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Unified Communications Week in Review

By Maurice Nagle
TMCnet Web Editor

Fasten your seatbelts; it’s time for  the Unified Communications (News - Alert) Week in Review!  This has been another exciting week in the world of Unified Communications—here a few stories that took center stage.

TMCnet reported this week that Hipcriket, a mobile engagement and analytics solutions specialist, recently improved its AD LIFE platform.  AD LIFE’s new additions offer agencies and brands greater insight into consumer engagements via one dashboard.   It unifies Facebook (News - Alert), Instagram, Twitter and YouTube affording streamlined interactions. 

David W. Hostetter, chief technology officer at Hipcricket stated, “Understanding how customers interact with your brand across multiple platforms is critical to optimizing visibility as well as creating consistent audience engagement and loyalty.” Hipcricket is quite excited about the success of its efforts: greater campaign ROI and better engagement metrics.

For the second year in a row, Frost & Sullivan (News - Alert) showered Plantronics with accolades. In 1961 Plantronics (News - Alert) developed the first lightweight telephone headset, today, “It is no wonder that Plantronics are found in 100 percent of Fortune 100 companies” proclaimed Mohamed Alaa Saayed, senior industry analyst at Frost & Sullivan.  Saayed stated, “Plantronics has successfully established itself as one of the most respected brands in traditional enterprise communications space now in demanding unified communication environments.”

A developing dilemma in Unified Communications is which vendor’s voice technology to use.  The field overlaps tremendously –21 percent of datacenters use both Cisco (News - Alert) Voice and Microsoft Lync.  Four options exist for those struggling with this dilemma: All Cisco, Both elemental, both in parallel, or all Microsoft.   Microsoft and Cisco provide exceptional offerings, not making this an easy decision.

In other news, AARNet, an Australian firm focused on creating platforms for collaboration and developing solutions for the research and education sector, signed a deal with Amcom to provide a cloud-based platform to AARNet’s customers—including 38 Australian universities and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO).

Stay in the know, right here, in the Unified Communications Community! See you next week for the Week in Review!