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No other technology, perhaps, has altered the way enterprises communicate and do business the way IP has. While IP is altering the way IT applications are deployed and are used in business organizations, the revolution has largely lived in the closet since the beginning of this decade-when it entered an era of hype.
For long only the amateurs and the men on the street loved it for it helped them bypass the traditional system that they thought was too overbearing (read: expensive). Business organizations stayed away from it as they thought the technology wasn't mature enough to meet their benchmarks of quality performance and reliability. However, that was then. Now, thanks to new advancements in technology including its ability to guarantee quality of service and the explosive growth in broadband access in the past couple of years, IP has been gaining significant traction in the business community.
While the new converts to the virtues of IP may consider it just an enabler of cheap long distance voice calls, IP is much more than that. There are an array of IP solutions that not only alter the way businesses communicate, but also the way they conduct business. The most significant impact that all these solutions have had is on enterprise mobility. Thanks to the innumerable features and functionalities that IP solutions offer today, their inherent flexibility and the open nature of the technology, business workers can be much more mobile.
It's a fact that voice overwhelmingly dominates the IP landscape with an array of solutions like hosted IP Centrex, IP-enabled PBX, IP-PBX solutions that have gained traction in the past couple of years. More recently, solutions like voice-enabled Instant Messaging clients like Skype and Yahoo have also emerged as powerful business tools. No doubt as the demand of such solutions has grown, hundreds of service providers, equipment vendors and solution providers have entered the market.
Value Add
IP-PBX Solutions: IP-PBX facilitates the integration of voice and data networks within an enterprise making them an attractive option. It is at the centre of enterprise convergence that's driving new revolution at workplaces. IP PBX solutions have matured considerably in the past few years and come with hundreds of features and value-additions which, if used wisely, can revolutionize an enterprise's business as well. In fact, IP-PBX has never been so feature rich. Features such as unified messaging, voicemail, direct inward dialing, Web-based configuration and profile management, personalized and system wide speed dialing, personalized greetings, customized application binding, IP conferencing etc are now readily available on IP-PBX solutions. Savings on communication costs and enhanced flexibility to manage adds, moves and changes apart, it is the value additions that IP-PBX brings to business that's more noteworthy. For instance, business organizations including small and medium businesses can look forward to integrating their PBX with their IT infrastructure to implement a powerful customer relationship management system. In other words, IP-PBX is not just about convergence of voice and data networks but also about convergence of applications. In fact, such integration of business applications with PBX switches is increasingly becoming popular.
An interesting recent development has been the launch of a strategic Innovation Communications Alliance by Microsoft and Nortel Networks that essentially aimed at integrating Microsoft business applications in Nortel's IP PBX. The two already have collaboration efforts in place, such as integration of live communications with instant messaging (IM) and presence capabilities tied to a Nortel PBX system. The Microsoft- Nortel alliance can be termed as a convergence of desktop and telephony-something that's been made possible by IP.
Outsourced Voice
IP Centrex: Don't want to own and manage your own IP PBX? Then the best option for you is to look for a telecommunication service provider who can own and manage it for you. In the past few years a number of telecommunications service providers across the world have launched IP based centrex services. Even though, IP centrex is still to find any significant traction in India, the service has been growing in many parts of the world including Asia. IP Centrex is a set of specialized business solutions (primarily, but not exclusively, for voice service) where the switch providing the call control and service logic functions is owned and operated by a telecom service provider and is located on the service provider's premises. Also called hosted PBX, IP Centrex is popular because it frees an enterprise from the headache of owning and maintaining a PBX switch. They only pay for the service they use.
Centrex is an old system that was born in the PSTN era itself. However, the PSTN centrex didn't offer many of the benefits that IP centrex offers. For instance, IP centrex is all about convergence. While IP Centrex allows an enterprise to combine its existing solutions for voice and data into a single network, PSTN Centrex required separate networks for voice and data. Another major benefit offered by IP centrex is provisioning. New lines can be added or deployed at new locations without any delay and hassles. All this naturally not only saves costs for an enterprise but also relieves it of all solutions management issues.
Interestingly, the integration of IP-PBX with the computer system of enterprises can be used to build more effective customer relationship management solutions.
Great Collaboration Tools
Voice-enabled IMS: Instant messaging started as a favorite pastime of employees bored at their workplaces. But with new advanced features including those that make voice and even video communication possible at the click of a mouse, instant messaging solutions are turning out to be great productivity enhancement tools. In fact, now instant messaging is emerging as the number one corporate communication tool and is very much likely to leave behind corporate telephony and email.
Realizing its growing popularity vendors are launching IM tools that are more secure and are built to meet critical business communication benchmarks. For instance, AOL has launched an instant messaging tool for business called AIM Pro. It also integrates with Microsoft Outlook, encrypts and scans messages and links to conferencing services from WebEx Communications and even desktop sharing capabilities. Similarly, IBM's soon to be launched IM solution 7.5 will have built in VoIP, and can be integrated with Outlook, Office, and SharePoint. It can also be connected to Blackberries and Windows Mobile devices.
IM could not have become so feature-rich and business user-friendly without the advent of IP. Services like desktop sharing are being made possible thanks to growing maturity of IP as a technology. Desktop sharing lets users share their desktops with other users in other locations. While the technology has been there for some time, it's become more efficient because of advancements in IP.
But how are all these making enterprises more mobile? It's being done in two ways. One, thanks to the flexibility offered by IP, no applications are tied to desktops or desk phones; they can be accessed from anywhere. Two, enterprises can directly and more effectively link moves, add applications or functionalities and make changes in their system to suit their business dynamics.
IP is at the heart of the convergence of IT and telecommunications that's beginning to happen at many businesses. This convergence is helping businesses not just become more mobile, it is helping them become more agile, enhance their productivity and serve customers more efficiently. For now, this may be true only for large organizations with the wherewithal to invest in advanced IP technologies. However, it goes without saying that given the tendency of IP to drive down the cost of ownership of technologies at regular intervals, it would not take much time before the phenomenon overwhelms even the small businesses.
Ravi Shekhar Pandey
maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in
Source: Dataquest
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