Electronic emails are vital to today’s businesses worldwide, but Bennie Langenhoven, Tellumat Communication Solutions Managing Executive, believes that will soon change. Langenhoven believes traditional emails will become obsolete in the next few years, replaced by internal chat and social media.
“It will be driven by vendors and users. It is a process that will evolve and it will change the way users interact with each other. Many companies make use of social media and chat functions to communicate with one another, and it’s a more natural way of communication. It will be making its way into enterprise and instead of sending emails, businesses will find it a natural way to collaborate,” Langenhoven said in an interview with ITNewsAfrica.
He added that companies should embrace social media, and urged organisations to implement the technology. “They should make use of effective instant messaging and desktop messaging to colleagues. Video calls to other colleagues will also be the next step in unified communications.”
But, Langenhoven stressed the lingering misconceptions around unified communications and its integration. “The major misconception is that the systems are very expensive. Companies also feel that they don’t need unified communications, or that they do not understand the concept behind it or the benefits.”
While most unified communications and business operations are moving towards the cloud, Langenhoven feels that the hype around the cloud will die out soon. “The next big thing will be the level of service coming out of the cloud. The hype surrounding the cloud will disappear in about five years time. By then it will be acceptable to not have on-site PABX systems, for example. The telecommunications companies will host their services off-site. It also won’t be unheard of to pay a flat-rate for a service, or pay per functionality,” he concluded.
Charlie Fripp – Online editor
