The Year ahead 2020

"It's stated that we are living through a digital revolution. Progress in new innovation and technology advancements, from consumer through to industry, is such that we are now well and truly in the 4th industrial revolution. While this sounds a bold statement we don’t have to look far to see examples of how the impacts of digital transformation are already and will further change the way we live and work forever. Be it increased flexible working, the reduction in voice minutes and increase in data messaging, through to the gradual integration of AI into our call centers to manage predicted enquirers quicker and more cost-effectively.

The mass and constant advent of new innovative technologies or the progression of existing technologies to solve problems or and improve our lives the digital revolution show no sign of slowing down and it usually involves connectivity to power or control the solution. So, what next to impact our industry?

For me, the trend of declining fixed voice services will continue into 2020 and we will likely see a stepped acceleration this year as more businesses now migrate to UCAAS services, driven by increased confidence from wider adoption, but also from greater demand for newer features such as chat, video and collaboration tools. This will also be fueled by both a new younger workforce as Millennial now take up management roles in our organisations, who have grown up with technology and will call out the need for these tools to be efficient and more productive, and also the longer term workforce agreeing with its benefits.

Leading this trend and grabbing the business communities attention is Microsoft's Team solution. With many CIO's and CEO's currently cautiously observing the solution and evaluating its use cases for their businesses. My view is that this solution will dominate the business world in the very near future. Also i predict that Microsoft will take steps to merge Teams and Outlook together bring a possible end to email as we know it. Hurry Up Microsoft ! We need this !

This will also see pressure on a number of Cloud Telephony solutions and i cant actual see an evolution model that will compete. The term shelf life is coming to mind on UC solutions as we know them. This will also likely impact other business solutions such as Slack, as the ability to manage whole projects and the corresponding chat in Teams will likely make it a one horse race.

On the topic of more progressive innovation, I think AR will make further progress this year and while it might not hit the consumer space in 2020, I’d say its getting very close as the high number of patents filed over the last few years suggest to me that consumer glass will make a return (think Google glasses, although I believe it could be Apple who is first to market) and the progress in industrial applications and use cases for AR and VR development will see far wider adoption.