UC Predictions for 2013

Happy 2013, may it be a great year. What's ahead for UC? Of course, no one knows for certain, but luckily we have some expert opinions. And based on the predictions I've seen, it will be a great year. Here's a sample of what's predicted and what just might be in store.

Cisco HCS

Eric Schoch posted six views on where hosted UC is headed. His predictions include "In 2013, cloud delivery of video will enable a cost paradigm shift leading to acceleration of adoption of pervasive, any-to-any video conferencing." I hope he is right. I think the premise-based MCU needs to move over and make room for service-based solutions that will offer improvements in price/performance, simplicity, and interoperability. This is an obvious play for Cisco HCS; LifeSize is already there, Vidyo and Polycom are making noise about being there sometime, and Blue Jeans and Vidtel are leading the sector with simplified interoperability.

Avaya

Avaya one upped Cisco with seven predictions (actually "trends") for 2013. They are a bit esoteric, and I'm not sure I fully understand them. For example, "Mobile Muscles In vs Pretend Mobile is so Wimpy." I think this implies that the mobile revolution will continue and mature. Pretend mobile presumably refers to primitive solutions such as call forwarding versus the more powerful apps. I do agree we will see some very interesting things in mobility this year. On the device front the Google-Apple duopoly being challenged by Blackberry's all new BB10 and the one-two punch from Microsoft in the Surface and its Windows 8 solutions from several including Nokia. The tablet game is still early, but Windows 8 seems off to a slow start (maybe because they hid the Start button). I am confident UC vendors will continue to integrate with mobile devices via apps. A big wildcard is WebRTC from a mobile perspective.

ShoreTel

ShoreTel also offers seven predictions for 2013. Most of these predictions seem tame, even dated, though with "Virtualization comes to UC," it sounds like ShoreTel might be providing hints at announcements to come. In the past, ShoreTel and virtualization were only used in the same sentence when speaking of management applications. However, that may be changing soon. The post continues with, "If you haven't virtualized your UC applications, put it on your IT to-do list for 2013. It's an easy first step to squeezing out more efficiencies and improving business continuity." It does seem virtualization will be mainstream for premises-based medium and large UC implementations. VMware continues as the preferred solution, but Hyper-V is narrowing the gap. Can ShoreTel predict the future? They certainly nailed it with simplicity. Competitors that used to snicker at simplicity are now echoing it.

Siemens Enterprise

Siemens Enterprise Communications offers 10 predictions for 2013. SEN applied a UC lens to the crystal ball, but went a bit broad in the prognostications including NFC, Cloud drives, and even automobiles. The one that stood out for me is "Global Use of Email Grows." As social media took off, we've been hearing that email is dead or at least past its peak. But SEN says email has continued to grow and will significantly continue to grow. I don't like it, but I think I agree. Yech! The fact is email continues to be the glue that binds so many other and emerging forms of communications - voice mail is unified with email, DM me on Twitter and I get an email. Same on Facebook. Email effectively offers federation between other email systems and other communication modes. In my opinion, it is too bad there isn't more email competition (we need it).

IBM

IBM disagrees with SEN regarding email. With five predictions for UC, IBM says "Instant messaging and other real-time collaboration tools will become the norm, bypassing e-mail." Big Blue cites "a new generation of workers has a new expectation for instant messaging as the preferred method of business interaction." Certainly IM has become indispensable. But it seems to me it is only effective for short form communications. Sometimes, it takes a paragraph or more to convey a thought. I tend to side with SEN as I don't think anything ever replaces anything any more. That was the old norm, like the phone replacing telegraphs or the FAX replacing Telex. But now, we just keeping adding without ever subtracting. FAX is certainly declining, but it seems far from dead, and FAX to email may even extend its life for years to come.

Also be sure to checkout the UCStrategies podcast for additional prognostications.

If I missed any major published UC prediction lists (other than the Mayans'), please links in the comments.