The communication revolution

In 2006, the email and internet revolution was already with us. Both following the remarkable impact of the arrival of the mobile phone two decades earlier.

A number of developments came together at this time. The smart phone was born as battery and screen technology advanced and, crucially, connectivity advanced in terms of both speed and reliability. We have been benefiting from these advances over the last two years but are not yet aware of the many benefits on offer in many areas of commercial operations.

And now 'the cloud'

The cloud is simply banks of powerful computers situated in various locations, connected to your business through your broadband facility. Your computer power will increasingly reside in the cloud with standard and bespoke applications sitting at a remote location.

Let us consider the fact that a seamless fibre optic connection is available between your local computer, cloud applications and mobile phone networks, and that cloud based applications now offer 'unified communications'.

Unified communications offer a remotely based platform controlling and integrating your internal telecoms network as well as email, web and intranets.

The headline of this is that personal communications can be instantly programmed to follow their target via one single contact number.

This will be the dominant communications structure, possibly for decades to come, and early adopters will gain an immediate advantage over their competitors.