Unified-View (Part 2)

By David Zimmer

Back | (Part 2)

These benefits include:

• More selective and flexible individual and group contact accessibility;

• Greater real-time communication responsiveness;

• More cost-effective and flexible collaborative conferencing communications;

• Minimizing loss of productivity due to unimportant interruptions;

• Meeting deadlines through timely delivery of important application information and messages, and

• Improved personal management of time priorities.

For better customer care, IP-based infrastructure will enable the next generation of enterprise-wide, virtual contact centers, which will optimize enterprise resources to more efficiently service new customer-facing needs in the era of online e-business and wireless communication mobility.

KICKING THE SECURITY TIRES
In the demonstration room, Avaya showed their latest offerings, along with other technology partners who had integrated tightly with Avaya products. We worked with one Avaya person who was demonstrating their ability to hack into any enterprise SMTP server to spoof their mail system. Fortunately, our own e-mail system was nailed shut because we use Lotus Domino and because we closed a lot of the doors through our configuration parameters. The goal of the demo was to show Avayas security analysis and support services, especially now that voice mail and IP telephony servers will be subject to the same security concerns that e-mail has been dealing with for years.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?
We were impressed with the information that Avaya provided. Are they headed in the right direction? Will voice communication applications get embedded under consolidated presence/availability management technologies? Are end-user concerns more important than technology cost-savings? Should an enterprise correlate improved end-user communications with enterprise revenue generation? If so, what new tools will you need to do so?

Let us know your thoughts by sending your comments to [email protected]. You can also participate in our forums.

ENTERPRISE SURVEY OF CONVERGED COMMUNICATIONS MIGRATION
The Unified-View has started a comprehensive survey initiative to track the migration of enterprise organizations towards converged communications management. The ongoing survey is accessible through CommWeb and is open to enterprise technology managers responsible for current telephone or messaging communications and their migration to a converged network infrastructure and multi-modal communication devices.

Participants in this study will be rewarded with up-to-date perspective reports of how enterprise organizations are selectively migrating from their current communication technologies to support various user needs for enterprise-wide mobility and multi-modal communications.

To participate in this survey now, go to: http://cmp.inquisiteasp.com/surveys/e42wy8 and be sure to type in TMC as your Group Identification Code on the first page.

New White Paper
Dont forget to pull down your free copy of our latest white paper, Migrating to Enterprise-wide Communications: The Branch Office Dilemma, on enterprise-wide communication applications in a distributed enterprise. Simply go to our Web site www.unified-view.com, fill out the form, and download the paper.

Art Rosenberg and David Zimmer are veterans of the computer and communications industry and formed The Unified-View to provide strategic consulting to technology and service providers, as well as to enterprise organizations, in migrating towards converged wired and wireless unified communications. They focus on practical user requirements, implementation issues, and new benefits of multi-modal communication technologies for individual end users, both as consumers and as members of enterprise working groups. The latter includes identifying new responsibilities for enterprise communications management to support changing operational usage needs most cost-effectively.

Considered to be objective industry thought leaders, Art Rosenberg and David Zimmer have been publishing their highly-acclaimed syndicated column on unified messaging and unified communications for over four years to a worldwide audience of consultancies, technology providers, service providers, and enterprise technology managers. Both principals are popular speakers at leading technology conferences and organized the first programs in the industry focused on the subject of unified messaging/communications. The Unified-View's website (www.unified-view.com) is also considered to be a leading source for information on the evolution of unified communications.

Copyright 2003 The Unified-View, All Rights Reserved Worldwide