A Sampling of "Communications-Enabled Business Processes"

Lots of attention has been given over the last decade or so to the notion of "communications enabled business processes," the integration of various IP telephony features directly into line of business and other enterprise applications.

Some such applications developed in 2010 as part of the BroadSoft "Xtended Incubator Program" include the "InGenius Connector for Salesforce," an application that enables enterprise users to search, dial and view incoming callers when using Salesforce.com.

The "Mobiso Speech Assistant" is a speech enabled dialer. "RemoteOffice for iPhone" allows a user to leverage their mobile phone as an extension of their enterprise phone system.

"Mondago's Go Integrator" provides BroadSoft integration with over a dozen small and medium business personal information manager and customer relationship  packages such as ACT!, GoldMine, Microsoft Access, Lotus Notes, NetSuite, and Sage.

The "FonGenie" web-based IVR service acts as a web-enhanced virtual receptionist and sales representative for small businesses handling all incoming calls.

BroadSoft believes the Xtended Incubator Program enables global service providers to differentiate and more quickly monetize their communications offerings by leveraging BroadSoft's community of 4,500 developers and open APIs.

Forrester Finds Most Enterprises Still Buy Phone Systems, Not Hosted IP Telephony

A recent Forrester Research survey of 567 enterprise and smaller business users that already have adopted IP telephony shows that most buyers so far have chosen premises-based solutions.

Just four percent of respondents say they have adopted a 'hosted' IP telephony service. Another four percent reported they had adopted a 'telephony as a service solution. About five percent said their IP telephony solution was outsourced. Taking all three as a group, just 13 percent of IP telephony solutions were hosted, cloud-based or outsourced.

That might make a great deal of sense. The economics of IP telephony tend to suggest that small users can benefit from hosted or cloud-based solutions, while enterprises often can justify owning their own solutions.

The study lends credence to the cable operator strategy of targeting businesses with 20 or fewer employees, as those are the venues where the economics of buying a service are best, compared to buying a premises-based solution.

About 71 percent said their IP telephony solutions were self maintained, while 16 percent said they owned their solution, but that it also was managed by a third party.

Forrester Finds Most Enterprises Still Buy Phone Systems, Not Hosted IP Telephony - Thoughts on Carrier Evolution - Carrier Evolution

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Voice Apps Beyond Dial Tone: A Discussion

A discussion of custom apps beyond dial tone.

79% Business IP Voice by 2013, In-Stat Forecasts

VoIP penetration among U.S. businesses will increase rapidly over the next few years, reaching 79 percent by 2013, compared to 42 percent at the end of 2009, In-Stat says. This penetration reflects companies having a VoIP solution deployed in at least one location.

 In-Stat now finds that 41 percenrt of businesses with VoIP capability have no legacy TDM voice services, compared to 34 percent in 2008. About 42 percent of US businesses now have a VoIP solution in at least one location, In-Stat says.

Hosted IP services such as IP Centrex also saw steady growth in 2009, while IP PBX growth was significantly stunted.

While there are indications that the economy and high-tech investments are in slow recovery, IP equipment investments are likely to lag other areas, In-Stat says.

VoIP adopters now have a good understanding of the cost savings associated with VoIP, and have oriented their limited budgets to optimizing efficiency and savings by replacing legacy TDM voice solutions, says David Lemelin, In-Stat analyst.

With businesses opening up fewer new locations than we have seen in recent years, much of this current investment is occurring at headquarters locations where efficiencies and savings can be maximized.

Hosted IP Centrex has now surpassed broadband IP telephony as the leading revenue-generating, carrier-based business VoIP solution. In other words, business IP telephony now generates more revenue than other forms of business VoIP, In-Stat says.

Still, 33 percent of businesses that have already deployed VoIP solutions report that recent economic conditions have caused them to slow additional deployment plans, compared to 30 percent reporting no change in plans.

Broadband IP Telephony revenues continue to grow and will more than double by 2013, compared to 2008, driven by single-user applications among increasingly distributed and mobile workforces.

Comcast To Buy New Global Telecom

Comcast Corp. apparently has agreed to purchase New Global Telecom Inc., according to XChange. The deal should reemphasize the growing role cable operators expect to play in the business IP communications space, beginning with the small business segment.

Based in Golden, Colo., New Global Telecom provides wholesale services to carriers and competitive service providers in the U.S. The company has recently announced a series of private-label deals, under which NGT supplies branded VoIP services to operators like American Broadband Inc.

Voice as a "Spice"

Consultant Thomas Howe describes the way voice can work in a new context by calling it the equivalent of "spice." In other words, it might often be the case that, within the context of an enterprise application, voice is a feature used to enhance a process, rather than a stand-alone function or application.

In that sense, click-to-call is an example. Most people would agree that is the case. What remains unclear, at least for service providers who will continue to make signficant revenue selling voice as a stand-alone service, is whether "spice" is a business for them, or not. In some cases, it will be; but in other cases it will not.

To the extent that spice can be an interesting revenue stream for service providers is whether they can figure out ways to combine traditional calling functions with enteprise application features that integrate "calling" with information relevant to the call, that is valuable to the enterprise and is worth paying for, from the corporation’s point of view.

Monetizing such "hard to replicate" data by combining it with voice is where telcos have a great opportunity to grow, says Howe. There are many areas where only telcos can deliver voice and have the information that will add value to the call, such as authentication, location, even availability.

The issue is that many other providers in the business ecosystem also have the ability to integrate such functions in new ways. Google and Apple, for example, may well be able to leverage "location" information without needing the assistance or permission of the service provider.

Still, it should be possible to create services that confirm a person is home to receive a delivery, or to assist in scheduling at-home or at-office appointments.

Identity authentication, more than simply location or "phone number" identity, might be useful for transactions as well.