This afternoon at VoiceCon in Orlando, Tony Bates, SVP of Commercial and Small Business Group at Cisco, presented on some of his team’s latest work. The presentation was called the “New Collaborative Experience,” or, he defined, the third major market transition in the internet’s lifetime.
As Bates explained, the first market transition was the Connect Phase, which was “about leveraging IP networks… allowing data to flow from Point A to Point B.” Or, in other words, it was the birth of the internet. The second market transition was the Communicate Phase, or the shift in the late 90’s to communicate across the internet. Today, Cisco believes we are reaching the New Collaborative Experience phase, or collaboration within and across organizations. Bates outlined the six main pillars of this phase:
- 1. Open, interoperable architecture
- 2. Secure intercompany collaboration
- 3. Video communications
- 4. Enterprise social software
- 5. Flexible deployment models
- 6. Integrated experience
As he explained challenges and existing technology to handle each pillar, two particular areas of that sparked my interest were in creating “rich, reliable interaction” and “moving away from connecting devices to connecting people.” This is essentially the idea that remote coworkers should have the ability to understand each other’s presence, reach each other in an instant, and maintain a clear connection. As these are focuses for OnSIP, it’s not surprising Bates named two main vehicles we use to create this very experience: SIP and XMPP.
Bates went on to present Cisco’s new platform, Quad, which is meant to integrate all six pillars. Quad looks a lot like Twitter, LinkedIn, Basecamp, Google Wave, and Facebook combined into one. Users can join communities (e.g. for projects or departments), chat, post videos, view coworkers’ presence and job titles, and email/call/video conference directly in the interface. (If the user chooses to call a coworker, a SIP call is initiated.)
I found the innovation and embracing social networking to be pretty neat. However, as an avid fan of web software that simplifies, I wondered if this type of solution will truly enhance the workplace, or rather dilute it. My prediction is that Cisco will later pare down the Quad interface to features that both simplify the work life and add value for a sustainable unified communications experience. But, perhaps this is because we at Junction Networks are focusing on a different kind of user base.
At Junction Networks, we are working on solutions that help small businesses bootstrap their telephone system and enhance their business communications. In line with the goals Cisco has mentioned, OnSIP users can call or IM each other in one click. They can tell if their coworkers are on the phone or available for chat, and for how long, in their browser. Their calls, and conference calls, between broadband capable phones have 'HD Voice' clarity. And, they can communicate seamlessly with OnSIP non-users over any IP phone they like. As we continue to develop web software, we are considering video conferencing, chat rooms, and phone status integration in other XMPP clients. And, we welcome feedback from our users to ensure we’re on the track of interoperable, intuitive, and forward-thinking tools.