The day started with what I found to be the best
presentation of the summit. UCStrategies Expert Phil Edholm gave a very
balanced and insightful keynote on the business value of video. Phil is fairly
new to the UCStrategies team, and he brings great expertise to a space that is
transforming UC more than anything else. One key idea to define the video opportunity is to
distinguish between three types of workers – Knowledge, Information and
Service.
Phil gave great examples of each, and clarified how Knowledge workers
derive the most benefit from collaborative video because they require the most
engaging modes of communications to be effective. Going the other way, Phil
talked about meeting tourists – employees who join meetings where attendance is
optional. He showed how video will cut down on this activity considerably, and
along the way provide a fast ROI by virtue of reducing the time lost by meeting
tourists who could otherwise be doing their jobs.
There were other strong takeaways from Phil’s keynote, but
hey, if I spent all morning writing them up here, you wouldn’t need to attend,
and that doesn’t bode well for the long term survival of the summit.
Instead, I’ll move on to another interesting panel – the
analyst roundtable, which I participated on.
This session was led by Blair Pleasant, and joining us was Samantha
Kane, Art Rosenberg and Steve Leaden. We each spoke briefly about specific
trends, and my focus was on the post-PBX world, and how the channel could adapt
for clients that are ready to move on from having a phone system. We covered a
lot of ground in an hour, and the audience wasn’t lacking for good questions.
One of the better vendor keynotes came in the afternoon from
Wayne Baines of Microsoft. He made a strong case for how well MSFT is
leveraging its huge installed base around Lync and cloud based services. With 1
billion Office users, there’s a major market opportunity for them with UC, and
even without mentioning Skype, Wayne painted a pretty promising picture for
Microsoft’s prospects.
Finally, Jim Burton hosted a panel of consultants, and that
generated some good dialog about how they could work more effectively with the
channel to support them in UC. Together, these groups represented most of the
people in the room, and it was a great forum for paying attendees to share
ideas about how to make their business more successful.
All told, the summit fully met my expectations. I was happy
to have a chance to speak, and based on comments later on, it sounds like our
session was well received. It was a great chance to hear first hand about how
UC is being deployed, and of course what the vendors are focusing on at
present. I’m of the view the nobody really knows where the market is going, and
nobody really owns it, and in my mind, these ideas were validated at the
summit. At least I came away with a greater sense of confidence that my ongoing
research is picking up the right vibes about the state of UC.
So, kudos to Jim
Burton and his supporting cast for putting on a great show in such a relaxed
setting. I think attendees got their money’s worth, and I’m pretty sure most
will be back. I count myself in that circle, and if you want to share your
thoughts on the event, the floor is now yours…