Patrick was joined by special guest Bertrand Pourcelot who is the Managing Director for Centile.
Initially Bertrand takes Patrick through some of the contrasts between some of the different regions that the Within Reach Group cover. He explains that there has been a much stronger uptake of mobility solutions in the Nordic region compared to any other across Europe. In other areas they are also witnessing an increase in the use of soft clients as opposed to endpoint devices.
Bertrand explains that the biggest trend is still the general move towards to cloud communication solutions which is apparently accelerating in the European market now.
“As a cloud solution specialists we have been waiting for this cloud adoption for quite some years, so we are very excited to see it happening in all regions now.”
In terms of the development of features and functionality Bertrand tells Patrick that consumer technology leads the way and that development in that space drives a lot of the development within business applications.
“That’s really the driver of the evolution, making it simpler and easier for the end user. User experience is really a key, key, key focus – if the end user has to read a manual that means the product is maybe badly designed.”
Bertrand explains that the principle difference between the consumer world and the business world is the level of integration available between different applications. In a consumer scenario you have different apps for each messaging, video or voice tool but in the professional environment companies like Centile are trying to consolidate this so different applications can interact with each other to simplify the experience for users.
Patrick and Bertrand then move on to discuss the next generation of developments. Patrick asks Bertrand about the impact of IoT, AI and ML technology within UCaaS.
Bertrand explains that they see the mobile device as the primary conduit or remote control for user’s communication worlds. The boom in IoT devices will enable more and more services and Bertrand explains that they have been examining the potential for enhanced use of location services through IoT wearables. These technologies including additional enhancements like natural language processing may well make their way into UCaaS platforms to augment the experience.
Patrick also asks Bertrand about the potential for use of mixed reality, XR, tools within UCaaS. Bertrand recognise the potential advantages but acknowledges that the pace of development will vary depending on multiple factors.
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Presenter Patrick Watson and special guest Bertrand Pourcelot from Centile.
