As we move further into a software oriented economy, it’s not uncommon for the applications we use to be more important and valuable than the hardware that enables them. (Very different from 10 or 15 years ago.)
We can now consume and deploy such applications in two ways – centrally, if the sensitivities of our business demand a premise-based virtual system in our data centre, or via the cloud, where ultrafast WAN links let us consume services from the likes or Microsoft, Amazon or our SaaS provider.
What we are seeing here is another wave of convergence where applications are joining voice, video and data over the same network infrastructure.
And by apps, we don’t just mean email or Facebook, but applications that can deliver and manage voice and contact centre services without putting an actual phone on anyone’s desk.