Mobility and Unified Communications

There has been a growing pool of people discussing the end of the desk phone. Well I am not one of them. The desk phone continues to have its benefits. It is inexpensive, easy to install and manage, has a long life cycle and is simple to use. Claiming the death of the desk phone is imminent is premature. But what does this mean for Unified Communications (UC) and mobility?

Frost & Sullivan have forecasted the UC market to continue double-digit growth for the next five years but they have dramatically reduced the number of UC clients shipped over the time period. They now believe that instead of 50 million UC clients by 2016, there will only be 30 million. This is a significant change in their forecast and mobile devices are identified as the reason for this change.

It is certainly true that mobile clients have changed the way businesses and employees communicate. And with the popularity of the iPhone, most businesses have either conceded to Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) or are looking at ways to incorporate devices other than those that are corporate” approved. However, even with all of the capabilities and applications that Android and iOS-driven devices can bring to the table, these devices need to fit into a UC strategy, not remain outside of it. Fixed-to-mobile convergence is but one aspect of integrating mobile devices into a unified communications implementation. In order to maximize presence, video conferencing and other key UC capabilities, mobile devices must be included in the process, not excluded.

Although the devices individually support a range of UC-like features, it is the lack of cross-corporate integration of these features that requires a true UC platform. And it is important to address this as soon as possible. According to Frost & Sullivan, 68 percent of enterprises view mobile devices as a primary communications endpoint. Furthermore, 10 percent of tablet owners use them for business purposes.

There is no debate about the advent of BYOD. Each major player in the UC solutions arena is actively working on improving how they integrate and include user-selected devices versus those sold or represented by the UC solution provider. So, how do we get to pronosticating the end of the desk phone? F&S also expects business users to migrate from PCs to tablets, with tablets used for businesses growing from 10 percent today to 70 percent in 2016. This will result in a corresponding reduction in PCs. Moreover, desktop phones will drop from 37 percent of enterprise endpoints to 20 percent over the same time period. The F&S conclusion: The clear implication is that the need for a UC client like Lync or Sametime on the PC desktop will decrease, since fewer employees will use a PC on a regular basis, if at all. And UC clients on a desk phone will all but disappear.”

I agree with everything but the disappearing act. In order to move the entire enterprise to tablets, it will be necessary to totally embrace the cloud, which most enterprises are reluctant to do. More pieces must fall into place before the desktop phone and PC disappear.

David Byrd is vice president of marketing and sales for

Broadvox,

and is responsible for marketing and channel sales programs to SMBs, enterprises and carriers as well as defining the product offering. Prior to joining Broadvox, David was the vice president of Channels and Alliances for Eftia and Telcordia. As director of eBusiness Development with i2 Technologies, he developed major partnerships with many of the leaders in Internet eCommerce and supply chain management. As CEO of Planet Hollywood Online he was a pioneer in using early Internet technologies to build a branded entertainment and eCommerce website company partnered with Planet Hollywood. Having over 20 years of telecom sales and marketing experience, he has held executive positions with Hewlett-Packard, Sprint and Ericsson.