Google has a plan. It's so freewheeling and ambitious, however, that few people know precisely what it is. A couple of things are for sure: It is deeply tied to unified communications, and the Chrome OS -- a Webified take on the traditional operating systems -- is at its core. The traditional UC sector needs to pay close attention, since the new operating system is due by the end of the year. 
In many ways, the contact center is the most natural place for UC. Two recent columns explore this area, and make the point that reaching out effectively to customers is perhaps the purest use of unified communications. The thing that the contact center deployments lack -- drama -- perhaps is the reason that this use of UC doesn't have a high profile.
Companies making news this week include Inforonics, Cisco, RADVISION, United Data Technologies (UDT), Wainhouse, Esnatech, Microsoft, Handango, Avaya, Mitel, Nortel, Iwatsu, AASTRA, 3Com, Asterisk, eOn, Teltronics, Siemens Enterprise Communications, Axacore, TelcoBridges and BrightCom.
In most cases, the telecommunications and IT industries have drawn the lines between various types of off-premise support -- from hosted to managed services and beyond -- by focusing on the technology the provider used. Perhaps the best idea, however, is to differentiate between services by concentrating on whether the customer primarily is interested in voice or UC-type services.
Perhaps the most fundamental decision an organization faces -- besides the basic choice of whether or not to deploy UC -- is whether to build it upon the telecom or LAN infrastructure. UCStrategies' Marty Parker offers an excellent brief tutorial on the topic, which will have both technical and workforce ramifications.Carl Weinschenk
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