UC demand increasing

Hi,

So over the 6-8 weeks I have noticed a staggering increase from customers requesting UC solutions. These includes IM & presence, OCS and telephony integration, Exchagne 2007 specifically for the UM capabilities, etc.
This is wonderful news. Already quite a few customers have these solutions in place, however they are very far from complete at the moment as many of them only have IM & presence.
IM & presence on its own is not interesting neither is it new so the benefits returned are hard to measure.
However, once combined with telephony, video or LoB applications the ROI and benefits are staggering. The value derived from the telephony far out weights the implementation costs. Customers automatically see cash in the pocket when their employees do not call only to reach another persons voicemail. The reduced call costs for customers is increased while delivering efficiency to the organization.

Whilst all of this is underway - I also noticed that many software folks out there are really struggeling to understand everything that touches teh telephony world. This also includes representatives from the vendors as this is new territory for them.
For me, this is actaully quite easy, major steps are being make in terms of the underlying technology, however today is simply works from the end user perspective. I don't really worry about whether the same protocol is used from end to end. For me, it simply works.I feel strongly that for vendors to achieve the and values that they are positioning to the custoemr, they need to position the complete solution with the frills as only these implemetations will be truely successful. Anything less is deploying a sub-par solution.

Thanks