Unified Communications for the Mid-Market

By Rich Tehrani

President and Editor-in-Chief

 

There is no question the unified communications market will increase the value of communications vendor offerings, but there seems to be lingering questions as to which sector of the market (large, medium or small) will be the fastest adopters of this state-of-the-art system of communications.

 

CFOs of Fortune-class companies are surely happy to shell out an aggregate of billions of dollars if they believe they will see ROI from UC. And certainly, as we start to see more UC products on the market, companies of all sizes will likely start salivating at the opportunities to integrate this technology into their workflow processes.

 

The integration of communications and mobility may be the area of most excitement as it seems the knowledge worker population is growing greater every year. You know who I mean: the road warrior who is on the go 24x7 working his/her heart out for the company.

 

Recently I wrote about the growth of the SMB communications market and this article prompted a discussion with Chong-Jin Koh, the CEO of Nuvoiz, about his company and how he feels they are solving the pain of the mid-market company when it comes to unified communications implementation. Jin Koh tells me the company has truly integrated its messaging platform with communications through the use of SIP. Unlike IM platforms such as Skype (News - Alert) or MSN, Nuvoiz has achieved true unification of applications and media types.

 

Jin Koh said he feels the mid-market really needs UC solutions such as those provided by his company and he sees the sweet spot for Nuvoiz as 50-100 people. Expect resellers and IP Centrex providers to be the primary channel for this service. The cost is currently $4/month/seat.

 

One think Chong-Jin Koh told me resonated. He said there is not enough education being done in the market regarding unified communications. To that end as I have mentioned recently… TMC’s (News - Alert) SIP Magazine will become Unified Communications Magazine in July of this year with the goal of educating the market effectively on the benefits of UM for every company—regardless of size.