TMCnet's Unified Communications Headsets News Review

Catching up with two of the top unified communications headsets stories recently, there was an interesting post on the Plantronics (News - Alert) blog about their resource called the “UC Toolkit.”

The UC Toolkit is a rich resource put together by Plantronics to help IT successfully deploy audio device as part of a UC implementation. Here are 3 things you need to know about the UC Toolkit:

It is a portfolio of IT best practices, recommendations and tools, it is based on collective wisdom of customers’ experiences and lessons learned and it’s designed to achieve the highest employee UC audio device adoption which optimizes your UC investment and business communications.

Also, bear in mind that one type of headset does not fit all. This blog post gives some good best practices for picking the right ones, including paying closer attention to the work environment – does the user work in an open plan office, private office, from home, on the road? A speaker phone can work in a private office or at home and a headset is generally better in an open plan office and on the road.

And don’t forget the experience and comfort with a PC. If the user is fairly inexperienced with PC communications, a USB telephone can help ease the transition between traditional telephony and UC.

TMC (News - Alert) also reported that the wireless market is being flooded with a number of applications designed for smartphones and tablets. With such devices having built in standard wireless Bluetooth HID connection, Bluetooth Human Interface Devices are becoming more popular than before.

Roving Networks specializes in development and production of ultra-low power Bluetooth HID modules built upon standard wireless interfaces. These modules are stated to be complete readymade solutions that can be used to design devices.

Mike Conrad, CEO for Roving said, “Like our SPP and iAP Bluetooth profiles, the HID profile is an extremely easy to use out of the box solution, and is also very programmable for advanced developers.”

The modules are available on two different platforms RN-42-HID and RN-41-HID but have the same form factor and identical certifications. Using the company's HID reference design, one can get started on building a Bluetooth HID device. Even manufacturers can create after market accessories because the modules follow a standard HID library.

Also, TMC noted that there’s no question that IBM’s (News - Alert) latest “Social Collaboration” Offering , Sametime Unified Telephony v8.5.2 (SUT) environment, enables your employees and customers to become better connected, and more socially collaborative when you deploy its latest feature-rich and innovative SUT platform.

With access to Sametime’s voice, video conferencing, telepresence, and messaging features, your workforce will always be consistently connected and far more productive.

And while it’s likely that your business already has a UC solution underway or in early planning stages, it’s a proven fact that if you are not selecting the most appropriate high quality UC Audio devices (end points) that empower your Sametime users and suits their individual working styles, you could be jeopardizing your entire UC deployment and end up dramatically affecting your user adoption success rates.  

The audio devices you choose for your staff members, may mean the difference a between very successful UC deployment versus one that doesn’t provide the best experience for the employee and the new PC-based telephony remains unused.