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IP Convergence

Beat the Rush

7/1/2008

By Joseph C. Panettieri

Worried that peer schools will get the jump on your communications edge? Take your time and get unified communications right.

Beat the Rush DESPITE THE HYPE, IP CONVERGENCE doesn't happen overnight. Just ask Robert Juckiewicz, VP of IT at Hofstra University (NY). As this story went to press, Hofstra was "actively assembling the building blocks" for unified communications across its campus. "We've issued a request for proposals for IP telephony solutions and we are currently testing the top contenders' solutions," says Juckiewicz. The ultimate goal: to merge three disparate data, voice, and video networks into one common, converged IP network.

Hofstra isn't alone in its quest-- worldwide spending on unified communications products and services will top $48.7 billion by 2012, up dramatically from $22.6 billion in 2007, according to market research firm In-Stat.

Old Products, New Market?

Still, navigating the IP convergence market isn't easy. Some network equipment makers are taking traditional voice over IP (VoIP) product lines and rebranding them as unified communications offerings. But beware: While closely related, VoIP and UC are not the same. Generally speaking, VoIP equipment allows universities to converge voice communications onto IP networks. This can greatly reduce administration costs and ongoing telecom service expenses. But UC goes much further; it blends VoIP with a range of rich applications that follow users wherever they go. A typical UC system includes the following elements, according to In-Stat analysts: presence; instant messaging; IP telephony; audio conferencing; web conferencing or data collaboration; unified messaging (common message store for voicemail, email, and faxes); mobility; and videoconferencing.

All of the above components need to be accessible through a single client interface or within an embedded application interface, the consultants note. Some prime examples of unified applications include rich customer relationship management (rich CRM), presence, telepresence, mobile video applications, and video surveillance (see "Rich Unified Apps, Defined").

"Clearly, installing call-processing systems that run off open source applications is not advisable."
-- Bob Cagnazzi, BlueWater Communications Group

Yet, no two unified networks are alike, notes Bob Cagnazzi, CEO of BlueWater Communications Group, a technology consulting firm in New York that serves universities in the northeastern US. "University technologists are gung-ho to jump into the world of unified communications," says Cagnazzi. "But they don't always pay as much attention to the business-process integration as they do to the total cost of ownership benefits. UC has a great, welldocumented TCO story, but university CIOs now need to understand how to leverage the platform and the applications to bring real business- or academic-level benefits to their communities."