In the second chapter of his book, The World Is Flat, Thomas Friedman discusses the ‘The Ten Forces that Flattened the World.’ The tenth flattener, he writes, is made up of ‘Six Steroids’ that enhance the effect of the preceding nine. The six steroids are computational capability, storage capability, and input/output capability; instant messaging (IM); Internet telephony (IP telephony); video-conferencing; advances in computer graphics; and wireless technologies.

Friedman sung the virtues of IP telephony thus: “The old voice platform did not lend itself to innovation. But when you put voice on an Internet platform, all sorts of innovative options for collaboration become possible. You will have a buddy list of people, and all you will have to do is double-click on a name and the call will go through. You want Caller ID? The caller’s picture will come up on your screen. And companies will compete over SoIP (Service over the Internet Protocol). Who can offer you the best video-conferencing while you are talking over your computer, PDA, or laptop? Who can enable you to talk to someone while easily inviting a third or fourth person into the conversation? Who can enable you to talk and swap document files and send text messages at the same time so you can actually speak and work on a document together while talking? You will be able to leave someone a voice message that can be converted into text, along with a document attachment that the two of you may be working on.”

That was in 2005—when companies like Cisco, IBM and Microsoft, seeking to re-draw the enterprise communication landscape, were already working toward something vastly more exciting than what Friedman left us with in his book. Unified Communications (UC) was the umbrella term they fell back on to convey their achievements on that front.