As UCStrategies colleague Blair Pleasant recently wrote, “Change, the Only Thing that’s Constant,” we are coming to the end of a year where there are more questions than answers in the UC space. If you rewind to the start of 2014, really, could you have envisioned any of the following unfolding?
- Microsoft abandoning the Lync name in favor of… Skype for Business
- Cisco partnering with Microsoft to integrate with Exchange so their Collaboration Cloud can support competing UC platforms
- Avaya partnering with Google to allow contact center agents to use Chromebook and engage with customers from any location
- Unify rebranding Project Ansible as Circuit – a name that they believe will resonate with Millennials
- Mitel taking an aggressive, but ultimately unsuccessful run at ShoreTel, mere months after acquiring Aastra
- Dell, having gone private in late 2013, and via a series of acquisitions to create Dell Software, becomes a UC player via their recent launch of UC Command Suite
Why are any and ALL of these things happening now? What is UC becoming, and does it have a future? These are very legitimate questions, and all of us at UCStrategies will be closely following how things progress in 2015. All of the above are strange bedfellows, and there certainly are others if you care to dig further into the UC milieu. Whether you’re a business looking to invest in UC, or a channel partner looking to recommend/sell UC to your customer base, it’s really hard right now to know where you should place your bets.
