Have we moved on from the idea of “Unified Communications” to “Optimized Real-Time Communications?” There’s a lot of chatter going on about the death of “UC” and the rise of “RTC” for businesses, and the notion that the desktop phone and PBX as we knew them are being systematically, if slowly, decommissioned in favor of the more sophisticated mobile devices now available. But it’s not just the devices, it’s the applications including security applications, and the movement toward embedding RTC into everyday workflow and platforms, including CRM.

We are experiencing a tremendous response to one of our most unique offerings, which makes it possible for our partners to serve customers with Nortel investments by keeping their networks – and phones – in place by providing a centralized session management platform connecting multiple branch offices.

I’m blogging this week from the beautiful landscape in Utah where GENBAND is sponsoring the Air Force Association golf tournament at Hill Air Force Base. Utah is truly heaven on earth. With such rich scenery, it’s truly captured in its slogan:  Life Elevated!  

WebRTC is already having a profound impact in many different vertical industries – especially healthcare. In fact, many visionaries in the healthcare industry believe this disruptive technology will literally change everything for millions of people and positively impact the economics of healthcare delivery.  The benefits, which include accessibility, affordability and reliability, are endless, especially when you compare it to traditional “Telemedicine” technology.

Forget everything you thought you knew about “convergence” and “unified communications”. An entirely new and exciting world is opening up as three big trends intersect in support of a new level of demands from next-generation business users.

Every couple of decades or so, the telecommunications industry goes through a technology transition – analog to digital, for example – that profoundly impacts the way services are created and delivered, as well as the business models behind them. The ongoing and steady distillation of communications functions and features into pure software, which can be executed on generic and elastic hardware resources, is one of those industry-altering transitions.

In just a few short years, the communications industry has been turned on its head. While traditional telecom operators often defined the manner in which subscribers would communicate – voice or SMS, for the most part – end users are now much more influential in calling the shots.

In the post-Supercomm world, tradeshows in North America have become focused on specific technology areas, rather than diffused across multiple segments of the industry. The WebRTC Conference & Expo in Atlanta, conducted at the end of June, was no exception. It’s hard to think of a hotter topic careening through the corridors of the communications industry these days than the rise of browser-based unified-communications.

Despite the widespread use in the past decade of IP-based communications systems known as IP PBXs, the TDM pipes that connect those enterprise platforms to the public network have only slowly been replaced by IP connections. For multiple reasons, the most prominent being the desire of some network operators to preserve a fairly hefty cash cow of TDM T1s, E1s and PRIs, this IP-based connectivity service – commonly referred to as SIP Trunking – is only now hitting its groove.

The excitement surrounding WebRTC continues to grow unabated. Innovation abounds and every day I am bombarded on the Twittersphere (in addition to multiple LinkedIn groups, RSS blog feeds and frequent webinars) with another product announcement or a new and interesting demonstration of the technology.   I am encouraged that so many share our opinion that WebRTC is a truly disruptive force.