UC Overview
In many organisations, employees communicate amongst themselves and trading partners using a blended mix of traditional telephony, mobile phones, required e-mail, and fax. In addition, Instant Messaging (IM) applications & Video conferencing facilities make up the portfolio of applications that are used to exchange information with colleagues, customers and suppliers.
Traditionally this mix of communications has always been disconnected from one another. The e-mail environment ran completely independently of the voice infrastructure, IM ran separately from video conferencing and fax and mobile telephony had very little in common with each other at all.
The concepts of Unified Communications platforms attempts to tackle this disconnect by making all of these communications devices and applications interact with one another. By allowing each platform to integrate and exchange information with each other, organisations benefit from simplified internal communications, improved business processes and enabling individuals to be easily located and contacted, providing a more efficient and responsive service to their customers to gain a real competitive edge over their competition.
Picture this: A world where employees have one phone that acts as a PDA, Video device, e-mail inbox, a mobile telephone and an IM platform all in one device.
With intuitive integration features, the applications can adapt their status whenever the handset is in use. For example, if the user is on the phone, their presence within IM is set to ‘unavailable’ or ‘on a call’. If they need to receive a faxed order, it appears in their e-mail inbox. If they are away from the office, the communications network can automatically route calls to the user’s mobile or their e-mail, depending on who is calling and at what time, giving the user greater flexibility and control over how they are contacted and by whom.
This is here. This is now. Welcome to the world of Unified Communications.