UCaaS - It's Not Your Grandfather's Centrex

Back in 2003, I wrote a client-sponsored piece called, "Hosted Services-It's Not Your Father's Centrex," that was published in the ACUTA Journal of Communications Technology in Higher Education, Winter 2003 issue. For some reason, it was one of the few available analyses of the trade-offs between premises and hosted VoIP alternatives and I received inquiries about it for years (as late as 2011) from everywhere from Australia to Africa.

Well here we are about 10 years later, and we are seeing what appears to be a non-stop stream of contemporary market offerings of cloud-based Unified Communications as a Service or UCaaS and the requisite commentary about it by the usual suspects. Is this the next generation of "Centrex?" Or is it a case of "back to the future?" Could be, and with the cloud-driven re-emphasis of centralized computing and hosted services, there are likely plenty of vaguely familiar as well as innovative communications possibilities ahead.

One of the more interesting observations to me was that by Zeus Kerravala at the recent Enterprise Connect 2012. He said that "the focus of the cloud value proposition should be about doing things you can't do with premise-based communications," and he was disappointed that none of the folks on his panel brought up the point that cloud communications is a better solution for consumerization or "bring your own device." I don't see why a premises-based solution should have a presumed edge in advance over a cloud-based solution; whatever is faster, better, cheaper or otherwise fits the client's needs and values should prevail. On the other hand, the notion that the cloud alternative is closer to the BYOD reality of today's communications environment than the premises-focused model is very true and particularly insightful. The previous PBX (or if you will, voice server) centric model of enterprise communications is being replaced by telephony, messaging, web access and other comm services being delivered to the ever-ubiquitous and increasingly more powerful smart phone or tablet. To me, it is "integrated personal communications" that fits well with cloud/hosted delivery methods. Sure an enterprise could fund it, build it and operate it, but why?

In addition to the notion that cloud services are a closer match to evolving BYOD mobility concepts, there are other items that warrant consideration of cloud-based UCaaS vs. premise alternatives. For example, there is likely more flexibility in choosing what UC elements to trial or test without the commitments needed in the premises approach. Further, there are a wide variety of potential UC server platforms that can be assessed by a user organization via cloud-based trials from more traditional IP-PBXs to Microsoft Lync to whatever. The cloud approach should lessen if not eliminate the need for vendor-specific proprietary endpoints, i.e., it ought to drive real or de facto standards. Finally it should be noted that hosted VoIP, UC or other related services never really went away, but it is clearly being kick-started now with the significant attention to the "cloud."

Is this the next stage of Centrex? Not exactly, but as a one-time "Bellhead," the idea of anything "Centrex" is a good thing and besides it might shift the emphasis from "what is UC?" and "what is wrong with UC?" to "let's deliver something."