Conferencing Now the Lead UC Application, It Seems

I've been speaking on, and running, panel sessions on unified communications for some time, as have many of my other associates who follow UC. I've noticed a shift early this year: people now are talking a lot more about conferencing, and less about integrating voice, instant messaging,email,  mobile and fixed services. 

What that suggests is that "what is selling" is conferencing. It might, or might not, suggest a certain sluggishness of buyer response to the more-traditional pitches. 

Jill Taylor, product marketing executive for Verizon Business, says  "conferencing is becoming the lead product for UC." That's a switch. 

Verizon Business is one of the first global service providers to integrate audio and Web conferencing services across multiple leading IM services, including IBM Lotus Sametime Unified Communications and Collaboration, Microsoft Office Live Communications Server  2005 and the Cisco Jabber XCP, says Taylor. 

"I don't know that it is the economic climate solely, but it plays there," she says. The idea is to use a presence-based client to escalate into an audio or a net session, making the meeting experience more intuitive, instantaneous and flexible, Taylor says.

Sametime, Lotus, Jabber are supported. Also some additional integration: leader can launch other features such as Web moderator, a call management tool that allows you to visually see who is on a call, record a session as well. Better integration from the desktop. Lots more intuitive. 

The push for Jabber conferencing came from the finance and pharmaceutical communities, which are key Jabber user verticals.

The new tools are available immediately for U.S.-based organizations and are scheduled to be rolled out internationally later this year, along with Verizon audio and net conferencing integration with Microsoft Office Communicator 2007. 

Also, Verizon Business is calling the new features "spontaneous collaboration." The linguistic shift is important. "UC" is a reasonable provider-side description. But it doesn't necessarily resonate with end users. "Spontaneous collaboration" is better. From an end user perspective, it better describes "something I can do."