Oracle Trumpets In-App Communications Benefits

In-application communications are key to delivering better customer experiences and business growth, a new study from Oracle Communications suggests.

“Businesses need the agility to take advantage of the latest communications technologies – be they chatbots, HD voice, HD video, screen sharing, and annotation – to achieve these objectives, but many lack the infrastructure and expertise to do so,” says Doug Surian, senior vice president and general manager for Oracle Communications. “The race is on for companies to quickly implement these technologies, and they are increasingly looking to the cloud to help them achieve success.”

The Cloud Redefines Customer Experience study by Oracle talked to 323 enterprise IT decisino markers with buying authority related to communication hardware and software across North America.

This study suggests the cloud drives better business outcomes. Seventy-four percent of the enterprises Oracle spoke with said cloud-based communications are key in achieving business objectives. And about the same number expect to step up their use of cloud communications in the next five years. Meanwhile, 65 percent said embedding communications in cloud-based applications is the wave of the future.

Oracle in the study adds that the cloud is the way to go because it increases flexibility and worker productivity while lowering costs. And although some businesses earlier on had security concerns about the cloud, the Oracle study says 60 percent of those it surveyed consider the cloud at least as secure as on-premises communications solutions.

“In the new mobile-first world, users are expecting communications directly within the application itself, for simplicity, context, and integration to the actual app values,” Phil Edholm, president and founder of PKE Consulting noted in his standing column Real-Time Web Solutions in the first quarter 2017 issue of INTERNET TELEPHONY.

Amazon Mayday, which includes screen sharing and video, is an example of an application that works directly in the app. Companies like GENBAND (with its Kandy effort) and Twilio (which built a $1 billion business around APIs that allow developers to more easily bring messaging, voice, and now video to their applications) have helped popularize the idea of embedding communications into applications. 

Edited by Mandi Nowitz