Unified communications is moving quickly from enterprise trend to bottom-line requirement for companies of all sizes. To meet this growing need for simplicity, UC pioneer Alianza last week announced a partnership with Digital Bridge Communications to serve as the exclusive provider of the telco's UC applications. Brian Beutler, CEO of Alianza, spoke with Telephony Associate News Editor Sarah Reedy.

On what UC means to Alianza: We think voice is still the primary form of communication at the center of it. Around it you have other voice-centric applications that also touch it like virtual PBX or [interactive voice response] and auto attendant, voice conferencing, message broadcasting, text-to-speech-type applications that are all integrated. Then in the third tier outside of the bull's-eye, you'll start to see other applications that are also communication-centric but not necessarily touching the voice at the center. You could see things like collaboration, e-mail, chat, [digital rights management], videoconferencing, text messaging, instant messaging, click to call, etc. The evolution or the meshing of the outer layer with the inner layers is what we see as unified communications.

On how Alianza and DBC are beating the big dogs: [DBC is] the first commercial WiMAX provider to launch in the U.S., which is extremely significant because we have some big-dog players like Sprint and Clearwire that own a lot of spectrum and pull a lot of weight with the media, but a smaller spectrum-holder focused on rural markets beat them to the punch and launched services. … It is significant for us because WiMAX takes communications to the next level, especially for markets where connectivity might be somewhat limited or at higher broadband speeds. Certainly it has the ability to leapfrog DSL. Now we are seeing multiple applications being delivered over that WiMAX broadband pipe, and voice is really the top of their list for converged communication tools.

On WiMAX's UC future: I see WiMAX as a catalyst for it, not necessarily a driver. It will facilitate fixed/mobile convergence. … On the other end of the graph, you'd see traditional analog voice and voice over IP, and then in the middle of those two we see WiMAX as the bridge … as they move closer and closer together. WiMAX is the keystone that bridges them all together.