Enterprise customers, IBM (News - Alert) Software Group and many others in the industry are moving beyond a focus on plain vanilla IP telephony and instead looking at VoIP as part of a larger picture, which also includes unified communications and Web 2.0 social networking capabilities, Bruce Morse, vice president of unified communications and collaboration at IBM Software Group and one of this morning’s VoiceCon keynote speakers, told TMCnet in an advance interview.

 

Morse mentions that VoiceCon is trying to evolve its event from an IP theme to more of a UC focus and adding Web 2.0 social software capabilities. That’s pretty indicative of how IBM sees the market evolving, he says. Along that track, he adds, we’re seeing more back-end consolidation and front-end consolidation with single user interface and Web 2.0 capabilities.

 

What IBM has really been focused on and its core value is not IP telephony per se, but rather connecting people to people, he says. Voice is just one of many communication types that users can employ to share information and find answers. In his speech this morning at 11:15 a.m. at the San Francisco event, Morse says he’ll talk about the industry’s need to rise above a voice play to address all types of communications on a wide variety of user endpoints.