Panel Discusses Pros and Cons of Presence in Mobile Hosted Exchange

By Paula Bernier, Executive Editor, IP Communications Magazines

We’ve been hearing about presence for years, but the recent rise of the smartphone and the desire for more unified communications are now enabling presence to take off in a more concrete way. However, to a large extent both users and those offering presence-based hosted exchange solutions are still laying the groundwork for what presence can and should allow.

“The rules of the road are still being constructed,” said Dean Moore, sales engineer at ShoreTel (News - Alert), who was on today’s “What Can Presence Do for You?” panel at ITEXPO East in Miami.

Moore said that like many people today, he “lives” on his wireless phone. But communications is not just about having the ability to connect from anywhere; also part of the conversation is whether an individual actually is available to communicate at any given time. Presence can provide that information.

Presence goes beyond that, however, by also allowing a retailer to capture the location of a mobile user, within the hosted exchange, so it can offer that individual a coupon or special offer as he or she passes by one of its locations, for example, Moore noted.

But making it simple for both the end user and companies to benefit from presence is key, as is figuring out what level of presence information should be available to whom and when, he added.

Michael Doyle, vice president of technology at CounterPath, and the other panelist for the ITEXPO (News - Alert) session, added that in the past your wireless service provider would know where you were based on cell site location. But with smartphones, social media and other tools, presence has moved to a whole new level – opening presence information to a much larger community of individuals and entities through hosted exchange.

Of course, sometimes that’s not such a good thing. Doyle talked about how a site called PleaseRobMe gained notoriety last year. He added that Nashua, N.J., recently saw a 13 percent increase in burglaries, most of which can be attributed to presence information gleaned from social media.

However, in many ways presence can enable good things. For example, Moore talked about how many of us are more than willing to have the state know where we travel in exchange for being able to quickly move through tolls with an I-PASS or similar solution. And Doyle mentioned how helpful it is to have a system that can use presence to sense an employee’s location so it can send calls to a mobile vs. a desktop-based phone, for example.

Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO East 2011, taking place Feb 2-4, 2011, in Miami. ITEXPO offers an educational program to help corporate decision makers select the right IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications solutions to improve their operations. It's also where service providers learn how to profitably roll out the services their subscribers are clamoring for – and where resellers can learn about new growth opportunities. To register, click here.

(source: http://hosted-exchange.tmcnet.com/topics/mobility/articles/140881-panel-discusses-pros-cons-presence-mobile-hosted-exchange.htm)