Greetings from the Orlando Airport! I’m wearing black clothing (anticipating cold NYC weather), but 99 percent of the people here are dressed like they just stepped out of Epcot. Also, lots of fanny packs. Anyhow, VoiceCon ended today. Though I wanted to live-blog every day, I was unable to do so for a few reasons: my MacBook was set on “better performance” and my battery kept dying; the conference’s free WiFi network always gave me only ONE BAR during sessions and keynotes; and I was busy every day from 730 am - 830 pm (usually, the people at VoiceCon looked at me like I was insane for staying that late, and kicked me out). So, yes — mini-traumas aside, I enjoyed the conference.

Usually, I’m holed up in the Speech Tech, sucked into the world of ASR, IVR, TTS, STT, ACD, and VUI. This time, I got to check out some UC solutions that will have a real impact on the contact center space. The biggest issues in UC/VoIP? Interoperability, integration, tons of “strategic partnerships.” I was reminded of Forrester analyst Brian Haven’s keynote speech at Nuance Conversations at several VoiceCon keynotes. The message from both speeches was the same: companies need to wise up to their changing consumer and employee demographics — and, with a plethora of information available at one’s fingertips, the enterprise must adapt and embrace the changing nature of business relations. This extends past presence and UC/UM sessions; it also penetrates the contact center and overall IT infrastructure. Head geeks, unite — VoiceCon was all about you. Read on for some of my favorite sessions’ highlights…

Avaya Keynote — Lou D’Ambrosio, president & CEO
OK — disclaimer: Lou is one of my favorite speakers. He’s really energetic, moves around when he talks, and seems generally excited about his company and what they do. During his speech, Lou highlighted the importance of interoperability, and made several company announcements: Avaya’s Intelligent Presence product will combine telephony, desktop, and application presence info on to either Avaya or other third-party vendors (including IBM & Microsoft). According to an article from VoIP news source FierceVoIP.com, Avaya wants to be the “king of presence.” We say: break out the purple velvet and turkey legs — Avaya is going to be investing major time and money in presence. Vendors beware.

Microsoft Keynote - Gurdeep Singh Pall, corporate VP of UC Group
OK, so…Gurdeep made about five swipes at Avaya during his keynote. I know this business is all about competition, but I was kind of when he was finished. He stressed interoperability, but was putting down a company who supports Microsoft systems. He spent the majority of his time pumping up OCS, and made two big announcements: Microsoft has strategic partnerships with both Nortel and Aspect Software. OK…the two companies (Nortel & Aspect) are competitors. Smart on Microsoft’s part, but also kind of sadistic. According to Gurdeep, the Nortel/OCS partnership has already generated 600 customer wins! Despite HP and Cisco’s entrance in the UC space (and how it upset the current vendor space), Microsoft is still going full-steam ahead with OCS: expect more partnerships and more deployments.

IBM - Michael Rhodin, general manager of Lotus Software
OK - two words: Babel Bridge. My flight starts boarding in 10 minutes, so I don’t have the time necessary to fully articulate this bizarre, possibly groundbreaking, and unexpected product. Until then, I leave you with this: Babel Bridge is an IBM product being deployed for US government and intelligence agencies and operates similarly to SecondLife - yes, IBM is creating virtual worlds (Avaya eluded to this in its keynote, but IBM was totally all, “Oh really? We already have that.”). Also, Babel? Remember the Tower of Babel? Building an edifice reaching heaven? That didn’t turn out so well. Let’s hope Babel Bridge does not suffer the same fate.

I’ll be back tomorrow morning with the rest of my rundown!