Imagine dialing any telephone number to hear an e-mail message or calendar events, or accessing an Outlook address book with only one click and dialing a number from the contact list by just calling out the name. Now, imaging having access to features like these while on-the-go, using a single phone number provided to business partners, clients, customers and friends for communication purposes.

 

This kind of convenient technology breaks the barrier between telecommunications and computing, providing a single or unified solution for all kinds of communication (call, multimedia/cross-media message-management). This type of unified technology is called unified communications (UC).

 

Unified communications can be defined as an Internet-telephony technology architecture, which unites legacy and existing communication systems with productivity tools by utilizing integrated servers, services and client applications to deliver complete communication tools across multiple convenient applications and devices. 

 

In other words, unified communications can also be defined as real-time delivery of communications, based on the preferred method and location of the recipient.

 

The main purpose of developing UC was to optimize business processes and enhance human communications by reducing latency, managing flows, and eliminating device and media dependencies — in order to increase the productivity of an individual as well as the organization as a whole.

 

UC technology leverages IP-based infrastructure and existing communication applications and collaboration software to integrate disparate technologies — including fixed and mobile voice, e-mail, instant messaging, desktop and advanced business applications like calendars and directories, IP-PBX (News - Alert), voice over IP (VoIP), presence,  voicemail, fax, audio- video and Web-conferencing, unified messaging, unified voicemail, and whiteboarding — into a single environment. All these technologies are first brought into real time and then coordinated to make it a unified solution.  

 

Key benefits of UC include being able to find contacts and other required information for co-workers and business partners, in a very easy and convenient manner; the ability to see which mode of communication the recipient prefers to use at any given time (perhaps cell phone, or e-mail, or instant messaging) by utilizing presence concept, and calendaring tools that simplify connecting with co-workers and business partners at mutual convenient time.

 

UC also reduces the amount of time required to schedule meetings, wait on hold, play phone tag (News - Alert) and so forth. It improves an organization’s IT manageability and security of instant messaging, simplifies video calling, streamlines audio- video- and Web-conferencing; enables deployment of voice communications for new users and also to change/move current users; and helps to implement communications-enabled business processes (CEBP) that utilize events from business systems (reporting, databases, monitoring programs, GPS systems, cameras, etc.), to automatically trigger alert messages to the appropriate worker(s).

Plus, UC enables fixed-mobile convergence by equipping cell phones and smartphones with software applets, in order to allow the devices to extend its functionality.

 

The UC being an IP-based technology, it is both cost-effective and time-efficient and as well offers customer-friendly communication tools. It is very useful for knowledge workers, information workers, and service workers especially mobile work force.

 

Some of the other real-life examples of usability of UC include:

Ultimately, UC is a tailor-made technology architecture that caters to the communications needs of an individual or particular section of a company — in real time.