Posted by Perry Nalevka

As I start writing this blog post I find myself surrounded with devices – Smartphone, Tablet, laptop, TV and a desk phone.  This provides me with great flexibility in the way I can communicate and get my work done but I can’t help but notice that the user experience needs much improvement to allow a smoother transition between screens.

Vendors are doing a good job of making services available on multiple devices but need to spend more time and effort in the fine details. It’s great that when someone sends me a message I can receive it on all of my devices, but do I really have to see the notification in three different places AFTER I have read the message. Isn’t it a little strange when I’m chatting with someone on my iPad to receive the notifications about it on my laptop & smart phone? Shouldn’t it be easier to see all of your conversations with someone in one place.

The idea of unified communications has been around for a long time now, but it hasn’t kept up with the times. When all of the communications was clearly contained “inside the network” this was easier to control and manage but now that much of the communication is happening on top of the network and intelligence has moved into the client the problem got more complex.

It’s clearly time for some innovation here. In the short term vendors will need to respond by ensuring that their service is available in every device and through strategic partnerships and service integrations but ultimately there needs to be some true unification. The question is, will this come from one of the many software startups or will it be enabled in the network (and in which one). In short who will unify my communication?