IP COMMUNICATIONS Users driving technology in businesses

GEOFF LONG

Universal communications - roughly the amalgam of telephony, messaging, email and presence on a common IP platform - is gaining ground in the business, but it's the users we can thank for its rapid adoption, according to Gary Coman, director of product technology, Cisco Asia Pacific.

"Individuals are having more of an impact on communications and a huge impact on business because they are getting and using the technology outside of the office. Everything is being pulled into the business," he said in an interview last week.

Another signifier of the technology's growing adoption is how many people Cisco can get to attend a seminar on Unified Communications. Last Tuesday around 1000 people packed into the Grand Hyatt in Bangkok to learn more about the technology, with Coman giving the keynote address.

He explained that most technology today is being adopted first by users, who then take it into the organisation. This includes things such as mobile email, instant messaging, and even VoIP. However, the problem for businesses is that it introduces issues around security and compliance.

Many businesses are simply turning a blind eye to popular instant messaging and other tools being used in the office, although some are turning to business-grade versions of the same tools, he noted.

Cisco launched its Unified Communications suite last year. It encompasses a wide range of software and hardware, with Coman nominating the presence server as the most important component. However the take-up is leading to surging demand for its IP phones, he said, pointing out that Cisco was now shipping a million phones per quarter, or around 10,000 every business day.

While Coman noted that many parts of Asia Pacific are well behind Europe and the US in terms of adopting universal communications, he expected that once customers start learning and using the technology then the adoption rate would be faster in this region. He also suggested that it could push the rollout of broadband infrastructure - a critical part of the deployment - with new technologies such as WiMAX to benefit as a result.

Of course Cisco is not the only player in this sector. Nortel has also been generating headlines thanks to its partnership with Microsoft in unified communications. Last year the two companies announced that Nortel would be Microsoft's strategic partner for advanced unified communications solutions and systems integration.

However, Coman claimed that the deal "doesn't imply exclusivity" and suggested that Cisco still had the deepest integration with Microsoft of all the major networking vendors.

He also dismissed suggestions that Cisco and Microsoft were going head-to-head in this market. "Customers don't want us competing, they don't see any advantage in that, although there will be some overlap," he suggested. "They don't control everything and neither do we."

And Coman also told the business community that users would continue to define the technology landscape. For example, he predicted that one of the next major trends would be the use of Web 2.0 and "mash-ups" for business use. "People's expectations of a business change once they get used to things such as mashups," he noted, suggesting that we would see more applications of this over the coming 12 months.