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Artificial Intelligence, The Terminator, Post-Humanism, Bionic Limbs, Singularity…As the power of technology continues to surpass human ability in new and rapid ways, our fascination and often fear of machines ask us to question the boundaries of human interaction and the artificial. While predictions and theory vary and even contradict one another, there seems to be a consensus on a need for balance. We see this need often today; whether it is a customer caught in a calling queue or a caller sent to a desktop voicemail over a live mobile human. When it comes to a business’s call center offering, the quest for balance takes front-line.
Service providers must answer the call for an innovative solution to the growing struggle between human response and mechanical communication. As an integral piece of any business’s customer service offering, we believe the move toward hosted call centers offers the flexibility, functionality and visibility required to move end-customers quickly to a live voice without wasting time or resources. Today, service providers leverage hosted communication services to boost human communication through productivity features and on-going application integration, all while minimizing human and environmental risk with automatic maintenance and business continuity.
More and more, we see the end-customer seeking an intuitive call center solution that allows optimal, live customer service while taking advantage of hosted unified communication technology. Micah Solomon, entrepreneur and customer systems innovator, writes for Fast Company on the growing need for live support as organizations place more services in the hands of technology:
Online customers are literally invisible to you (and you to them), so it’s easy to shortchange them emotionally…This lack of visual and tactile presence makes it even more crucial to create a sense of personal, human-to-human connection.
Following such demand, BroadSoft’s own BroadWorks® Call Center application recently released new enhancements allowing service providers the scalability to extend their hosted call center offering into enterprises with higher call volumes and more complex reporting requirements. Taking full advantage of the benefits of a hosted solution, such as low-upfront cost and scalability, the BroadWorks® Call Center application opens new revenue streams from premise-based platforms.
To explore the benefits of hosted call center solutions, read on http://bit.ly/broadsoftcallcenter or request a sales representative contact you.
Are you always the last to hear office gossip? Always seem to stumble over what-seemed-to-be good ideas in business meetings? Do work associates make jokes about your tie (“it’s just too trendy for them, right?”)? Well, now it’s your chance to be part of the in-crowd with BroadSoft’s Trend Watch 2011 report. Be the first to know what’s hip, what’s fresh, and what the great ideas are before they happen, as the worldwide leader and innovator of IP technology hands you a sneak-peak into what we think the telecommunication “do’s” of 2011 will be.
Do’s (2011) versus Don’t (2010):
- The Connected Consumer vs. The Mobile Consumer
Tablets and smartphones were on everyone’s hot list this holiday season. As we wind our way through 2011, we believe emerging devices will proliferate across the realm of operating systems- offering utilitarian technology benefits in speed and performance as mobile platforms battle. Whether reading an e-book, listening to a family member’s music playlist, or getting directions, we expect trendy consumers will not only seek out these mobile devices –they will find a seamless connection between their connected devices a must-have for 2011.
- Business Applications vs. Consumer Applications
On average, the U.S. downloaded about 3 million of the top 300 apps per day in December. In our view, 2011 will continue to be a year of mobile app craze; however, businesses will quickly become the new consumer. Already one of the fastest growing categories in the App Store, the business app category was up (+186%) in 2010, according to Distimo. We expect to see “in” service providers catching onto the craze by offering value-added applications for every business’s both niche and universal needs, such as: Productivity apps, Communication & Collaboration, CRM, Mobility, Business Process Integration (Act!, Lotus Notes, etc), and more.
Watch how:
- HD Video Conferencing vs. The Traditional IP Deskphone
Did you just click through your in-box as you talked to your business partner over the phone? That’s so 2010! Offering a cost-effective method to add value to your communications experience, we anticipate that truly trendy businesses and consumers will use HD video from the cloud in 2011. Offering an always-on virtual bridge, trend setters connect to business prospects, partners, and peers in HD Video from the cloud — a must for 2011 for the rich communications experience everyone deserves. Apart from this new staple, consumers have also caught wind of the trend and are using the up-and-coming technology to stay in touch with relatives and friends with family center.
2011’s Hit or Miss: UC from the Cloud
If you were on the fence in 2010, you’re already on the “miss” list as the New Year begins. We see hip businesses – large and small –taking advantages of UC services from the cloud in 2011. While even water-cooler dropouts are mostly likely “in” on the productivity and economic benefits of UC, we expect those service providers in-the-know to offer a continuation of UC perks for business offerings this year plus, now, the advantages of the new BroadCloud offerings. These include HD video, web-based collaboration, integrated message & presence features, and VoIP management solutions for the forward-looking service provider who can offer always on, effective communication services.
Don’t be a victim of the trend police this year. Follow the advice in this Trend Watch report and subscribe to this blog roll for continued in-the-know news, opinion, and advice on the latest in communication technology. Have something to add to the list? Disagree with a trend? Let us know below.
At our annual executive users’ conference in October, I talked about three ways the BroadSoft ecosystem can “connect our networks” in order to deliver the superior user experience and communication services being demanded today. In my opinion, our ecosystem needs to:
- Create the largest, innovative developer network
- Share our successes in order to grow awareness of hosted communication solutions
- Connect our networks to deliver ubiquitous high-definition voice and video
Let me share more on how you can drive growth and productive conversation in each of these areas.
Create the largest, innovative developer network
At BroadSoft we have spent the last 18 months investing in the design and development of our Xtended program, which is comprised of three elements: 1) RESTful APIs, 2) a robust developer program & 3) an e-Commerce enabled marketplace. We have committed both time and financial resources to all aspects of this program, enabling our customers to open their networks and mutually benefit from the investments of third party developers.
BroadSoft’s global service provider customers deliver communication services to over half a billion individuals in both their work and personal lives. A uniquely attractive audience to third-party developers, the desire and capabilities to build innovative applications will only increase as our ecosystem encourages this growth. Integration of communication services with additive innovative offerings and web-based applications, such as CRM services, increase the value of our IP-based networks, helping us retain our existing customers and attract new customers. So I am asking the BroadSoft customer base to:
- Open the Xtended APIs on their network
- Customize and launch an Xtended Marketplace and
- Join the community in recruiting new developers and promoting their applications
Everything that is needed to get started has been built and tested. Since BroadSoft Connections, I have personally reached out to several of our service provider customers who appreciate the value of BroadSoft Xtended. They have agreed to lead the charge in this effort – I hope you will join them.
Share our successes in order to grow awareness of hosted communication solutions
Another way we can jointly drive the adoption of hosted communications is by connecting our networks in terms of combined marketing power. By sharing our successes and detailed case studies, we help better define the value enterprises and individuals are experiencing through hosted communications. Through the global communication of such value, we will mutually drive the increased adoption of hosted unified communications, which has reached its highest growth level since 2008 (Dell’Oro Group, 2010).
While the awareness has grown significantly, we have a long way to go. We want every business owner and decision maker to realize they have a choice: to use a hosted service versus tying up people and capital on deploying out-dated enterprise based systems. I personally hear from our customers amazing and motivating success stories that they have helped enterprises succeed in their primary business purpose when they are no longer worried about their communication services. They are entrusting the experts in telecommunications to keep their businesses running.
I am asking all BroadSoft customers to share these success stories. In order to facilitate this openness, we introduced a new Web site, Xcelerate, with the single goal of helping you become more successful in launching and selling hosted UC. There are many great resources available on the site (Marketing Campaign Tools, Sales Battlecards, Demonstration Videos, and much more) and I encourage all BroadSoft customers to use these tools, while also contributing to the group.
Connect our networks to deliver ubiquitous high-definition voice and video
For a number of years, we have talked about the connection of our networks over IP to enable global high-definition voice and video. With the tremendous interest in high definition audio and video, we must connect our individual islands if we are to benefit from this growth. As I travel around the world, the interest level around SIP based video is exploding in both fixed and mobile networks and the time to interconnect is now. There are several companies, such as PCCW Global, focused on enabling this interconnectivity. I encourage everyone to talk with these companies in order to find ways to bridge our islands and take the upmost advantage of this unique opportunity before it passes us by.
The delivery of high-quality, superior communication experience, is our business. We cannot let others erode it. Let’s start by connecting our networks in these three ways. Please let me know what you think by commenting below.
How many of you are tired of hearing about the fact that Washington, DC and its surrounding suburbs are experiencing Snowpocalypse, Snowmageddon, or whatever catchy name you want to use to describe the 30 inches of snow that fell within 24 hours and then another 8 inches 3 days later in our area? Well, let me personally say you are no more tired of hearing about it than those of us at BroadSoft’s corporate headquarters are of living through it.
But our snowstorm of the century is no reason to stop commerce. Those of us in corporate America have projects to complete, goals to accomplish and performance metrics to hit…..so even though most of us are snowed in, we are certainly not bored and looking for something to do. As a matter-of-fact, I have been extremely productive the last 4 business days working from home. I’ve gained an hour, and sometimes 2 depending on DC traffic, by not needing, or not being able, to commute to work each day.
Here is how a BroadSoft employee (me) has spent the last 4 business days…..and how I have leveraged our hosted communications solutions in order to keep moving our business forward (audience for that statement, my boss).
A couple of my days started at 7:00 am Eastern time, on conference calls with our European PR firm. Okay, on the surface, that is not overly interesting, but when I say I was on a video conference call using my Bria for BroadWorks softphone, then interest is piqued. It is not unusual for me to have video calls with my counterparts and partners at agencies around the world, but I typically use my Polycom VVX desk phone. This week, I have used my softphone, and each call has been equally as productive as if I had been in the office.
And thanks to BroadWorks Anywhere, I have not missed a call, even though my email signature and business card do not list my cell phone number. I simply set my home phone as the primary way to reach me through our BroadWorks web-based portal, and all my calls have found me. All my outbound calls show my BroadSoft office Calling Line ID, so my “office” has been extended to my home phone and my mobile phone.
Today was particularly great. Each quarter, our sales executives provide an update on their accounts, so the entire organization is aware of how we can contribute to ensuring our customers are satisfied. Our North American quarterly review was scheduled for today. Even though no one was in the office, because it was officially closed, we all attended the meeting, remotely, and leveraged our Unified Communication services. Many of us joined via video, we all used our collaboration tools to share documents online, and like any business person these days, most of us were multi-tasking, sending IM messages to get other work done.
So, we in the DC area are persevering and pushing on, but even with these great IP-based communication options, many BroadSoft faithful are actually looking forward to when we will be able to dig ourselves out and drive to the office, after so many days with the kids….
And for our service provider customers, we now have 110 personal case studies we can share on how hosted communications solutions are priceless to ensuring business continuity…..
Last week Mike Dolan of FierceVoIP wrote a fantastic editorial about the state of the industry and where we’re – or rather, where our industry should be right now. It was so good in fact I decided to write a post about it.
Reflecting on Fierce’s recent IT Expo post, Mike wrote about how the move to 4G will be the inflection point that brings VoIP and broadband to mobile and enabling video calls on the move – now THAT would be revolutionary. The constricted 3G pipe, due primarily to continued problems with legacy T-1 lines providing backhaul to towers, is holding back exciting innovations in mobile communications. When 4G finally arrives in the form of LTE, every mobile voice call will become a VoIP call. BroadSoft supports the One Voice consortium that will enable the migration of voice to 4G.
On the wired side, we were excited to see SIP Trunking called out as a critical catalyst for really cool stuff reaching mass adoption. SIP Trunking allows for IP conversion and the delivery of innovative communications services, not available with a PBX. But, we believe if a carrier uses trunking only to replace switched voice with VoIP connectivity, they will see their revenues erode. The big upside is using trunking to deliver new communications services in demand by the enterprise market. There are several market trends driving this move by enterprises. Over the next five years, it is believed:
- Enterprise workforces will become increasingly mobile
- Video calling will be widely adopted
- High-definition voice will be the new standard for voice communications
- PBXs will migrate to hosted unified communications
- Enterprises will continue demanding comprehensive business continuity capabilities
Finally, Mike notes that once our industry does migrate to the all-IP networks of the future, suddenly “best effort” isn’t a good enough effort at all, not by a long shot. What has also hindered innovation is the need to ensure the utmost reliability for these advanced services. That’s where BroadSoft’s PacketSmart line of business comes in. PacketSmart allows service providers to remotely manage the end-to-end delivery of VoIP-powered services. To go even a step farther, BroadSoft is working with customer premises equipment (CPE) manufacturers to embed VoIP management agents into devices designed for the SOHO and SMB markets.
So we’re excited to help move our industry through this next revolution of innovation.
The recent news of Polycom’s (Nasdaq: PLCM) partnership with Juniper (NYSE: JNPR)—which GigaOm suggests is in response to Cisco’s acquisition of Tandberg—got me thinking of the playing together in the sandbox analogy. Making room for everyone to play well in the same space is more important than ever with the rapid advancements in communications technologies. It’s all about making sure that customers – businesses and consumers – have access to the networks and devices that best suit their needs and that the different technologies can be integrated easily.
I believe that this partnership, along with a slew of others recently announced (see here), will foster greater flexibility and more options for businesses and consumers.
That is why BroadSoft has established partnerships with Tandberg, IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) to name a few. And this week we announced an extension of our partnership with Polycom to provide an integrated voice and video solution. This new offering builds upon our long-term relationship with Polycom and brings video and voice together for businesses in a way that has not been readily available before. More often than not, video and voice live in separate silos at businesses, making it difficult for employees to leverage these tools simultaneously for the next generation of telepresence. Through our new solution, V2Connect, we bring video and voice together in one infrastructure so workers can take advantage of these tools easily and seamlessly and businesses – including SMBs –can potentially save money and increase productivity.
At the core of all these partnerships is Unified Communications, enabling employees to communicate through various channels, at any time, from any location and in an integrated, streamlined way. For example, through our collaboration with Polycom, businesses have access to unified voice and video solutions delivered as a hosted service. Our integrated UC solution with Microsoft facilitates integrated voice, presence, instant messaging and web conferencing as a hosted solution, so that employees can work virtually, from any location and at any time.
Moving forward, we expect to see rapid expansion in the hosted UC market. As more businesses shift to a hosted model, the need for plug and play technologies will likely increase.
Quality. I know it when I see it.
Many years ago I read a book entitled I Know It When I See It: A Modern Fable About Quality that illustrates how difficult it is to identify and describe a quality product or service and that many times it is easier to describe poor quality.
Today we announced that we will acquire Packet Island, a leader in Quality of Service (QoS) assurance for both VoIP and Video services. Our rationale for this acquisition is simple; we feel that quality is critical for the evolution of our industry and that being able to deliver a cost effective way for our carriers to ensure quality is important. It might be hard to describe a high quality voice call, but we can all describe the attributes (and frustration) of a poor quality call. Clearly, one of the remaining obstacles to convincing customers to move to VoIP and Video communications is their concern about how well they will hear and see the other person.
When we witnessed Packet Island’s power to first qualify the ability of a customer’s network to run voice and video and then to monitor and identify possible problems in both the LAN and WAN, we knew we had to make it a part of the BroadSoft solution. This complete lifecycle assessment and monitoring approach will ensure that our customers can deliver superior, quality service to their customers.
The second exciting part of this acquisition is the service delivery method, which is a Software as a Service (SaaS) model. This approach does not require a major investment by our customers to get started, so we can quickly deliver the service to them and make an immediate, positive impact on our industry. This is a first for BroadSoft, expanding from our networked base BroadWorks solutions to a cloud- based service. This is an exciting new way for us to deliver value, and we will continue to explore other cloud-based services that will benefit our customers.
Finally, I want to personally welcome Praveen Kumar, Packet Island’s founder, and his team to BroadSoft. I know their expertise will quickly contribute to the growth of our business.
I am often surprised by the things I remember from my childhood. Of course there are the life lessons about good manners, playing fair and putting things back where you found them. But then there are those silly things that impress you, which you don’t quite understand why until later in life.
I vividly recall one day watching cartoons as a child, the Jetsons specifically. Jane was sleeping when her video phone rang. She obviously did not think she was looking her best, having been awakened from her slumber. Before answering the phone she put on a perfectly quaffed mask of herself.
Of course my immediate reaction at the time was — how vain. But now, I am a bit less judgmental.
Having access to multimedia communication options anytime and anywhere in our personal lives is now a reality. Today BroadSoft introduced the latest enhancements to our consumer solutions. Read the press release here.
Through our broadened focus on the consumer experience, we are delivering on a vision to enable the “connected” consumer to have access to a host of information, entertainment and other communication services, anywhere and at anytime, in the home or on the road.
We are empowering consumers by enabling them to control all their multi-media devices and communication services from a single, BroadWorks® powered online account.
Our consumer experience builds upon our BroadWorks Voice over IP application platform, a proven architecture, which manages multimedia communication sessions between devices for voice, video, messaging and content, beyond the boundaries of the subscriber home.
The way individuals chose to communicate will continue to evolve. Can you imagine what might be next — the notorious shoe phone?
The way companies develop and earn revenue from new products (the world of R&D) has changed forever, and it is a great thing for all of us.
In April we announced our 2nd annual developers contest, XCv2, and earlier today we announced the winners. The interest and momentum in developing applications that either make our lives easier or are just plain amazing – thanks to the continued advancement of technology – continues to grow.
In only its second year, our developer challenge generated 10x the registrations over last year, and helped to grow the BroadSoft Xtended open-development community to well over 2,000 developers, who turn innovative ideas into reality.
Announcing the winners is of course exciting – but the applications will really be put into action next month when they are demonstrated live at our annual users’ conference, BroadSoft Connections 2009: Voice & Vision, during the much anticipated “Show Me the Apps” session. Show Me the Apps focuses exclusively on new applications that allow our service provider customers to further maximize their current investment in BroadSoft and the future evolution of their services and businesses. You can watch video clips of last year’s Show Me the Apps event at http://developer.broadsoft.com/smta.
But for now – let’s get to it. This year’s winners are….
In the consumer category, MyZazu from WorldxChange took first place. The app offers an online portal for users to share events and updates with their contacts via text-to-speech, email, SMS and twitter. Basically you can tell your friends and family what you are up to using any form of communication you so desire.
In the cool category, the winner is JoeDeveloper.net’s Visual Voicemail for Polycom’s VVX1500, which transcribes voicemails for business users and with just one click to a link in the transcription you can call the person back. There’s really no excuse for not returning phone calls when it’s this simple.
MobileMax Enterprise Edition tied for first place in the business category with Excendia Virtual Assistant. MobileMax is a Unified Communications (UC) application for mobile phones. It makes features in BroadWorks – such as your own personal web portal to manage communications, call conferencing and access to an auto attendant—accessible on a cell phone.
Excendia Virtual Assistant is a speech-enabled application that allows mobile users to listen and reply to emails, send new ones, review and schedule calendar appointments, control their phone status and call forwarding using hands-free, eyes-free voice commands while driving, or from any phone.
The selection process was very challenging…..so thanks to all the developers who submitted just fantastic applications. Look for all the contest applications on our next-generation Xtended marketplace next month.
Many of us have heard of the promise of video communications for years, but have been disappointed with the overall experience. I believe that has changed. I recently started using a VVX personal video phone from Polycom, and think the time for video has arrived. Why? Here are my reasons:
- High-quality experience: you can actually see and hear the person. In fact, these phones use high definition codecs for audio and video, making the voice better than toll quality.
- The terminals themselves are cost effective and easy to use. Calling someone is as simple as picking up the phone and dialing, a standard phone number. It couldn’t be any easier.
- Bandwidth is cost effective and ubiquitous. This extends to people who are working at home using high-bandwidth services with great quality and speed.
But the most important reason is that these personal video phones change the way we communicate with the other party. In this era of email, instant messaging, text messaging and tweets, we all miss the basic personal-to-personal communications that can be created with a video phone.
It is amazing how often we struggle to focus when talking to someone on the phone. We read emails, check websites, and some of us even play games on our computers. Last year, when I started using high-definition codec for audio, I realized that my conversations improved and became even more effective. After a few weeks, I became hooked on high-definition audio and really had a hard time spending time on calls with the poor quality that are indicative of so many cell calls today.
When we started rolling out video phones within BroadSoft, I wondered if we would really use them for internal calls. Many of us have worked together for 10 years, so I wasn’t sure if they could add much value. I was pleasantly surprised. The most obvious and important change with a video phone is that you have to look at the person you are talking to, creating that personal connection that we often lack with audio-only calls. I am amazed at the quality difference in a call when both parties are focused and can see the expressions of the other person. Both parties become 100% focused on the conversation, with no distractions. We often look for business tools to improve how we work together, and I could not be more convinced that personal video will be just that. My ability to see and talk to a team member really flattens the world.
The industry challenge now is to create larger network effect; that is, making it easy for all us to use this amazing technology to speak to each other. Once we solve this, we will not only gain the benefits within our companies, but also between our companies. I would love to be able to talk to all of our customers over video. This should be the challenge for our family of great service providers.
See you on video!!
Mike
Michael Tessler
Scott Hoffpauir
Leslie Ferry
Alex Doyle
Curtis Hartmann
Shirish Andhare
Paul Adams
