Webinar News

Latest Webinar News

November 29, 2011

Webinar - Making the Unified Communication (UC) Choice that is Best for You


A just released market share report from research firm Infonetics, “Enterprise Unified Communication, VoIP and TDM Equipment,” has some revealing findings. While the PBX (News - Alert) market in the last quarter exhibited slow but steady sequential growth of 5.5 percent (a nice reversal of recent declines), Unified Communication (UC) experienced 15.2 percent revenue growth.   What is driving this activity and why is UC so robust?




The answer is simple. Businesses around the world are looking to have their communications integrated to optimize business processes. 

The reasons are many times painfully obvious. Business performance in an increasingly online/real-time world is now communications and computing centric. This means optimization of what can be characterized as “Infostructure” — the networks, platforms and software, e.g., plumbing — to meet desired business objectives and enable people to work more efficiently and effectively has never been more paramount. 

While some of the elements of UC have been around for some time, reality is that the confluence of more devices needing more bandwidth coupled with the requirements for better quality of service to yield better experiences in a safe and secure manner, along with the proliferation of new applications and services that ride on IP networks, are new and accelerating at exponential rates. Not just accommodating but leveraging these capabilities correctly has made the business case for UC compelling. In fact, it has made the move to UC in most instances a necessity.

If UC is becoming a matter of when and not if, the questions that arise concerning UC are myriad:

  • What is UC?
  • What UC functions are most important?
  • What are the UC deployment options?
  • Can existing equipment be used?
  • What should be the timing and in what order should you undertake a UC installation?
  • What is the business case/ROI for UC?

Driving the need to make strategic and tactical decisions now about UC is also the fact that the installed base of premises-based communications systems has never been older. As the world goes IP being state-of-the-art for the delivery of quality experiences for internal as well as external users is an organizational and not just an IT imperative in order for any business to remain competitive in its sector. UC is the answer, but how to get from wherever you are to where you need to be is a complex challenge.

There are extremely important reasons why UC is taking off even, or possibly especially because of, trying economic times. The promise of UC has always been to enable businesses to have their resources be more productive and contribute to the bottom line rather than be cost centers. Numerous proof cases validate that now is not just a good time to be looking at whether UC is right for you, it is a time to be evaluating alternatives and make smart decisions about your company’s future.

All of the questions above, whose answers can help you make the best decisions for your organization about moving to UC, are the subject of an upcoming webinar, Five Questions to Ask Before You Make Your Unified Communications (News - Alert) Choice.


Peter Bernstein is a technology industry veteran, having worked in multiple capacities with several of the industry's biggest brands, including Avaya, Alcatel-Lucent, Telcordia (News - Alert), HP, Siemens, Nortel, France Telecom, and others, and having served on the Advisory Boards of 15 technology startups. To read more of Peter's work, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Stefania Viscusi