UCStrategies Experts Discuss UC Clients

In this Industry Buzz Podcast moderated by UCStrategies' Marty Parker, the UCStrategies experts discuss UC clients (real time, non-real time, and purpose built). What do customers need, and do any UC vendors offer all in a single package?

The UC Expert panel includes Dave Michels, Michael Finneran, Blair Pleasant, Jim Burton, Nancy Jamison, and Don Van Doren.

Marty Parker: Hi, this is Marty Parker and I get to have the pleasure of moderating the UCStrategies Industry Buzz Podcast for today. We are going to talk about the theme of desktop or mobile clients for unified communications. The client is that interface that the user sees. The client is driven by software even if it is on a desktop phone-it's the client and it's being driven by software. An IP phone is basically a tiny computer. The client is what brings the unified communication functions to the user in a way that is easy and attractive for that user. The format of the client might vary by device - whether they have a big HD screen in front of them; they have a desktop telephone with a display; they have a mobile device in their hands. It could vary by what device they are using.

There can be a distinction between real time, non-real time, and purpose built, which include both. Real time, there are things that are driving real time communication flow and every vendor has one or more of those. Non-real time would be tools like say email or shared workspaces. You would say that Facebook, for example, is a non-real time communication client. And it can be purpose built. More and more of our clients are building the communication functions right in to the application. So we have hospital clients who are building communication into their electronic health records so the user sees Cerner as the brand not Avaya or Cisco or Microsoft. You see products like Salesforce.com with the application, the software-that communication application-is built right in. The sales people, or customer relationship people can click to call or click to email right from the Salesforce.com interface, so that is a client.

Dave Michels and I got started on this a few weeks ago wondering if any vendor had really brought the whole suite together and it is not clear that anyone really has brought the entire real time/ non-real time unified communication suite together in one place. I argued that some, like Outlook, can integrate Microsoft Lync functionality but Dave's point was, well, that Lync still has to be on the desktop.

So we really have two questions we want to discuss here. What do customers need, and does any vendor offer that all in a single package? So Dave maybe you want to build on that and after you and Michael, Jim and the others carry on the conversation maybe I can join back in. Dave?

Dave Michels: The vendors that have done the most in the single client actually in my opinion are the ones that are focused on the web browser. The problem is the web browser doesn't have the codec and so requires some sort of plug-in to make it complete so it is not quite there. But I look at IBM, what do they have...Lotus Online. They have the email, social networking and I believe telephony features built in to Lotus Online. But if you go to the Lotus client you need to have Lotus and Sametime as separate clients, it's different pieces. Now a separate client concept kind of made sense with the telephony guys because as VoIP came around the telephony guys started making desktop clients, they did not have email, for example, or the address book built I to that and so they more or less worked with the email clients. But then the email client companies like Microsoft and IBM, when they got into telephony they didn't expand Outlook and Notes to the telephony features, they added totally separate clients, Lync and Sametime. It seemed kind of strange to me because they make a big point about having all of your contacts, all your communications - your calendars, your email, your contact phone numbers - all in one place, but if you actually want to call somebody you have to switch apps. It seems to me more logical to integrate Lync type of functionality into Outlook or Sametime functionality into Notes. But they haven't done that.

The other thing is the notion of not using any of these clients. For example with Digium, their SwitchVox, they have this extend API and it would allow you to take whatever your CRM or something to completely access all the functions on the SwitchVox to make/receive calls, access voicemail, do instant messaging-all that stuff from a different application all together. And I wonder if that is more of the future, not even having telephony or real time clients. It is an interesting thing because there doesn't seem to be one leading factor. I started with Google and I will go back to Google. Google has in their Gmail application if you do a plug-in like report over something you have all your social networking plug-in; you have obviously your email; your contacts and they have the video and voice enabled in there as well. And that will probably I assume be the direction in tablets, so I would like to hear Michael's thought on that.

So I just think it's kind of an interesting hodge podge of how the industry does not really have a de facto approach to this yet. And then started of thinking about what is the best approach. And I am not sure what the answer is. What do you guys think about these other different clients?

One other point, before I turn it over, one other point, I think Microsoft did something really interesting with the phone. Microsoft put calendaring and contacts on the desktop phone. If anything, they make the phone the ubiquitous client that has everything. But is that the logical order to make the IP phone, bring that back to be more than voice and bring all these other things in, too? I look to hear other thoughts on this.

Michael Finneran: I think Microsoft has it half right. And basically what the IP PBX business has found out is that we in mobility did it better. The tablet is really showing them the way. The IP PBX vendors tried and failed with softphone clients and I think for real basic reasons. They made the same mistake that Microsoft did when they tried to take the Windows operating system for a desktop and put it on a phone and came up with Windows Mobile, and it was just a miserable experience. Now however, the tablets are really showing us what the user wants in the way of a compelling and exciting interface. And Avaya sort of has it with their Flare Experience that they talk a lot about. But I think Cisco might have come a lot closer to the target. I mean the work model that they are pitching and Tom Puorro did a great example of this with the launch of the Cius. The tablet is emerging as the around the office communication device. So the fact that Microsoft has it sitting, has your calendar and that stuff on the phone, that's nice, but you are going to walk away from it. The beauty of the tablet approach is that's the part of the phone you take with you. And people love that touch screen functionality that we get. I mean even the new Apple Mac Operating System is going to start adding touch screen functions. You won't be touching the screen on your desk, but rather their new touch mouse with maybe the direction tricks they developed first on the iPhone and then translated to the iPad. So I think yeah, the shape of the desktop interface is going to be moving to the stuff we have been doing in mobile because people like it so much. But we will need that portability component, it's got to be mobile, and the cradle and removable part I think is great and I think Marty you are dead on with the integration with the independent software vendors that maybe will have an Avaya or a Cisco or a Siemens client on the device. Or maybe it is just built in to the other applications we are using and whether it is text, email, voice or video communications that are required, hit the button and right out of that application you go to it. Of course with all of that, the big question is going to be still, who is the controlling element in this? Who is doing the contact or call control to use the traditional term. But I think the client interface is going to be a heck of a lot more like what you are seeing on your iPad right now.

Blair Pleasant: I want to jump in with a kind of contrary point of view. I don't think we necessarily need like a single client or one size fits all. I think the fact is everyone works in different ways and the clients need to be flexible enough to do that. Michael you are talking about tablets, yeah tablets are great, but not everybody is going to be using that. I will never forget when someone from Microsoft was telling me about their message waiting indication and how you do not need that for unified messaging because you are going to get your message notification on your Blackberry. Well, I don't carry a Blackberry. So I think we really need to take into account the different ways that people work and what is going to be right for them. So someone who is in Outlook all day will need a client that works with that; someone who is in their claims processing application all day will need something for that; someone who uses a tablet; someone who uses a mobile; and then there are people who are just at their desktop just answering phones. So I think there is really no one right answer and no one size fits all. So I think the real key is flexibility, open APIs and really being able to adapt to the different user needs. Or is that just too naïve?

Jim Burton: Blair, I would agree with you but I would take it a step further. If it's going to be unified communications, whatever application you are using, whether it is on a browser; whether it's on an iPad, under any circumstance the applications need to be tightly integrated so that you don't have to open up a new app to get the opportunity to do something else. That's what unified communications is all about. But again it's the platform and I think that when you come back to where do these components, where does this user interface fit which is kind of the topic here, and does anyone have the solution today, the answer is probably not while everybody is headed in the right direction and everybody is trying something slightly different.

Michael mentioned Cisco-they certainly are doing a very good job. There is no question but what Microsoft is trying to come up with a unified user interface, working on multiple platforms; IBM the same thing. But I think a lot of this-and you have seen this and heard this over the years in the industry, Avaya is a good example. They want to give the best user experience-that is part of their objective with everything they are working on today. And then others have the same situation where they are trying to give the best user experience and the tough part is who is going to write those applications and what will they be working on? It is hard to think about people being able to compete against IBM and Microsoft when it comes to desktop user interfaces because they have owned them so long but there is a new opportunity because as Michael pointed out a lot of people are looking at other devices as what they are using for user interfaces such as an iPad or a table device of some type. And I think that is what we are going to need to be looking for is, how can I get the best user interface on the device that is important to me and I think we will see a lot of scrambling going on out there.

At the Microsoft event, we saw AltiGen having docking stations for mobile devices and clearly in their plans they are coming out with a docking station for table PC's as well. So I think it gets back to who is going to be able to pull all these together; best user experience that works across whatever platform I have to be using whether I am at my desk all day so my PC is what I want to use; I want the table device, or I even want a phone.

Marty Parker: Great Jim; Nancy, anything you would like to add to this?

Nancy Jamison: I actually was kind of in agreement with Blair because I think when we attempt to solve this big problem all at once by making everything consistent and we are going to lose the uniqueness and originality that individual companies put in to making their user interfaces really good. So I have the same feeling as Blair does except for I have a Blackberry and whenever I see people that do really cool things on the clients for the iPhone and everything else I go okay well I have a Blackberry. Given that, I think we are not going to solve the problem any time soon. And I would rather have companies move forward individually and create really good functionality and have open APIs then try to go after solving that bigger picture.

Marty Parker: Right-I think the points that you and Blair make-each person has touched on the same point, I think-go back to a theme that we see amongst our consulting clients is the theme of use cases. As we've discussed before, in most enterprises it is possible to look across your business processes and your employees and find that there are patterns. There are use case groupings and usually a company can be defined by about six plus or minus one. That is five, six or seven use cases can define the whole company. I know of one company with about 80,000 employees that has five templates for communication interfaces for those five different populations. So, if a company can get their use cases clear, then when they go looking for clients I think that some key words come up to me.

One is configured - can you configure the client? We have customers that turn off the external PSTN dialing from say, their soft client, like a Microsoft Lync. They are happy with the peer-to-peer but they do not want that to become the PSTN interface. So therefore the next word I have besides, so basically they are configuring to the purpose so that the user does not get off into feature sets that they do not want to support or feature sets that cost a lot to connect up.

The second word I would use besides configure is integrated. That is that the client can be integrated to the information and the tools the person needs, and Nancy I know you have seen this a lot in call center environments with agent desktops, but can those clients be integrated? For example, we know customers who use the active directory as the master contact list. They don't expect each user to have a contact list for every employee, they provide it for them by integrating to active directory or LDAP depending on which company it is.

A third word I use is embedded, that is, if the communications can be if you want, can be embedded into the applications that people are using, or may be integrated would apply in some cases if I am in Outlook and want to start a telephone call by right clicking on a name, I should launch the appropriate client. I shouldn't have to go open up a new app-it should automatically go into voice communication or visual or web sharing communication mode if I want. And that could be embedded.

And then the fourth word or pair of words I use is portable and virtual. That is that the user interface can be portable-whether a tablet or a cellular device-basically we see that it is going to be portable and virtual. More and more companies want that thin client out there, they don't want information on the device and that goes back to what Dave says that working with browsers you certainly have a challenge with some of the codecs and information flow to that end device using a browser interface. People are solving that problem, but that is still one of the bigger challenges I would say.

So perhaps if could recap what you have all said that it is important to think hard about your client experience; there isn't a one size fits all yet, but maybe it is not necessary to have one size fit all if you think through your use cases and of course that is going to be complicated by the continued pressure telling people, "bring their own device." Bring your own device theme is also a background issue on this whole conversation.

So thank you for letting me do that recap. Anybody want to put any final words in?

Nancy Jamison: I just want to add that I like those. I think if everybody could write their applications to those whatever you are calling them - five principles or five attributes - that would go really far. I mean you were talking and I was thinking about when Blair and I were doing our UC study and the HR people wanted to click to call off those resumes. They don't care how it works. But boy, that one little tiny feature from within their use case-really, that was like the highlight of UC for them. We received those bits and pieces all over. Did you write that up somewhere Marty?

Marty Parker: Well it will be transcribed in the podcast. Maybe it deserves a post besides. I will give attribution to all of you. Any other comments?

Don Van Doren: Great discussion. But much of it has been around how individuals use UC tools to enhance their personal communications on their personal devices. And I think there is another dimension that we need to consider, and that is, how do add communications and collaboration functionality to new or existing business application software? Software that doesn't come from either telephony or desktop suppliers, but rather from developers who are focused on a specific vertical or horizontal market. I think increasingly, such business software will incorporate communications capabilities into the application. So for example, a material requirements planning system will include the ability for a scheduler to reach out to an available inventory clerk. Or a doctor accessing a health care records system can record a video conference or engage a video conference with an available specialist-someone who is authorized to deal with that specific patient. Or, an insurance processing system will monitor for errors and inconsistencies, and automatically engage an expert to help resolve the issue. And there are literally thousands more that are going to be developed over the next half-decade or so.

My point is that these vastly different application systems certainly aren't going to have the same single client interface, but what they will need is a quick way to link their application software to the particular communications and collaboration environment that's available in the purchasing company. One way to do this is what Jim and Blair mentioned, that is, have open APIs that developers can write to and that can be an extremely effective approach to doing this.

The challenge of course, is that each system will have its own APIs, and therefore the business application will have to be tailored for each environment. That's what happened, frankly, in the early days of computer-telephony integration three decades ago. It's doable, but it's a very expensive and challenging solution at times.

Another approach I think is similar to how print drivers work. Applications don't write specific interfaces to every brand of printer out there, they simply write a generic command, i.e. "print," and then the operating system invokes the drivers that have been supplied, to translate the generic command into whatever the printer configured on that system specifically requires. Certainly the range of potential commands for UC is much broader than just printing a document, I know that, but on the other hand, I think work on such a middleware approach will really accelerate UC adoption going forward. So, another dimension I think we ought to consider.

Marty Parker: Okay, well with that thank you all for your contributions. Thank you all who have listened for tuning in, and we will hope to be providing you some more content in the coming weeks.