TMCnet Unified Communications Week in Review

Welcome to the newest edition of TMCnet's Unified Communications (News - Alert) Week in Review from a warmer East Coast (temperatures are expected to reach a balmy 40 degrees today) than last week.

 

With the current economic crisis affecting businesses across the nation, many are looking to Unified Communications (UC) as a solution to operate more efficiently and reduce costs. With UC, businesses stay connected and get more done with one streamlined way of communicating.

 

Wikipedia refers to UC as a “trend in business,” however many believe that this simplified way to communicate is one trend that is here to stay. 

 

In an effort to educate businesses on the benefits of Unified Communications, Sagem-Interstar, the global innovator in advanced fax solutions for IP networks, recently released a YouTube (News - Alert) video, entitled, “Can UC what’s missing?”

 

This video is proof that fax technology is not extinct, and that Fax over IP (FoIP) is particularly gaining recognition as a key part of Unified Communications strategies for cutting operational costs, as well as improving productivity, collaboration, and revenues.

 

Business VoIP solution provider, Nextiva, also knows that Unified Communications are becoming an integral part of any business. In today’s rough economy, businesses are reducing operation costs, but they shouldn’t be cutting corners when it comes to customer service. By merging all forms of communication (desk phone, cell phone, PDA, computer) into one complete unified solution, businesses get more done, in less time and keep their customers happy with features such as automated attendant, voicemail to e-mail, and more.

 

Here are some other stories this week on how Unified Communications are easing the pain of the economic crisis:

 

 

 

 

One company that continues to impress with its innovations in the mobile space is SpinVox, a global provider of voice to content messaging. The company recently announced that Skydeck is utilizing its voicemail-to-text conversion service as it launches a new service enabling users to manage their mobile phone conversations as if they were online e-mail messages.

 

Earlier this week, Technology Marketing Corporation President Rich Tehrani (News - Alert) spent some time with Tom Cross, someone who possesses a wealth of industry knowledge with three decades of experience in the technology arena under his belt.

 

Tehrani posed an interesting question to Cross during his interview: What surprised you most about 2008? Cross explained that “The great challenge facing the implementation UC is not the technology but the ‘corporate chasm’ of separate voice and IT/data departments.”

 

He is surprised that the gap between companies wanting to implement UC and actually doing it is because IT departments “do not want voice on their data networks.”

 

So everyone should blame IT? Not so fast…

 

TMC’s Art Rosenberg, a knowledgeable source who focuses mainly on unified communications in his writing, discussed how reports that communications powerhouse Nortel is considering bankruptcy possibilities is an indication that supporting Microsoft’s UC strategies may not have done enough for them to their survive.

 

He writes, “We are still watching how the other leading premise-based, business telephony (PBX) providers are changing (Avaya, Cisco, Siemens, Mitel, Alcatel-Lucent, etc.) vs. the enterprise premise-based e-mail and IM technology providers (Microsoft (News - Alert), IBM), vs. what the hosted communication service providers are now able to offer.”

 

Below are some stories to prove that Nortel (News - Alert) is still thriving.

Eyeing VoIP Market, Veraz Intros Nortel DMS Replacement Program

 

Nortel: Nortel, Kapsch CarrierCom Extend Mobile Broadband Services for mobilkom austria Network Increases Cost-effectiveness, Adds Regional Flexibility Across Austria, Liechtenstein and Slovenia

 

To learn more about the latest news in Unified Communications, visit TMCnet’s UC community. Next week, we will be back to discuss how UC continues to help businesses amidst an economic recession.