IP communications encompasses IP telephony, video telephony, unified messaging and voice mail, IP video and audio conferencing, customer contact solutions, voice gateways and applications, security solutions, and network management.

It exemplifies the systemic approach inherent in intelligent networking. “Where the network has always provided connectivity, now it also solves business problems,” says Rob Redford, vice president of Product and Technology Marketing at Cisco. “With intelligent networking, the network, applications, and other components interact in a systemic way—the right function finds the right place in the system. This systemic approach is less complex, application-aware, and secure.”

What Enterprises Want

A technology solution proves itself with a “killer” application—the thing that no one can live without. This application differs widely with IP communications depending on the nature of the business, according to Elizabeth Ussher, vice president of technology research at META Group. “The killer app is what is most useful to the customer, and that varies by vertical market and even by department,” she says.

For example, a human resources professional might use video telephony to help manage personnel issues, while a customer support desk might need flexible automatic call distribution (ACD) capabilities, and sales people might need access to their e-mail via the telephone. Fortunately, the horizontal nature of IP communications allows deployment of not one but many killer applications, such as enterprise-wide employee communications deployed on IP phones, integrated access to data from enterprise business applications such as customer relationship management (CRM) or workforce management solutions, or Extensible Markup Language (XML)-based applications customized for a specific department or use in a vertical-market segment.

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IP Telephony: The Five Nines Story