business packages integrated (ERP) like SAP AG and Oracle, intervene in the implementation of the operational processes on the scale of the company and wish to integrate new modules in order to make them “communicating”.

As it is seen, in certain cases these companies are completely concurrent two to two. In some other cases, on the contrary, they sign partnership agreements and their competences are complementary. Finally in other cases, they sign partnership agreements which enable them to be complementary well in certain fields while knowing that in some other fields they can be concurrent (Coopétition).

Alliance ICA: to take part in the feast with the devil?

Practically all the companies now play the chart of technical interworking with Microsoft, and/or of IBM, which, with them two, controls the near total of the office automation environment in company.

But certain manufacturers are much further developing a strategy technological, commercial and operational common. It is for example the case of the Canadian equipment supplier in telecommunications Nortel which announced on July 18th, 2006 the formation of a baptized strategic alliance with Microsoft Innovative communications alliance (ICA). Microsoft and Nortel was appropriate to train joint teams for the design (R & D), marketing, integration, the deployment and the support after sale of the products touching the solutions of telegraphic telephony and without wire and of company.

Other actors downstream

Around the market of the unified communications also revolve a great number of integrators systems, fitters of PABX IP, retailers as some operators in telecommunications (as Orange Business Services) which start to deploy the solutions developed by the companies above.

Which is the stake? Interrogations on the future of industry

The majority of the companies which evolved/moved of traditional numerical telephony to telephony on IP, then naturally seek to implement advanced applications (unified communications) likely to improve the productivity of the collaborators. To be satisfied to reinvent the services of traditional telephony by proposing the only economic advantages, sometimes dubious, to telephony on IP is not enough any more.

The entry of heavy trucks of data processing like Microsoft or IBM on the market of telephony on IP and the unified communications is officially confirmed since 2006. The first products are available in 2007. The companies accommodate today with open arms these solutions and already bought more than 430.000 licenses. It will hardly take more few years for Microsoft to become completely credible. The partnerships with the manufacturers, in particular Nortel, precisely aim at enabling him to acquire this credibility more quickly.

Will the “traditional” competitors of the market of PABX did perhaps not say their last word, but how long remain credible with the eyes of the companies, in particular of the large accounts which are likely to differ their decision from purchase while waiting for the arrival with complete maturity of the products Microsoft? Won't one rather attend with the decline and in the long term the disappearance of the waiters of telephony used up to now in company (PABX or PABX IP) with the profit of solutions entirely based on software, centered on the work station, and able to provide more easily of better services?

All the traditional actors of the world of telecommunications, which they are equipment suppliers (Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, Cisco Systems and others), integrators or operators, are concerned. The road roller is moving. Some go can be to be unaware of it, while others will be tempted to slow down it some time, but with final they will not be able from it to be withdrawn. It is still difficult to envisage how much actors, among the score of large industrialists present in 2007 on the market of PABX IP on a world level, will be still present on this same market in five years. It is probable that one will attend long series of advertisements of transfers of activities, mergers by amalgamation and can be also in certain cases of bankruptcies.

Contrary, the prospect for an office automation universe and télécoms completely dependant on Microsoft you it will allure all the companies? Will one see also developing on this market an alternative resulting from the universe of the “free software”?

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