"Research released by MDS noted that 75% of IT and telecom decision-makers were actively seeking to move towards a UC infrastructure sometime in the imminent future."[source: CV]
According to an Infoweek survey, "more companies are using Unified Communications than ever before, both premise-based and cloud-based solutions. In fact, the percentage of participants that have a UC solution increased from 38% to 44%, with another 25% planning on deploying a UC solution in the near future." [source]
Two problems with this research: (1) the term UC means nothing, so one person could be thinking Office365 and another is thinking a full blown UC platform from Unify or ININ. And number 2, the survey takers: Infoweek notes, "Respondent breakdown: 31% have 5,000 or more employees; 22% are over 10,000. Education, government, and consulting and business services are well-represented, and 40% are IT director/manager or IT executive management (C-level/VP) level."
I am working on some other projects (mainly content projects but they involve research) and the term Cloud 2.0 came up as way to explain that there is more to the concept of cloud than just slamming some software in a data center. It is more than just having an API so you can check that off the list of requirements.
The next stage of Cloud will be BPI - business process improvement - something we have been striving for a long time.
The first step in BPI is UX = User Experience. It has to be about the user. Easy to use. easy to understand. Almost as intuitive as their smartphone.
The next step will be back office integration (which IDEA2 is working on) where the myriad cloud apps actually work together, talk together and the swivel chair gets put away.
Outcomes, people. Outcomes. It is what we are striving for. Not promises that never quite get there. That is why 70% of software projects fail. That's why when the contract is expiring, customers are interviewing other ITSPs - so they can get the functionality and outcome that they need/want and were promised but you failed to deliver.
Think on that during happy hour today.
