We can look to convergence, using the integration of new technologies with existing ones, to continue taking communication back to a simple approach. Much the same way telephones evolved from operator assisted calls to simple button pushing, computers have evolved to allow communication across the street, the town, even the world–anywhere, anytime. The difference is in the hardware and software powering those computers–equipment that is not only shrinking in physical size but being converged at the core level to perform a multitude of tasks invisibly.

What does this convergence really mean? Does it mean better, less costly machines that ultimately make life easier by offering more product in smaller packages, translating into more sales and bigger commissions? Or does convergence mean fewer products, fewer sales, and lower commissions?

Audio, Data, Video Come Together

Industry analysis house Frost & Sullivan (www.frost.com), experts at solution solving, is touting the convergence of audio, data, and video with numbers in the $160 million range. Writing on Internet World at www.internetworld.co.uk, George Malim quotes Frost & Sullivan saying “the days of stand-alone audio conferencing bridges are coming to an end as the market transition to IP has ignited the convergence of audio, data, and video conferencing into a solution. This notable shift is driven not only by the growing demand for single source solutions by enterprises, but also by the convergence movement among service providers.”

Convergence is the detail; communication is the goal. It’s that exchange of vital information driving businesses as well as technologies to converge. When businesses integrate–converge –they generally bring more technology with them. When the technology converges, you get faster, better communication in an environment resellers should be able to thrive in.

Business in the new millennium is driven to deliver results across multiple business units, whether that’s a focus on server applications for sales, Web, e-mail, or email, or whether it’s software applications for spreadsheets and enterprise computing, CRM, or dashboard computing. Resellers need only understand that it’s the task of combining the technologies that gives the SMB market tools it can wield in today’s competitive marketplace. As Malim writes, “Enterprises are likely to adopt integrated solutions because they minimize network constraints and provide a higher level of functionality.”

Application integration and/or convergence is so prevalent it makes headlines almost daily, somewhere. For hardware resellers, the concept of application convergence may seem irrelevant until you remember that applications don’t run themselves. They are housed in PCs and servers and they need human beings to run them. Drill down to the server level, and you immediately see that there is no better win-win situation out there today. As a server reseller, your “total solution” is exactly what the market is demanding. Save your client downtime and money (less training, more functionality) and you come out a hero.


This new phase in e-commerce surpasses that not so distant world of the 20th century where companies were told they had to be “agile” to compete. Today, agile seems a poor descriptor for what’s happening. Convergence is driving technology with on-demand computing that makes communication so invisible, VoIP and cell phones that serve ads along with simple text messaging, that the watchword should be adaptability moreso than agility. Adapting is an agile process, to be sure, but one can be agile without change. One cannot adapt without change.

Adapting in an E-Commerce World

Business models need to quickly ramp up to the concept of adaptability. The combining of two or more supportive technologies is the pure description of a world morphing business applications and processes into a customer-centric focus. This is far removed from the mid-twentieth century pursuit of keeping one’s focus on the company. The company, it’s now widely understood, does not drive profits–the customer drives profits. Profits and commissions come from the solution inherent in the technology, but the technology, according to author Kevin Kelly, [New Rules for the New Economy (Viking Penguin, NY, 1999), only “creates an opportunity for a demand, and then fills it.”

Nora Denzel, senior VP of HP’s Adaptive Enterprise Program, describes an adaptive enterprise as one that “has successfully integrated its IT infrastructure with its business processes.” Here we have the perfect description of converging software and hardware technologies providing true adaptability in a cost-effective, simplified manner. The business enterprise exists at all levels of e-commerce, from the one-woman shop selling designer pumps or sandals out of her garage to the megalithic company with a dozen locations worldwide, supporting hundreds of employees and thousands of customers. Both business models go beyond the agile approach and require an adaptive enterprise where a convergence of differing IT equipment addresses the business’s needs in a more effective manner, both in cost and application.
Denzel, in an interview on the HP site, addresses adaptability by noting that such a business model requires industry standards that go “hand in hand with simplification. [These] allow for better integration of your business processes with your IT resources,” she says.

The need exists to embrace an adaptive mindset in an adaptive environment using standards of checks and balances and to manage the convergence successfully, adding simplicity and clarity, and peaks interest in the marketplace.

To a Fault Tolerant

There are numerous instances of integration and convergence, but only time and space for a few here.

NEC Solutions America Inc. is preparing to release a “fault-tolerant server” within the next six months. This equipment will give SMBs an alternative to clustering. While clustering has been one option for the SMB market, it can be tricky for small companies to manage, not to mention the possibility of increased software licensing costs. Jim Johnson, chairman of the Standish Group, a research firm specializing in IT investment planning, considers fault-tolerant servers a money saving idea. Johnson was quoted in NetworkWorldFusion, saying, “Fault-tolerant servers might save business money vs. clustering, in the long run.”

The NEC’s new Solutions’ fault-tolerant server, which has yet to be named, is aimed at the small to mid-sized market, offering high availability through “redundant components rather than through multiple systems.” Larry Sheffield, NEC’s senior VP of its Solutions Platform Group, says, “I want to bring different shades of products to the market.” This will be done in addition to their current offering of mid-range fault-tolerant servers – specifically the two-way Express 5800/320La for Linux and 320Lb for Windows. Prices are in the $10,000 range, giving NEC at least a chance of meeting expectations within its target market, the niche not served by Dell, HP, IBM, and Sun.

The Mouse that Roared

Recreational activities require certain convergence, also. According to Roger Berry, senior vice president and chief information officer with Walt Disney World Company, “The role of IT is changing. It’s not simply an organization today that is deploying technology, but integrating technology from a lot of different angles.”

Berry goes on to say that the IT department is controlling and integrating technology to drive “a good business opportunity.” The goal at Disney is to utilize converging technology to integrate visitors from all over the world into a more positive Disney World experience. To do so, the company has installed a series of infrared cells throughout its Orlando, FL property. These cells connect with certain ‘objects’ visitors buy or carry about with them, which can direct the visitor to the shortest line or the ladies room, since the infrared cells tracks the visitor’s movements and anticipate where he or she may be heading next.

Disney’s convergent technology, from the hand-held infrared toys tracking the visitors’ experiences, to the software that regulates park security to the servers that keep everything running smoothly, demonstrates the value of serving the customer first.

Rules-based, BPM

More convergence news can be found at Pegasystems, Inc. where the company has “consolidated its sales organization to more effectively sell its solutions.” This is a direct result of “the ongoing and rapid technological convergence of its vertical and horizontal PBM products.”

Pegasystems announces on its Web site that, “Whether using one of our industry-specific, pre-built applications for Financial Services or Healthcare, or our enabling technology for enterprise BPM, our customers are using the only products on the market today that combine a patented business rules engine with built-in process management software.” Gartner, a leader in technology research and analysis gives Pegasystems high marks, as noted on their homepage in a sidebar: “Gartner positions Pegasystems in the Leaders quadrant in both its Pure-lay Business Process Management and Business Rule Engine Magic Quadrants, the only company to be so recognized.

SMBs Buy Linux

The Linux community isn’t ignoring the value of convergence. In a Computer Business Review report on Red Hat, the U.S.-based Linux technology leader, an announcement that the company is teaming up with “Black Duck Software Inc. to offer Linux and open source users intellectual property risk management software,” comes at the same time as their release of version 1.0 of the Red Hat Application Server. This adds to the convergence model in two ways. First, the team approach provides value-added products and services, and second, partnering provides a platform clients can depend on. SMBs expect more value from partnerships in areas of customer service and training since partnerships can provide these services on a wider scale, as opposed to a single company that may or may not have adequate support in these areas.

The announcement of Red Hat’s open source Java Application Server is another step in convergence. Touted as an “Open Source Architecture on top of its Enterprise Linux Distribution,” the server includes functionality for pooling, caching and storage optimization, with messaging and transaction support as well as clustering for failover and load-balancing.

The Trend Continues

Convergence is happening in more than servers. There is a convergence of sorts going on in the writing world, as well. In communication rooms that report on technology and business, including a blog located at Fast Company online (http://blog.fastcompany.com/archives/2004/08/09/managing_convergence.html), Shasha Dai writes, “As a result of convergence, the medium lines are blurred; deadlines are multiple, and traditional division of labor doesn’t apply. What’s interesting is how to manage a multimedia team–how to help newspaper reporters to work across the platform; how to teach photographers to use a video camera; and how to prepare a print columnist to comment on television.” Fast Company was writing about convergence back in September of 2003, where it announced: “Convergence, the long-promised Holy Grail of consumer electronics, has arrived. At least, that what the industry is telling us.”
The “industry,” so we expect, is technology. We’ve come a long way since 2003. It’s a sure bet that the more applications one company can fit onto smaller and smaller hardware boxes, whether PCs, cell phones, PDAs, servers, or watches, the more popular that company will be and the more sales it will make to clients and resellers. The reseller market has everything to gain from convergence.
We need look no further than Japan, where the cell phone has become more than a tool. It is now a fashion statement, complete with converged technologies for Internet access, email, phone calls, spreadsheets, and more contained in something as small as a wristwatch. There, convergence is not the next big thing. It’s the current big thing, as noted in this press release dated August 4, 2004, posted on the NTT DoCoMo Web site at http://www.nttdocomo.com/presscenter/pressreleases/press/
/pressrelease.html?param[no]=478


Embrace the change. Resistance is futile.