AVAYA / Nortel and Samsung Telecom players are hyping the heck out of it. Presence!

What the hell is Presence and what does it mean to me or my competition?
I think its the classic "built it and they will come" scenario.  Users don't know what they don't know, and having been in the telecom business for 25 years this year, I have seen AVAYA push technology to us the Dealers and we then have to push it to the clients.  Its a continual education process to the end user.
I mean look at it from a manufacturer's point of view.... you have 50 engineers on the payroll,  they have to continually design and perfect new technological innovations to maintain or increase market share.  So they have a users group that come up with wish lists - I've been on those groups - and the executive decides if  it should dedicate resources to it.   Once they do, marketing has to sell the damn stuff. 
Some of it dies, some carries on....  for instance remember the breakthrough technology back in 1990's called Bluetooth.  The manufacturers hyped the hell out of it and we tried to sell it but it languished for ten or more years.  Now everyone has blue tooth technology on their bodies somewhere. 
Same with ISDN.  ( we nicknamed it I Still Don't Know)  Well, only years later did it have its heyday.   Now SIP technology (my current passion) is supplanting that.  Same with Fax technology as well.  I remember saying "What the hell are we going to do with a $5,000 "facsimile" device?" 
To sum up, presence is still new and manufacturers are hyping the hell out of it. We as Dealers, for like AVAYA and Samsung, have to educate ourselves, and then the End User. 
What will kick this into hi gear is
-IP Telephony (sip connectivity) which has finally arrived to the SMB marketplace.
- The high cost of office space in major metro areas (this is already a pent up issue)
- Environmental concerns revolving around commuting, gas, gridlock, cost of downtown parking, bike lanes, Carbon Tax, Emissions standards, quality of life.
 
-remote workers (which will make presence management a must) "you can't manage what you can't measure (business 101)    ...Which has not arrived yet.
That to me is the biggie.  As an employer, I still cannot let go of the concept of paying someone thousands of dollars to lallygag at home.  Until I can definitively measure their productivity through PRESENCE MANAGEMENT, it will not take flight.  I can tell you most small business employers think just like me. 
So the underlying business value is massive!  Bigger than we even can imagine.  It along with all the other technologies I mentioned have to cross the line of implementability at roughly the same time for this to fly...and it will.
Its the new gold mine discovery for business owners and manufacturers... but we have not been able to put it into mass production. 
...Yet.
Warmly; Tom Mac Donald, c. 604.720.8102 | d. 604.571.6405 | f. 604.571.6455
e.  tmacdonald@tmsi.ca | w.  www.tmsi.ca