Tablet, smartphone and other mobile device adoption developments are the most important drivers of unified communications (UC) and collaboration adoption for the majority of organisations over the next one to two years.
This is according to the findings of the ITWeb/Gijima Unified Communications survey, which ran online for a fortnight towards the end of 2011. A total of 186 participants took part in the study.
However, 23.27% believe that enterprise application solution readiness and maturity of solution offerings is the most important driver for adoption, with 16.98% citing cost-effective and dependable cellular mobile data network services.
Mike Hamilton, managing executive, unified communications at Gijima, sees the adoption of tablets and smartphones as a critical juncture in technology-based service delivery.
“If we had to look back in a few years, we will list this as one of the significant triggers that changed how we plan, design and deliver technology-based services. Mobility, coupled to pervasive connectivity, means we can be in touch, have access to business process supporting information, and [can] call on resource support on-demand,” he says.
According to Hamilton, the ergonomic aspects of tablets and smartphones make this possible. Convenient size, form factor, weight, battery life, display quality and network services all come together as a critical enabler, he adds.
Sweet spots
Cellular mobile data network development is the UC and collaboration infrastructure investment area most organisations think will hold businesses' attention the most over the next one to two years, the survey discovered.
Hamilton says companies are willing to invest in cellular mobile data network development because, outside of the campus environment, there is no comprehensive wireless coverage other than cellular services.
“The adoption of smartphones and tablet PCs present an integrated cellular configuration that is ideal to exploit for businesses.”
However, he points out that the core challenges to such investments are performance and cost management, as South African operators are slow to adapt data pricing models for corporate utilisation.
In terms of the UC and collaboration application investment areas businesses think will hold their attention the most over the next one to two years, the majority (27.04%) pointed to social networking tools and services. Desktop application content sharing and online meetings, at 23.9%, followed.
Rethinking communications
Hamilton believes that as social networking is embraced by business, a major rethink of communication and marketing strategies is required.
“As we move from a 'push' marketing style to bidirectional communication, and as we move to harness the benefits of crowd sourcing or online group interactions, we need to ensure the infrastructure and services are in place offering consistent, dependable and secure communications.
“Perhaps more importantly, the people processes to ensure consistent and predictable response to inputs from social network platforms must be in place. Technology on its own will not deliver the benefits talked about,” he explains.
The majority of the respondents (52.2%) also said that although UC has the potential of enabling infrastructures and collaboration tools and systems, this has to be proven and standardised. However, 45.28% noted that unified communications provide real offerings, are market-ready and here to stay. Only 2.52% said there is no real return on investment.
Justifying this finding, Hamilton argues that, currently, there is no single vendor with an end-to-end offering. He explains that complete UC solutions require the interaction of offerings from multiple vendors, and as such, standardisation plays a key role in influencing adoption.
Most of the organisations (35.85%) already deploy or make use of unified communication enabling infrastructures and collaboration tools and systems, the survey found. Some 24.46% indicated that they will be deploying the systems within the next two years; 23.90% noted that they are unsure; while 4.4% said no.
UC systems are being used in broad applications within most organisations (35.22%). This was closely followed by 32.08%, who said UC is only limited to specialist or focused teams. By the same token, 18.87% said they are unsure, while 13.84% said they do not use UC.
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