While the weather did not cooperate by being both sunny and warm in Miami, IT EXPO delivered. I attended several sessions, presented for an hour and participated in a panel that mostly discussed issues and the future of WebRTC. The attendance at the mini-conferences on M2M, Unified Communications and WebRTC was above expectations. There were few empty seats.

My focus was on UC, so while I learned a bit about M2M and WebRTC, I do not feel qualified to go into depth on those technologies and product areas – with one exception. The discussion surrounding WebRTC (Real-Time Communications) seemed to involve a technology looking for a killer application, and I believe that to be true. Right now, companies are involved in resolving the standard and developing initial use cases. The one thing we all agreed upon was that WebRTC was not going to replace the traditional phone, or even communications via today’s smartphones and mobile devices. However, since WebRTC is meant for a communications-rich environment including voice, images and video, it will eventually become the go-to technology for something. Early thoughts are in support of Contact Centers, which I also support, followed by healthcare and gaming.

Because WebRTC is an emerging standard designed to conduct real-time, peer-to-peer voice and video communications through a browser, with no plug-ins necessary, it is attracting a lot of attention. In fact, it was given prominence during the recent Enterprise Connect conference as many enterprise technology participants continue to explore the usefulness for their organizations.

My largest audiences were those interested in UC and the ANPI Hosted UC Private Label Package. I did put together a presentation covering six of the seven reasons to purchase and transition a business to Hosted UC. It was received well. At the conclusion of the presentation, I had both vendors and buyers understanding the financial and business impacts of the primary UC benefits. My objective next week, while attending RTIME (The NTCA Rural Telecom Industry Meeting & EXPO), is to expand upon each of the benefits one at a time. As a reminder, I will be covering:

• Increase Productivity
• Enhance Mobility
• Increase Collaboration
• Attain Business Continuity
• Eliminate/Reduce CAPEX
• Avoid Technological Obsolescence
• Reduce Your Carbon Footprint

See you next week!