Wayne Andrews, whose company focuses on presence-based IP communication applications that sync with business application events, said enterprises should begin thinking about the Internet as the world’s communication system waiting to happen.
Enterprises have SIP phones and servers, but they should think about what’s going to happen when a SIP phone is part of your browser, said the chief of Boston-based Onstate, during a conference panel. It enables some very unique some very unique relationships between your customers and the enterprise.
He envisions companies forming a presence-based buddy relationship with their customers. Buddy or presence relationships with customers is the ultimate contact list, Andrews said.
Of course, for this to happen, there needs to be a stable, freely distributed Internet environment. There are some major holes in existing Internet-based VoIP systems, Andrews pointed out.
But to assume that enterprise IP communication applications will be outside the domain of the traditional development that has happened on the Internet today is absolutely ridiculous, he said.
In the next few years voice IP is going to be as ubiquitous and free flowing as the types of applications and processing you see on Web sites today, he said.
He envisions VoIP applications that would enable an enterprise to manage and prioritize enquiries from customer and suppliers, using what he called extensive personal queues.
Asked whether this could mean the end of carriers, Andrews said that when a service provider or carrier put itself in kind of a middle role between a device and these types of applications it would be jeopardizing its role. He essentially is putting himself in competition with people making … backchannels of voice.
