Avaya took the opportunity at the US VoiceCon event this week to announce Aura. This blog looks at some of the implications behind the announcement which can be summarised as an innovative approach enabling easier and lower cost scalability of an organisation’s communication architecture.

But surely all this changed when VoIP arrived and catalysed network convergence? Is this real innovation or just good marketing?

The answer depends on whether traditional or new network design principles have been used.The tried and test way of deploying voice needed a separate voice infrastructure at every corporate location. This resulted in disparate PBXs leading to little consistency in the user experience and much more ‘behind the scenes’ maintenance in terms of dial plans and other configurations.

I just received a journalist request to contribute to an article which began with the question

Do you think there is a clear understanding of the term ‘unified communications’ in the call centre industry?

You may well have noticed a concerted effort to link call centres and UC together. I wrote him an answer and thought I would pre-empt his deadline and publish earlier with the benefit of knowing I would not be edited.

Having thought about it, I’m not convinced by the attempted linkages.  Here is my answer. Let me know what you think.

You will no doubt be bombarded with marketing collateral at the moment about Unified Communications and how it can impact positively on your business.

Datapoint has seen the uptake of solutions within the Unified Communication arena slow to date, but believe that economic, environmental, social and regulatory factors will drive businesses to exploring further. Not only that, it is in these four areas that most organisations will find a compelling driver for investing in Unified Communications.

 The Yankee Group recently published some revealing research on the actual experience and concerns of those that plan and deploy IPT. It reveals a level of uncertainty about voice quality and network reliability that never seem to feature in the confident tones of vendor brochures. 

Almost 40% of planners in enterprise IT cited “uncertain voice quality” as a main technical concern about IPT and UC. However this figure drops to just over 25% once it’s been deployed. One vertical appears particularly concerned: 55% of financial services organisations in the Yankee survey called voice quality their number one issue.