We’ve all heard it said many times that those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. For that reason, even if no other, it pays to know where technology came from and the problems it was designed originally to solve.
But when Network World ran a recent series of posts on the history of Unified Communications and collaboration, we have to admit we were more interested in the series-ending conclusions and perspective on where we are now and where we are going than we were in the evolution. Especially since the author was Larry Hettick, the Current Analysis analyst.
For example, he says the old network design rule of “voice first, data second” was reversed for obvious reasons as traffic evolved, but he suggests that the new rule will be – if it isn’t there already – “video first, data second, voice third.” Further, Hettick says, watch for video calls to replace voice calls as the preferred means for real-time communication.
He also made a couple of other where-we’re-going points, such as continued growth of UC features in premises-based VoIP systems and hosted VoIP services and increasing use of high-definition video communications across all market segments as telepresence solutions become less expensive.
But we were most enthused about his perspective on mobility and fixed mobile convergence. As Hettick wrote, “FMC may represent the biggest opportunity for change in the UC&C (Unified Communications and collaboration) ecosystem because effective FMC integration is increasingly a key to successful UC&C deployment.”
We’ve said many times that mobility is the linchpin of UC. People must be able to connect wherever they are and whenever they want, and be reached no matter where they are, if UC is to live up to its potential. That’s why we offer Sprint Mobile Integration, our FMC solution, to make every mobile employee just as connected, productive, and effective as any of his or her peers back at the office.
And this gives us the opportunity to point once again to McGuire’s Law, the dictum put forth by Russ McGuire, which says that the value of any product, service, or process increases with its mobility. We always jump at any chance we can to cite McGuire’s Law, since it makes a powerfully effective point so concisely.
