One of the trends I have been seeing in the market is increased communications integration into Microsoft applications such as Outlook and Internet Explorer. The goal being to allow communications to be initiated while you are in the applications you use most often. Broadsoft has such a toolbar and they have recently upgraded it allowing increased functionality. In addition Broadsoft customers who are generally service providers can allow their customers to customize the toolbar with things like intranet links or a corporate logo.
On a similar note — I recently met up with Brian Ross from Pika Technologies and we were talking about Vonage and Brian explained that if Vonage had a toolbar that allowed call control from the desktop it would make the service that much better. He is right. Integrating communications into our applications is a natural evolution of the communications market.
