Now that "unified communications" pretty much comes as "standard equipment" (or standard software) with contemporary IP-PBXs, we wonder not only what comes next, but what will we call it?

First, a bit of background. unified communications has its roots in unified messaging; unified messaging is defined by the International Engineering Consortium as “the integration of several different communications media, such that users will be able to retrieve and send voice, fax, and e-mail messages from a single interface, whether it be a wireline phone, wireless phone, PC, or Internet-enabled PC.” The definitions for unified communications are a little less precise, but for the sake of argument here, we’ll suggest that unified communications adds presence, instant messaging, and chat features to unified messaging; in some cases integration with shared calendaring and collaboration features are also included.

So once we are able to communicate from “human-to-human” with all the efficiency unified communications offers, the next logical step is to add human-to-machine, machine-to-human, and even machine-to-machine communications. For example, when traveling over the recent holiday, Larry’s originating flight was delayed so he missed his connecting flight. The airline’s back office automatically re-booked Larry for the next flight and sent both a voicemail (left by an IVR speech system) and an e-mail message to Larry, offering the option to speak to agent if he didn’t like the re-booked flight option.

In our example, the business process used machine-to-machine communications, machine-to-human, and it offered human-to-machine or human-to-human communications in case the automated options needed clarification or changes.

When we began this newsletter six years ago, we called this “applications convergence”, allowing for computer-based back-office applications and content to become conversational with humans in support of a business process. So what we called “applications convergence” is now a reality and being used by enterprises to bring efficiency to business process.

Today, some experts might call this computer telephony integration (CTI), others might call it enhanced unified communications, some suppliers have created their own label (like Avaya with its Communications-Enabled Business Process), some call it business process integration, and just for fun we’ll throw in another term called “unified applications”.

Steve Taylor is president of Distributed Networking Associates and publisher/editor-in-chief of Webtorials. Larry Hettick is a principal analyst at Current Analysis.