I know that many are saying that the phone is dead, at least the desktop and landline phone.  If that is the case then why is the mobile world so utterly controlled by the phone?  First people were going crazy to get their hands on the iPhone 4, now many are incensed to find that it has a flaw.  Nobody seems to care much about the revelation that every single iPhone ever shipped has been exaggerating the signal strength of the carrier, AT&T.  No, it is all about the phone.  It is all about the user interface and the user experience.  I understand.  I feel the same way.

When my Nexus One was not perfect and needed to be repaired because of a hardware issue, I had the option of returning it.  Although having calls dropped and having slow data speed was frustrating, I finally decided to just get it fixed.  Just like the Apple iPhone users, I was too enamored with the phone to give it up.  Now that it has the Android 2.2 software on it, the phone is better.  Sure, there is still a dropped call from time to time, but the user interface is great and the data speeds are fast.  Even as the Nexus One is discontinued, CNET tests show that the Nexus One on T-Mobile has data speeds equal or superior to the newer phones.  Whoopi Goldberg was so disgusted with her iPhone 4, she ran over it with her car, but then she went and bought an Apple 3G instead of going to a competitor. The similarity between the Android and Apple infatuation is the great application suites that come with these phones.  From the stunning displays, to the audio/optical communications tools to the immediate access to information, there is much to like.

Gartner recently said that smartphone sales were up almost 50% year over year. And the latest information from ChangeWave Research shows that the next ninety days will have the most explosive growth in smart phones ever with Apple and HTC (Android) leading the way.  However, Research in Motion, the BlackBerry maker favored by most businesses will see its’ market share erode further.  Why are phones that businesses favor in a funk while consumer phones are in such demand that there are now four week backlogs for all the favorites?  The user interface, the phone itself is driving demand and driving change.  E-mail delivery and simple conversations are not enough anymore.  We want pictures, video, social media and immediate access to information.

Businesses will be adapting to this changing landscape on mobility and on the desktop.  Productivity in the workplace will accelerate when the devices employees use in business match that of the devices used in people’s personal lives.  The business telephone and video manufacturers are providing easy to use high value applications for their user interfaces be they computers, netbooks, display phones or video portals.  The future is bright for the companies that decide that the phone (user interface) is everything.  The businesses involved in bringing these “smart” business communications devices to market will grow quickly and sooner than many predict.  And the improved productivity will help businesses grow faster as well, just like the digital revolution did in the nineties.  The phone may morph into many different types of devices, but the future of the phone is as bright as the new displays on the smartphones.

I had the pleasure of attending CCNG’s meeting at the Governor’s Office of Customer Service last week in Atlanta and it made me think of all the parameters surrounding the cloud-based contact centers.  But before I get to those thoughts, I have to say that I was also struck by how well run the GOCS contact center is.  The caller experience has been transformed from a frustrating maze of calls to different acronym agencies to one where callers are funneled to a frontend group of agents that have the tools to direct callers to the proper destination with handoff.  I was also impressed by the camaraderie and the leadership of the contact center.  This is truly an example of a well run government agency improving the lives of the citizens they serve.

So the first order of business in any contact center is how well the center is run, from the proper routing of calls to the tools the agents have at their disposal to the attitude of the agents and the desired outcome of the entity involved.  So is cloud-based contact center technology better or worse in achieving these goals?  There is no simple answer, but here are some thoughts to digest.

Your contact center must above all be reliable.  The network you use is key and failover provisions whether cloud or premise based must be airtight.  The redundancy and reliability of the equipment utilized is extremely important, more so for cloud-based contact centers routing to a facility.  And make no mistake, there are certain manufacturers of contact center equipment that are much more reliable than others.

You need access to a variety of tools to allow for changing needs and better analytics.  For example, how easy is it for you to add or subtract agents?  For many cloud-based services this is an advantage.  Are there a variety of tools available for you to use when you need them at a reasonable cost?  This will vary between the cloud-based services, but for premise equipment you can do just about anything if you have the money to devote to it.  How well will the analytic tools work for you?  Typically premise-based equipment will give you a tighter integration.  But of course pricing for these tools has to be factored in.  Since cloud-based tools are typically less expensive per agent, there is a trade off for the tighter integration that premise-based tools give you.

And how much time must be spent in programming the contact center and its tools?  Logically, the cloud-based call contact center will save you time, but that depends on the cloud-based vendor and the availability of the resources they have.  Just as with premise-based equipment, if you go ultra cheap, at some point you are going to find out why it was ultra cheap.  Conversely, just because you pay the extra bucks for what you think is greater reliability or versatility, you may get more headaches and more cost at the same time.  That is why an unbiased consultative approach to new contact center technology and upgrades is vital to making the best decision for any organization.

In the ever changing world of technology and economics, vendors, whether cloud-based or premise-based are a lot like sports teams.  Some years a team outperforms and is a great bet and some years they end up in last place disappointing everyone.  That is why picking the right vendors and technology is both an art and a science.

Cisco has just announced in their words an “immersive, multi-screen interoperability between Cisco and Tandberg TelePresence systems, and other third-party systems, by integrating Cisco’s Telepresence Interoperability Protocol (TIP) on the newly acquired Tandberg TelePresence Server.  The solution helps enable multi-screen, HD video collaboration between all major telepresence vendors.”  Basically, the Tandberg blade will serve as a gateway device to help Cisco telepresence systems communicate with H264, SIP and H323 devices such as LifeSize.  Plus Cisco and Tandberg products will work together seamlessly.  The bridging of multi-screen offerings will allow more and more businesses to communicate with one another.  This is a quick Cisco Tandberg integration and shows that Cisco is leveraging Tandberg’s technology strengths.  It bodes well for greater future interoperability for video conferencing and a future when everyone can talk to and see each other.

I spoke with Mike Baird, senior director at Cisco Tandberg about the announcement and specifically about the juxtaposition of UCIF and TIP.  Mike said that Cisco would monitor the progress of UCIF and adoption rates of each protocol before making any decisions.  Since there have been no specifics announced by the UCIF, there is really nothing to go on at this point.  John Chambers is certainly investing heavily in the video space and my feeling is that there will be greater and greater interoperability to drive demand both in the enterprise and with consumers.  As today’s press release states, “Today’s product announcements support an end-to-end video collaboration architecture that includes endpoints, infrastructure and cloud-based solutions.”

Cisco is announcing a number of other initiatives as well.  The Cisco TelePresence Commercial Express is a new small to medium business play that combines three infrastructure components – Cisco TelePresence Manager, Cisco TelePresence Multipoint Switch, and the Cisco TelePresence Recording Studio – onto one server using VMware.  The product will deliver the hardware and software (specifically the VMware) to make it easier for smaller companies to adopt advanced Telepresence solutions.  The SMB market is definitely the next frontier with lots of dollars at stake.  The productivity enhancements of video collaboration will be too big for the SMB market to ignore and Cisco seems well positioned to compete with the smaller and more nimble competitors.

Other announcements include Movi™  for Mac™ and enhancements to the MoviPC which will deliver far end camera control, ClearPath, Multiway and ICE protocol support.  ClearPath is an exciting technology.  That improves video quality by minimizing the effect of packet loss on networks not originally designed for video. ClearPath will be implemented across the broader Cisco portfolio.  Mike Baird said that it would work in an environment with up to 10% packet loss.  This could bring a lot more users into the mix. Could we see the beginnings of a B2C push at Cisco?

New software releases for the MSE 8710 TelePresence Server blade and the MSE 8510 Media2 blade are also being announced.  This will triple the capacity of the MSE 8000 to provide individual multipoint conferences; up to 48 screens in a multi-screen telepresence call with continuous presence (MSE 8710) and up to 60 screens in a single-screen multipoint call with continuous presence (MSE 8510 Media2).  What a great way to bring everyone into the conversation.

Although we are still a long way from ubiquitous video conference interoperability (when anyone can make a video call to anyone else), at least we are now moving quickly toward it.  The Cisco Tandberg announcements will provide positive impacts not only for their customers, but for everyone that invests in video technology.  Video will indeed be the most important enterprise technology for the next decade and beyond.  After all, phones, even smart ones, are radio and telepresence systems are HDTV.  No one has a big radio in their living room and soon interactive video will be everywhere.

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John Stepp: Vidtel claims to be the first open videoconferencing network to allow HD videoconferencing between disparate networks. Which systems can you connect today?

Scott Wharton: We can connect to almost all the main standards based high-definition systems. Those include Polycom, Tandberg, LifeSize, Sony, and CounterPath on the soft client side. We are adding more every day that support largely the SIP standard.

JS: My recent blog post advocated the necessity of videoconference providers to include Skype connectivity to foster B2C videoconferencing. This to me is the key to growing their business and truly helping enterprises to communicate with their customers. What are your plans to connect Skype users to the Enterprise and how might it work?

SW: We definitely agree with that. When we look at the videoconferencing market we see a lot of islands for people doing HD conferencing. Part of the challenge is that people sometimes on the other island are able to talk to each other but more often than not as you know, people don’t have high definition video. I think the ability to easily bring in someone else and use a client like Skype that is on everyone’s desktop is a great idea. So part of what we’re doing at Vidtel is we’re building some technology to allow Skype users to be able to call high definition video users and vice-versa so that you can have a company internally that has lots of people on high definition systems but then anyone else whether they are internal or external should be able to at least call through with the lowest common denominator which is Skype today. And then give people a choice whether they want to use basic connectivity or something higher end. But first and foremost we think that Skype is kind of the de facto standard for anybody being able to make the call on a PC or cell phone and be part of the video discussion.

JS: I read a blog last week from a typically forward thinking telecom/call center manufacturer. The net-net of the article is that video is being forced down customers throats and that it is uncomfortable for people in general. Yet the kids in my sandwich shop texting away on their smart phones consider it easy, second nature and mainstream. How do we bridge the gap?

SW: Well, I think like anything in the technology world, when people get excited about technology there are certain places where you find that it is useful and sometimes people get carried away and they suggest that you can use things everywhere even where it is inappropriate. Part of the way I look at it is that videoconferencing is something that is part of a continuum of the way people communicate. So they communicate text, IM or voice and we get together in person and I think there is a huge gap in the middle where people want to see each other to get more information than they get from voice or text but don’t necessarily want to be encumbered with having to visit someone in person. Now you can’t necessarily share a beer or be able to see family or spend really quality time with people over video all the time. But certainly for a lot of the day to day interactions videoconferencing can be a great solution for almost anyone. So I think kind of the in between is we have to find places that it is appropriate for doing video and it would be in many cases, but not all and not try to push people into situations where they don’t want to use it. I think you and I know that with the younger generation, they are just growing up with videoconferencing and it is something that you always do just like we grew with TV and it is something we always do and maybe your grandparents only thought of radio and TV came later. So part of it will be a generational shift. I think that part of it is making sure that we apply videoconferencing in the right places and not try to force it down people’s throats where it is not appropriate.

JS: Your answer gives me another idea; perhaps beer over videoconferencing might be a market to research. Your answer is also a good lead in for the next question. I see a need to create a DVD on how to feel comfortable in a videoconference environment. I see so much push back on the need for video from people that would have no qualms having a face-to-face meeting or a telephone conversation. How can we make video second nature for everyone?

SW: Well, I think part of it is the quality of the experience. If you look at the adoption for videoconferencing and then some of the studies that were done on how end users rated it. In the early days when the quality was not quite as good, the end users reported that they were tired and that they did not find that it added as much value as was promised. Today because the quality is so much better, it’s a lot easier and a lot more natural for people to have a conversation. So my experience especially in the last couple of years at Vidtel is that the best way to get people used to video is using it and seeing a demonstration of it. I find that in a lot of cases unless people are familiar with what they can get from a quality point of view, they do not know what they are missing. The good news is in the last two years, Skype has changed the question from “why do I need video?’ to Skype is big and they compare everything to Skype. But I think if you compare it to quality as similar to TV, then people would use it more. I think the second thing is maybe some simple tips on etiquette and using videoconferencing. There are some things like etiquette lighting and other things like where to sit with the camera and make sure you are not slamming your hands into the table when you are wearing ring and things like that. But I think a lot of it is similar to etiquette of how you work with people and most of it is just using it and getting the hang of it. I think the combination of those two will really help.

JS: I often get funny comments about my company name Free Tech Consultants. Vidtel is one of those free technologies offering free connectivity for enterprises. There is also a company called Google that has been fairly successful. What is your plan to grow Vidtel into a company that offers some free services while creating profits?

SW: Part of what we are doing, referring to your previous question about getting people to experience video and getting them expertise working with a company like Vidtel, is we are offering free connectivity services for videoconferencing. So if you have a high end device and you want to be able to use it to get through your firewall and call through to people outside your company, we’re offering a free service for you to do that today, both to get that experience and to see how good it can be. And to be able to have people be comfortable with Vidtel, to be able to show we’re a quality company and that we know how to deliver high quality video calls to almost everyone. Part of our strategy is to employ somewhat of a freemium model where we want to have some basic product that’s always free to allow people to test or have very low commitment and then for customers who are using our product more who are really getting value out of it to make money by charging them an appropriate amount of money for using it. But do it in a way that’s less costly than the current solutions and a lot better than some of the free lower quality support solutions offered today. We really see a huge void in the middle where there are a lot of businesses who would pay a reasonable amount of money to get something high quality with support and quite frankly no one is really servicing that market well today. So we’ll use a combination of a free trial service with a paid-for service and we think people will really like it.

JS: What lessons from your successful tenure at BroadSoft are you bringing to Vidtel?

SW: I think one of the first things I learned at BroadSoft, and before that I was with the first voice VOIP company called VocalTec, is that whenever you have new technology a lot of people have trouble envisioning how it will work or how it will be applied or coming up with the best use cases. I think an example is the iPad. Before you actually see something and experience it they’re going to be a lot of naysayers saying “Why do I need that? I’ve got a cell phone and I’ve got a laptop. What’s the need for this thing that’s new?” My experience at VocalTeh, BroadSoft and Vidtel is similar in that you have people who are viewing something new and a lot of people who can’t envision it, so part of what we’re trying to do is a couple things. One is get technology out and into people’s hands so they can experience it for themselves to change their minds. Secondly is try to take some thought leadership in the industry to explain to people if you’re a small to medium business, what could you do with videoconferencing and what would the solution look like and how could you deploy it. Not only providing a service but also providing some ideas and thoughts about what would be appropriate use cases, the right equipment, etc. And sell people on technology choices that go well beyond the scope of Vidtel. So we can break down a lot of the barriers that are not just in the service room but in all the questions that you brought up on etiquette, what device do I use, why do I need it and so on. That way we can make videoconferencing more main stream to the mid market.

JS: What do you make of the recent consolidation in the videoconferencing market?

SW: Well, I think it’s a great validation of the space. If you think about it, it’s been 20 years for the videoconferencing sector slowly growing every year into multi-billion dollar market. I think the fact that these bigger players like Logitech and Cisco have these big bets that does two things. One, they think that these companies see video not as niche markets but as huge main stream markets and that they need to use their sales channels to get video out to a boarder market. I think the second thing that it says is that there’s room for innovation so that these big companies consolidate and offer things that are end to end. I think they also provide some opportunity for people coming in and from different angles to add more value. I think the bottom line is anytime you have multi-billion dollar companies coming in and spending billions of dollars in acquisitions it mean that it’s a real market and that it’s going to get bigger. It’s great news for the industry and good validation that it’s doing what we all think it is going to do which is about to take off.

JS: Can interoperability through the cloud create the environment for true wide spread adoption of videoconferencing in the call center?

SW: I think the key thing in the call center is there is a chicken and the egg problem between someone that’s in the call center with capabilities and the end user themselves. People are focused a lot on providing technology to the call center but not necessarily providing the right experience to the end user. I think one thing the cloud can do is link the consumers in this market in such a way that regardless of what device or system that people are using, they can connect in a standards based way to people in call centers. I’m definitely a big proponent of using video as a customer service tool. I think we all know that when you’re in person or talking to someone with video, you have a much better feeling than when you talk to them on the phone being frustrated. I think one of the things that the cloud provider can do is instead of having people use proprietary systems for every call center, to have something that can be more standards based to link the two of them together.

JS: What impact on customer service do you feel B2C videoconferencing can bring to a company looking for a leg up on their competitors?

SW: Customer service these days can be extremely frustrating. On the end user side, they feel that they are being shuffled off to an IVR or potentially to some other country where the people may not be as skilled. Also, the ability to up sell is improved with video. I think there’s been a lot of market research that shows that when you’re having a real human interaction, not only are you happier on the customer service side in terms of resolving a problem but maybe you are more inclined to do work with a business or buy more things. I think there’s a whole new business where you have distributed customer service. So think about McDonald’s as a drive-thru store where people can come into a place and there may not be the appropriate people to answer a question or maybe people call in sick. You have the ability to supplement that with the some centralized help or call centers so that people can go to McDonald’s and there’s no reason why the call has to go in to that store maybe the call goes into Iowa or India and you actually see the person. You may be able to lessen the mistakes and misunderstandings by simply talking with those people. So I think there’s this whole new market that can be created as well as saving people money, but not forcing you to have a dedicated resource right there in front of somebody.

JS: That’s a good point maybe people would be nicer to their customer service representatives over video, too.

SW: Well it’s vice versa, when you don’t see someone or you’re on the internet doing text or blogging it’s much easier to find someone because it’s anonymous. Whereas I think when you can bring in the human element, whatever the context is, I think people tend to rise up and act a little better when you’re looking someone it the eye. I think videoconferencing can not only make people behave better but also improve the human interactions that we have personally and professionally. The reality is when you’re getting that information from talking to someone, there’s 90% of the information that’s coming that’s visual. When you don’t have that visual interaction, you lose that 90%. If you want to be more effective at communicating in your personal or business life, video is going to be an instrumental tool in order to do that. Just like when we went from the radio age when people said, ”I don’t understand why those young people need moving pictures; I can perfectly envision it being on the radio.” I think the same thing will happen with TV and videoconferencing where people will say, “Well of course you’re going to use video. Why would you do just voice? Why would you just listen to the radio unless you had to?” We’ll laugh about it and our kids will too. I’ll give you an example. We’ve been using videoconferencing since our kids were very young with all of our family around the world. One of my sons who is now six, a couple of years ago tried calling his grandmother with video and she wasn’t there. So I said to him, “Hey, how about we call her cell phone?” He looked at me with a dead pan look and he goes, “Nah, daddy if there’s no video there’s no point.”

JS: Do you see new technologies for video in the consumer space that could make it easier for everyone to communicate via video?

SW: Well, I think one of the things that has been missing, similar to the early days of voice; video is tethered to a fixed device like a laptop or a screen. One thing I’m really excited about is mobile video. I think you’ll see some similar trade-offs though. The video quality won’t quite be as good as the video you have on a fixed device with dedicated systems. But the reality is that if you can move around and be able to make video calls from your cell phone you will be more productive. For example, if you are going shopping and you want to show your wife, “Hey, should I buy this suit?” and she says, “No of course not, idiot, it looks stupid.” I think the ability to take your videoconferencing with you is going to be a huge boon. Probably just like the cell phone, the computers and the smart phones, it will move into the main stream. I think that having mobile video, not from a quality point of view, but from a usage point of view will do the same thing.

JS: What are your suggestions for people and companies in the videoconferencing space to be successful in the future?

SW: Part of it I think there’s still ways too much complexity in rolling out video. The current solutions today for companies assume that you’ve got a large department of people who can figure out all the complexities in rolling out video. I think that works okay for a large enterprise, but if you want to get the system to mainstream it won’t work. I think that there is still an attitude in the videoconferencing market that video is a niche market with very expensive gold plated solutions and big fat margins. I like to see more of a consumer electronics approach where people try to drive this to mass market with lower prices and higher quality. There’s no reason if you look at a video phone for example or a device, it basically is a computer. So there’s no reason why video appliances can’t be as ubiquitous as an iPod. I think that some people do video on their computers, but I think if you really want to make the quality better and the cost reasonable you can have a very low cost appliance that people will buy with a quality trade off. I think the third thing is the interoperability. If I can only call one other person in my company, it’s not very useful. To the extent that I go from making calls within my company to calling anyone in any business, that is going to be the lighter fluid that makes this whole thing take off. So if you can solve the complexity cost and the interop questions, there is no doubt in my mind that ten years from now everybody will have video and everyone will use it. Maybe it’s sooner than that. I think and I hope it will be. I think it’s just a matter of time before the problems get solved and Vidtel is trying to do their part to solve them as well.

The Interop 2010 trade show floor opened Tuesday to a packed crowd flooding in to pick up the latest information on all things IT.  I am not sure if everyone learned what they needed, but at least they got a t-shirt and hat from HP who had a large presence at the Las Vegas show.

My quest for the holy grail of videoconference interoperability was still met with some stiff resistance, but I was glad to hear LifeSize’s insistence that interoperability with Skype video was definitely on their near term product roadmap.   LifeSize currently is working with Skype voice, so their claims are credible.  There is no question that interoperability with Skype video will allow the videoconferencing segment to take off huge, pulling the rest of enterprise communications with it.  How else will B2C video ever take off?    For that matter, how else will B2B get traction and take off like it should?  The most important application for video is to get closer to customers and business partners.

I am sure that once the dam is broken, others will follow.  After all Skype and Avaya are in the same ownership family and it makes sense to create some synergy there.  I believe Avaya is cognizant of that, but it remains to be seen what their video future is.  The Cisco-Tandberg combo looms large as a competitive threat, especially if they lower their costs for individual users and get that human network thing going, which is probably what they will do.  Polycom’s great technology will become more and more valuable if that happens.

A new entrant into the videoconferencing space is Vu Telepresence.   They have a very low cost 720p offering that includes the HDTV and pan tilt zoom camera.  They are selling it for what some companies are selling their low end products for.  Vu Telepresence is also offering the system for 24 or 36 months with a 60 day money back guarantee.  It might not be quite as good as the market leaders, but offers a good low cost alternative for companies wanting to test the videoconferencing waters. However, like most everyone else, they do not seem interested in Skype interoperability.

The videoconferencing market needs to be truly interoperable to make video the number one communications platform.  With price points for great HD video now well within the grasp of enterprise customers, there is no excuse for not taking the plunge.  How do you get customers and business partners to communicate with your videoconferencing system?  Make it free!  Judging from the many videoconference systems gathering dust and cobwebs in offices around the country, do companies really need videoconferencing to talk to each other?  I have a low cost alternative – it’s called a phone.

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We are spending more time online doing all sorts of things from paying bills to managing routing transactions in real time. In some ways, the emergence of social media is the latest crescendo. Facebook was recently named the most innovative application. Google has made search ubiquitous. Windows has made the PC and the Internet pervasive. IVRs, on the other hand, have existed for more than 20 years. Yet even today we are still researching the trends in IVR usage…

IVR usage is different in different age groups:

1.       Older population likes to talk to a “warm body”

2.       Some groups prefer self-service over a telephone

3.       Younger people show a strong preference towards online channels for customer support

Studying further of the underlying trends show that:

1.       A stronger and more converged network creates grounds for stronger applications which in turn attracts a larger user base away from the telephone — that creates a higher demand for bandwidth and the cycle repeats.

2.       In effect, if more people move towards the Internet to resolve issues that they could otherwise have resolved over the phone, why do we need to invest anything more than what we already have into voice infrastructure?

3.       Land line phones are heading towards extinction — as cell phone and smartphone users increase each day.

4.       Not only are people spending more time online, they are doing so in more ways than one — as the lush market for smartphones clearly demonstrates.

Given the trend of development and growth, as web applications mature more, and as businesses drive toward increased cost cutting, and as the older population “ages out,” will the IVR eventually die? And how much time does it have — given that the ubiquitous Internet has existed for less than three decades, VoIP is about five years old, and the PC itself is just a tad bit more than three decades old?