Now in it’s 27th year, Enterprise Connect is one of the world’s largest enterprise IT and communications tradeshows. Taking place in Orlando on the 12th – 14th March, the show promises talks and launches from brands such as Skype for Business, Slack, Cisco and Amazon Web Services.
While showcasing a whole host of IT innovations, this year’s show is also expected to include significant focus on corporate communication and the adoption of livestreaming and video communications within the enterprise space.
With this in mind, here are three of the top enterprise video trends that we expect to see at this year’s show:
UC goes in-browser
Unified Communication has long been a staple of Enterprise Connect, with corporate communications vendors showcasing a growing array of products designed to bring voice, video and instant messaging together within one unified toolset.
Despite this vision existing for several years, the market remains fragmented, with business leaders, employees and customers often left frustrated at the need to install multiple different UC systems. At this year’s show however, we expect a change in direction, with several UC providers now looking at launching their apps entirely in-browser, removing the need for users to install multiple applications on their desktop.
This in-browser experience will not only cut down on desktop clutter, but will also remove the need for IT teams to license, update and secure multiple platforms, limiting ‘shadow IT’ and finally cementing the unified experience.
Video meets Machine Learning
Machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) have been the buzzwords of choice in 2018. While there are few left who are not a little sceptical of these terms, there are still those who see the genuine potential behind the hype. Although we shouldn’t expect a robot uprising any time soon, at least within enterprise IT, several very clear and practical uses are coming to fore. One of these uses, is the enhancement of office communications and video collaboration platforms like Facebook Modern Workplace.
By adopting machine learning technology, brands can potentially analyse and uncover vital trends in their communications data, helping to streamline processes and improve existing collaboration platforms. Machine learning offers a unique way for brands to analyse video content and other media without having to view or scrutinise it with human eyes.
Although still in the early stages, this topic is set to provide an interesting discussion, both around productivity, and privacy, at this year’s Enterprise Connect.
Networks will overtake apps
While video platforms will still take centre stage at the show, many IT managers are now significantly more concerned by their ability to support large scale video use internally than they are the bells and whistles of individual video platforms. Having access to a platform that’s designed to stream HD video across your organisation with high quality and low failure rates, however only works if your organisation has the network infrastructure to support live streaming – especially in a global work environment.
Given this fact, we expect this year’s Enterprise Connect to focus less on enterprise video platforms and more on enterprise video delivery. At the heart of this discussion will be this year’s ‘System Management and Network Design’ track, which will include a series of talks from IT leaders expressing their own network challenges and solutions. Kollective will also share its video distribution solution showcasing its cloud-based content delivery Platform that provides a robust front-end integration framework, network analytics and insights capabilities and an enterprise content delivery network.
To find out more about Enterprise Connect, visit https://www.enterpriseconnect.com, or to speak to Kollective at the show, visit Booth 833.
