Unified Communications Magazine July 2007                                                                                                                Volume 1 / Number 1

First, UC picks up where our other publications, Internet Telephony, IMS and SIP, leave off. For years we've all been enamored with IP Communications itself. But now the novelty is wearing off as the technology becomes commonplace - "disappearing into the machinery", as it were - so it's time to talk about the most useful thing you can actually do with it. Undoubtedly, that "thing" is unified communications. When fantasizing about what IP can do, we're actually visualizing various facets of UC and its capabilities. IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem), the future service architecture of both wireless and wireline networks, as well as its logical extrapolation, FMC (Fixed-Mobile Convergence), as impressive as they are, both ultimately serve the vision of UC - the ability to contact and collaborate with anybody, anywhere, anytime, using any kind of communications device.

Second, there's our magazine's intriguing horizontal format, having nearly the same aspect ratio as your PC's screen.

Why, you ask? When a conventional vertical-format magazine is moved to digital or web form, computer users find themselves reading a vertical magazine on a horizontal screen. This is ridiculous. More people read the online version. Indeed, everybody now gets their first impression of a publication and its brand identity by its website, for although there are only so many paper copies available, there's an infinite number of possible online page views. A periodical's website is now a strategic marketing tool, capable of myriad forms of reader interactivity and subject to sophisticated analysis. Publishers and advertisers can now utilize advanced web-based technologies to determine click-throughs, page views, etc.

Thus, it shouldn't be arduous for readers to navigate the digital and/or online versions of a magazine, simply to preserve the sanctity of Ye Olde vertical paper format. That explains our "landscape" format. Each page fits neatly on screen, and an exact paper version exists for "offline" reading. Readers and advertisers now have the best of both worlds.

Unified Communications is therefore the world's first "webified" magazine - or is it a "paperized" website? You decide. But whatever it is, Unified Communications is a tremendous informational asset that we hope you'll both enjoy and find useful.

Richard Grigonis is Executive Editor of TMC's IP Communications Group.