June 2012

Six Technology Trends that will Change Your Life

“We Accelerate Growth”

What to Prioritize Now and What to Leave for the Future

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Six Technology Trends that will Change Your LifeMarket Insight

Market Insight

The more things change, the more they stay the same - especially, it seems, in enterprisecommunications, where it takes time for trends to mature into deployment. The first quarter of 2011saw several industry events and key vendor announcements, and many revolved around severalcommon themes. While most of these are not new to 2011, they are still top of mind for ITexecutives and the makers of the technology they purchase and deploy. Here's a quick analysis ofwhere the industry currently stands on several key issues.

The Cloud Remains Earthbound

The cloud is still one of the hottest topics of discussion at industry events, and every vendor outthere is offering a "cloud-based service" for its products. However, for most enterprises of any size,the cloud is still a "consideration", not a done deal. The cloud will not solve all your communicationsproblems, and it carries with it its own complexities, including deciding among public clouds andprivate clouds, and multi-tenant and dedicated environments, as well as security, service levelagreement (SLA), and management concerns.

Indeed, those SLA and management issues should not be overlooked, especially by small- and mid-sizeorganizations that may opt for cloud delivery on the promise of hosted solutions that require little or noIT input or support. Conversations with IT executives and support organizations suggest that this is farfrom the reality for many companies, which often discover that extra features do not work as promised,and/or that service levels are not what they need them to be. The hallowed "five 9s" is tough to achieve ina hosted scenario; but, it is no less important today than it has ever been.

Accessing certain commodity communications via the cloud may save companies money andresources (e-mail is the most cited, and probably the best, example of this). However, delivering acomplete and complex set of communications - including presence, conferencing, chat, video, andenterprise social software - via the cloud may not be simpler (chances are, you will still have to jugglemultiple supplier relationships), and it may not even be more cost effective. The one big driver forthe cloud is mobility, which requires support for multiple devices and operating systems.

The biggest barrier to cloud adoption is that not enough has changed to make the practice a game changer.Changes in communications infrastructure have made it easier and more cost effective for enterprisecommunications providers to offer cloud services, allowing them to scale the business (and thus beprofitable) in a way that was harder to do before the session initiation protocol (SIP); however, that doesnot mean much to end users, who are still paying more, in the long run, for software as a service, and whomust still manage the service provider relationship (sometimes many of them).

Which isn't to say cloud services don't have their place - they do. They always have. Companies thatare ready to rethink enterprise communications should give them a good look. Companies alsoshould consider private clouds as a way to better deliver enterprise services to a dispersedemployee population. However, cloud is not likely to replace the private branch exchange (PBX)anytime soon.

Call to Action - Deploy cloud-based communications strategically, based on user need, IT staffing,and geographic locations. Look for ways to integrate cloud-based systems with premises-basedapplications and infrastructure to create a unified hybrid design. And definitely look into privateclouds and virtualization, for delivering IT services to your own end users in the most effective way.

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Six Technology Trends that will Change Your LifeMarket Insight

Video will Succeed with Many Use Cases, but it will not Replace Voice

Videoconferencing has come and gone so many times in the past 30 years; it is almost a cliché.However, this year, the noise around the technology seems even louder, especially when it comes todesktop systems - those PC-based applications that let anyone participate in a videoconference,without the need for pricey room-based systems.

This is a shift from years past, when first high definition (HD), and then telepresence, were all therage in the industry. Interestingly, those have very different use cases from desktopvideoconferencing. HD revolutionized the industry by delivering a quality that is good enough toactually use it; telepresence lets companies forgo travel for highly paid and extremely busyexecutives, replacing strategic in-person meetings with virtual ones.

Desktop video offers the opposite - a lower-quality visual and audio experience, in exchange for easeof use and ubiquitous availability. Desktop video generally enters the enterprise in one of these twoways - as part of a Web conferencing experience (users are increasingly asking for both videostreaming and videoconferencing within Web collaboration services and applications), and as part ofa broader unified communications deployment (where it is more often pushed, or at least included,by the vendor rather than the end users or IT buyers asking for it).

Despite Cisco's stated belief that "video is the new voice," employees will not start automaticallyplacing video calls instead of audio calls every time they need to talk to someone. For one thing, theinfrastructure is not there -and it will not be for several more years in most organizations. Onlydesktop video makes sense in Cisco's scenario, and most companies cannot support all theiremployees on video calls 24/7.

However, it is also important to keep usage trends in mind. Video is a high-bandwidthcommunications tool in more ways than one - it requires constant attention from participants, as wellas a high level of engagement. Those are often cited as benefits of its use, and they are; meetings arecertainly more effective when everyone can see and be seen by everyone else - participants pay muchbetter attention, and things get done faster. However, for one-on-one conversations, the move tovideo does not really make sense. People have spent the last ten years moving away from high-touchmedia (which is why texting has replaced audio calls). It is unlikely that they will suddenly startratcheting up their involvement now.

It is also important to distinguish between video streaming and videoconferencing. People often talkabout the YouTube effect, or the fact that their kids constantly send video clips of themselves to theirfriends, the point being that they will logically want to do this when they enter the work place. Butthose are video streams; kids and YouTube visitors are not actually communicating in real time viavideo, and that is a very important distinction. It seems unlikely such users will shoot video ofthemselves (working? playing? making silly faces?) and then send it to their colleagues on acontinuous basis; but, even if they do, that is a different application from videoconferencing.

Call to Action - Videoconferencing can be a boon to organizations with many remote or home-based workers, or with global operations that result in senior executives - and key partners andcustomers - being located around the world. But, choose your endpoints with care. It might makegood sense to deploy a few telepresence rooms at headquarters locations in various regions, and togive upper management ready access to conference-room and even executive desktop systems.

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Six Technology Trends that will Change Your LifeMarket Insight

However, most employees - including remote ones - will be fine using videoconferencing as part ofan audio or Web conference. They certainly do not need to turn every call into a visual experience.

Mobile is Here and it is Changing Everything

As more employees are becoming more mobile every day, they are relying on their smartphones andtablets to communicate and collaborate. IT departments must figure out how to support these users, whichis a relatively new phenomenon. In the past, they only had to concern themselves with true roadwarriors - sales people, executives, and service personnel - and outfit them with the tools they needed(typically a cell phone, and either a laptop or industry-/job-specific device) to do their work from the road.However, today's mobile employees are different - they may not travel routinely for work, but they areworking routinely from home, on their commute, evenings and weekends, and so on.

This new breed of mobile worker needs technology to stay productive - but he needs technologythat supports knowledge workers, which means tools that enable communication, collaboration, andproductivity. This will certainly include a smartphone, and increasingly it may also include a tablet, sothat new mobile workers can participate in Web and video conferences, as well as mark updocuments and collaborate on (if not wholly create) work product.

To that end, companies have several options as follows:

Provide (i.e. buy) one standard device in each category (smartphone, tablet) for a growing numberof employees. This lets the business own the hardware and software and maintain security andcontrol over identity, applications, and network traffic - as well as what happens to access and datawhen the employee leaves the organization. The downside, of course, is that it will significantlyincrease the IT budget, and it limits choice for employees.

Ask employees to use their personal tools for business, but officially support one or more deviceswith business applications. This keeps the budget in check, and it gives IT nominal control over thebusiness applications employees' use on their mobile devices. However, it forces users to jugglemultiple "identities" on a single device, and it does not give the company true security, as employeescan download any applications they like on a smartphone or a tablet that they own. It also does notensure that contact info stays with the business when the employee leaves.

Do not purchase or support mobile devices for the majority of employees. This keeps IT out of themobility game, and it is the least expensive option - in the short run. In the long run, it could provecostly indeed, as employees either hack their devices to run enterprise apps under the radar, orfollow the company's policy lead and do not attempt to work from anywhere but their office PC.

Deciding on a mobile policy will be one of the biggest budget and technology-support challenges forcompanies in the years to come, and it will involve business decisions as much as technology ones.

Call to Action - If you have not already, it's time to rethink your mobile policy. That meansreassessing who you consider to be mobile workers among your employees, and making sure yousupport the devices they are on. It also means being willing to spend more on mobile plans anddevices in order to maintain security and control over communications.

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Six Technology Trends that will Change Your LifeMarket Insight

Interoperability is still the Holy Grail

IT managers continue to clamor for standards that enable interoperability among enterprisecommunications endpoints, networks, and applications. That is hardly surprising; the whole point ofcommunications tools is to communicate. The public switched telephone network (PSTN) and e-mailwork like this - callers and senders do not need to worry about who the other person's carrier is,or what kind of phone or e-mail system they use (let alone what operating system they are on).Neither does the IT department.

Likewise, users should be able to see their contacts' presence information, and chat or conference withthem, regardless of what client they use for those modes of communication. Technically speaking, this is abit more challenging than the PSTN (which was created under a monopoly) and e-mail (SIP is a tougherprotocol to standardize for advanced uses). However, the real issue has been a business model that seemsstuck on proprietary design. Vendors say they are working to change that - but they have been saying thatfor years. At some point, one hopes, they will make good on the promise.

There is a difference between interoperability and integration as well. Middleware has served theapplications industry well, and it makes sense for use in the software-based communications markettoo. Middleware is a great tool for integration - getting your conferencing, voice, and presencesystems into your productivity and back-office applications - and it is likely to shape the way in whichthat market will develop over the next several years. But it is not a solution for interoperability,which is about getting one communications tool to talk to another.

Call to Action - Industry standards will not change unless paying customers demand it, so keep upthe drumbeat with your vendors and insist they make interoperability happen. In the meantime,consider working with a managed and/or professional services provider to ensure yourcommunications applications work with those from other vendors, as well as a variety of endpointsand back-office, productivity, and vertical-market software.

The Consumerization of IT

This was a particularly hot topic at Enterprise Connect this year, as everyone seemed fixated on theidea that IT departments are struggling to control masses of technology as it is introduced into theworkplace by wayward employees. In fact, there are three main areas where employees are likely touse so-called "consumer" technology at work. These are as follows:

Smartphones and, to a lesser extent, tablets - As employees use their personal iPhones and iPads forbusiness, IT needs to pay attention (see the mobility discussion above).

Skype and other consumer communications services - Many employees are using Skype forinternational calling and, increasingly, videoconferencing. This can save a company money, but it alsoleads to security and governance risks. Companies that look at this as a cheap way to get advancedcommunications should consider an enterprise voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) implementation(hosted or premises-based) and look at ways to extend secure, reliable videoconferencing to theiremployees who need it. That said, SMBs may want to look at Skype for Business to deliver theservices they are used to, along with the SLAs and security measures that they need.

Social media - As employees take advantage of Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites to buildstronger relationships and share and see information, they are opening the organization to a whole

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new world of collaboration. Organizations should set policies and procedures around the use ofconsumer services, and they should also consider how and where enterprise social software couldimprove business processes and collaboration.

One other area of interest around the notion of "consumerization" involves applications.Smartphones and tablets are popular as much for their apps as for anything else, and many vendorsare wondering how they can build apps for their enterprise devices - and whether they should. Theconsumer market does not translate well here, as it has the benefit of scale - many thousands ofpeople are writing many thousands of apps, and they are perfectly content to hope they stick - theinvestment of time and money is minimal. Furthermore, many popular apps are free. Neither modelworks in the business arena. Also, other popular apps can be priced very low (making it easy forpeople to try them) and still make money for their creators, as millions of people use them. That,too, does not translate into the business world. So, vendors and IT developers will need to figure outjust how much time and money they are willing to spend on apps that may never be used, and forwhich they can charge very little - if at all.

Call to Action - Develop clear policies for the use of personal hardware and software within theenterprise. These will vary according to your business/industry, and by job role and specific use case.For instance, you may allow knowledge workers to use Skype when traveling abroad, but not formeetings that cover confidential information (as they cannot be secured). Or, you might allowemployees to use a smartphone of their choice for phone calls, but not to access corporate e-mail.

Social Media - Customer Service Trumps Collaboration

In our Frost & Sullivan's most recent survey of 200 C-level executives in North America, almost halfof the respondents say social media is used within the organization, and 41 percent use thetechnology personally.

Respondents were very clear on why social media is valuable: "improving customer service," which24 percent of CXOs listed as the top reason for using the technology, followed by "improvingcollaboration and productivity across geographically dispersed teams" (20 percent), and "enhancingemployee mobility" (10 percent). Of those who intend to expand their use of enterprise socialsoftware, the vast majority expect it to improve customer service; others hope it will acceleratedecision making and support corporate environmental goals.

FIGURE 1-1Six Technology Trends that will Change Your Life: Impact of the Six Technology Trends (World), 2011-2017

Indeed, using social media sites like Twitter and Facebook to interact with customers is gaining inpopularity and value, as more companies are figuring out how to do it. Some vendors have evendeveloped data mining software to help contact center and line of business managers assess andanalyze data from their social media interactions, and then act upon that information.

However, a few organizations have figured out how to use social media as part of enterprisecollaboration - to encourage and enable employees to work better and more productively with oneanother, and with outside business partners. Vendors are not helping them much, but they could:developing clear use cases and return on investment calculations for enterprise collaboration (usingenterprise social software, rather than consumer services) is what is required to move social mediafrom the contact center to the broader business arena.

Call to Action - Start by using consumer social networking for outbound customer interactions.Assign, at least, one person to monitor tweets for mention of your company and to update aFacebook page for your organization. Then, look at enterprise social software as a way to help youremployees stay connected across virtual and real-world boundaries, and to locate the information,skills, and expertise they need.

Timing Your Strategic Response

A timely response to key market trends is critical. However, resources are always scarce, so you need toprioritize your response strategies based on the anticipated trend impact over the years. Some trends, suchas cloud computing, are more mature, but they will have a medium impact on the market, as some usersavoid cloud architectures for security, control, or other reasons. Mobility, on the other hand, is likely to havea very strong impact throughout the entire period, as mobile devices become increasingly pervasive. Yetother trends such as social media and the consumerization of IT are only now beginning to impact businessIT strategies, but they will become more powerful factors in the future.

Figure 1-1 shows the impact of six technology trends globally from 2011 to 2017.

To stay competitive, you need to develop strategies that take all factors into consideration. Be sureto assess industry trends, as they relate to each other - for example, a cloud computing design mayhelp more easily resolve your mobility challenges, but increasing support for consumer devices andapplications may exacerbate your interoperability challenges. For greater success, prioritize based onuser and organizational needs, resource availability, and timing of impact.

About Frost & SullivanFrost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, enables clients to accelerate growth and achievebest-in-class positions in growth, innovation and leadership. The company's Growth Partnership Serviceprovides the CEO and the CEO's Growth Team with disciplined research and best-practice models todrive the generation, evaluation, and implementation of powerful growth strategies. Frost & Sullivanleverages 50 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses andthe investment community from over 40 offices on six continents. To join our Growth Partnership,please visit http://www.frost.com.

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This paper is produced by Frost & Sullivan on behalf of Allstream.