2008 Year in Review: Hosted UC arrives in force

If it is a stand-alone business application, service providers and vendors will find a way to turn it into a hosted service. Unified communications is no exception, and it was only a matter of time before Cisco and Microsoft rolled out their apps and programs with carrier hosting options. Siemens has had a hosted UC option for a while, and Nortel is currently providing the hardware for Microsoft's hosted solution.

There have also been marketing makeovers for existing applications that tweaked language and presentation of the initial presentation to add some eye-catching UC zing. Did BroadSoft really have to jump into the UC arena by integrating BroadWorks with Microsoft's hosted UC platform? Was Cisco's WebEx "UC" before they called it UC? 

More practically, hosted UC solutions provide access to two different user segments. SMBs can get in on the UC wave with a per-month subscription fee (and ditch it if they don't like/need it).  Hosted solutions can also provide service for remote and/or distributed offices outside of the traditional reach of the corporate data center. 

Next year will likely see more UC SaaS (Software-as-a-service) packaging and/or offering. Expect to see more weather talk, as Microsoft and others transfer their hosted talk to cloud computing and the whole "scale up/scale down" paradigm.  

Sylantro: UC the Pull for IMS - FierceVoIP [1]
NXTcomm08: Microsoft Announces Hosted UC solution; Nortel delivers ... [2]
Cisco's WebEx gets UC SaaS makeover - FierceVoIP [3]
XO Hosting Mobile UC - FierceVoIP [4]
Verizon Business adds managed Cisco UC solution - FierceVoIP [5]
BroadSoft and Microsoft announce hosted UC alliance - FierceVoIP [6]
Siemens releases new UC platform - FierceVoIP [7]