I got invited to speak about UC and video in a Focus webinar for the Small and Medium Business Community. Since I usually talk to larger organizations, this webinar was a great opportunity to evaluate how the solutions available in the UC and video space apply (or don't apply) to SMBs.
First of all, SMB definition varies by country, for example, the US Government define companies with less than 500 employees as SMBs while in Germany it is companies with less than 250 employees. Since the audience of the webinar was mostly in North America, I created a story around a fictional SMB with about 300 employees distributed across three larger offices and several small sales offices.
The webinar had two parts. In the first 30 minutes, I covered definitions of "collaboration" and "communication", UC scope and market size, and talked about the real value of UC to SMBs. Then I described the types of UC solutions, the value of video as part of the UC solution, and finished by dispelling the myth about superior single-vendor solutions, which also directly relates to the trend towards UC ecosystems, and the increased importance of standards and interoperability.
In the second part, I focused on what SMBs should consider when deploying video. The presentation basically led the audience through the steps of building a video network from scratch to a fully functional multi-site network that spans across geographies and connects to partners, suppliers, and customers. The extensibility and scalability aspect is very important because many SMBs are growing fast and want to make sure a video starter kit can later be expanded to support more users.
I was able to cover not only video fundamentals but also IP network readiness aspects - when connecting distributed offices external organizations.
Webinar attendance was great, and resulted in many questions, some of which I answered in the Q&A session and some online. I am getting a lot of follow-up questions and it looks like the webinar had a huge impact.
If you want to watch the webinar recording, please click here.
