Unified Communications: Then, Now, and the Future

As the Unified Communications (UC) market continues to grow and evolve it’s hard to even think about a time when we communicated in a completely “un-unified” manner. A time when business phones were supported by local phone companies, and if you didn’t want to pick up a phone, e-mail was the “go-to” mode of communication. There was never an umbrella application that brought instant messaging (IM) and web conferencing together; and what was presence? Now employees are communicating more collaboratively and faster than ever before.  You could just take my word for it, but let’s talk facts:

Two years ago Webtorials, an independent editorial and analyst firm, released a report on the state of the UC, Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), and Session Border Controllers (SBCs) landscape. This year they mirrored the same survey, offering a unique comparison on how the explosion of SIP trunking has influenced the adoption of UC and SBCs, and how companies are getting the most UC for their money.

It is clear that companies are taking note, that the evolution of UC from voice and video, to the incorporation of real-time collaboration tools, IM, and social networking functions such as user profiles, are enabling employees to work quicker and more collaboratively than ever before. Nearly three out of four companies surveyed have either partially or fully implemented UC platforms. It appears, with these numbers, that the UC market is maturing nicely, but the way that it is growing is significantly changing.

What’s driving the change in UC? The explosion of SIP. SIP has long been billed as the future of communications, serving as the foundation for running VoIP networks and unifying communications. It’s no secret that the business benefits of SIP have been top of mind for quite some time, however, the reason we’re seeing this burst of adoption can be attributed to the breadth of services SIP enables. From 2012, we’ve seen incredible growth in SIP-enabled collaboration functions, with 131% increase in web conferencing and 123% increase in document sharing. Clearly companies are saving time and money, allowing their employees to work together, even when they aren’t trapped within office walls.

While SIP continues to explode, it is imperative that we recognize it for what it is: a protocol. When dealing with SIP we urge IT managers to look into deploying an SBC to pull their network together, and it seems like they’re listening. The number of respondents who are extremely familiar with an SBC grew by 84%, highlighting the main reasons for deploying an SBC as: securing endpoints and mobile devices, network protection against malware/attacks, ensuring high quality of services, and efficiently integrating business process and applications with UC.

While we could go even further into the uncovering’s from this report, it seems that there are a few clear takeaways. One. The UC landscape continues to evolve every day.  Two. The explosion of SIP has enabled business to deliver UC collaboration tools that not only save time, but money as well. Three. As SIP usage rapidly expands, the requirements and benefits of deploying SBCs for real-time communications also grows.

For the full Webtorials Report, “2014-2015 Unified Communications, SIP and SBC Plans and Priorities,” click here.