An Information Communications Technology Solutions Essay

Unified communications (UC) is a commonly used term for the integration of disparate communications systems, media, devices and applications. This potentially includes the integration of fixed and mobile voice, e-mail, instant messaging, desktop and advanced business applications, Internet Protocol (IP)-PBX, voice over IP (VoIP), presence, voice-mail, fax, audio video and web conferencing, unified messaging, unified voicemail, and whiteboarding into a single environment offering the user a more complete but simpler and more effective experience. Gartner states â€Å"The largest single value of UC is its ability to reduce â€Å"human latency† in business processes. † Unified Messaging (or UM) is the integration of different streams of communication (e-mail, SMS, Fax, voice, video, etc. ) into a single, or, unified ‘message store’, accessible from a variety of different devices. Unified Messaging was expected by many in the consumer telecommunications industry to be a popular product, first augmenting and eventually replacing voicemail. However, UM was slow to gain consumer acceptance, and UM vendors such as Comverse were badly hit when the slowdown in the telecommunications industry in 2001 made carriers wary of spending large amounts of money on technology with little proven consumer demand. Role of UM in Present Scenario Today, UM solutions are increasingly accepted in the corporate environment. The aim of deploying UM solutions generally is to enhance and improve business processes as well as services. UM solutions targeting professional end-user customers integrate communications processes into the existing IT infrastructure, i. e. into CRM, ERP and mail systems (e. g. Phoenixnet PH, Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes, SAP, etc. ) Unified communications is sometimes confused with unified messaging, but it is distinct. Unified communications refers to a real-time delivery of communications based on the preferred method and location of the recipient; unified messaging systems culls messages from several sources (such as email, voice mail etc. ), but holds those messages for retrieval at a later time. Unified messaging focuses on allowing users to access voice, e-mail, fax and other mixed media from a single mailbox independent of the access device. Multimedia services include messages of mixed media types such as video, sound clips, and pictures, and include communication via short message services (SMS). Components of unified communications Unified communications can include a variety of elements, such as instant messaging, telephony, video, email, voicemail, and short message services, all of which could be brought into real time and coordinated. The concept of presence is also a factor – knowing where one’s intended recipients are and if they are available, in real time – and is itself a key component of unified communications. To put it simply, unified communications integrates all the systems that a user might already be using and helps those systems work together in real time. For example, unified communications technology could allow a user to seamlessly collaborate with another person on a project, even if the two users are in separate locations. The user could quickly locate the necessary person by accessing an interactive directory, engage in a text messaging session, and then escalate the session to a voice call, or even a video call – all within minutes. In another example, an employee receives a call from a customer who wants answers. Unified communications could enable that worker to access a real-time list of available expert colleagues, then make a call that would reach the necessary person, enabling the employee to answer the customer faster, and eliminating rounds of back-and-forth emails and phone-tag. The examples in the previous paragraph primarily describe â€Å"personal productivity† enhancements that tend to benefit the individual user. While such benefits can be important, enterprises are finding that they can achieve even greater impact by using unified communications capabilities to transform business processes. This is achieved by integrating UC functionality directly into the business applications using development tools provided by many of the suppliers. Instead of the individual user invoking the UC functionality to, say, find an appropriate resource, the workflow or process application automatically identifies the resource at the point in the business activity where one is needed. When used in this manner, the concept of â€Å"presence† often changes. Most people associate presence with IM â€Å"buddy lists† — the status of individuals is identified. But, in many business process applications, what is important is finding someone with a certain skill. In these environments, presence will identify available skills or capabilities. This â€Å"business process† approach to integrating UC functionality can result in bottom line benefits that are an order of magnitude greater than those achievable by personal productivity methods alone. According to the International Engineering Consortium, unified communications is an industry term used to describe all forms of call and multimedia/cross-media message-management functions controlled by an individual user for both business and social purposes. This includes any enterprise informational or transactional application process that emulates a human user and uses a single, content-independent personal messaging channel (mailbox) for contact access. The essence of communication is breaking down barriers. In its simplest form, the telephone breaks distance and time barriers so that people can communicate in real time or near real time when they are not together. There are now many other barriers to be overcome. People can use many different devices to communicate (wireless phones, personal digital assistants [PDA], personal computers [PC], thin clients, etc. ), and there are now new forms of communication as well, such as instant messaging. The goal of unified communications involves breaking down these barriers so that people using different modes of communication, different media, and different devices can still communicate to anyone, anywhere, at any time. Unified communications (UC) encompasses several communication systems or models including unified messaging, collaboration, and interaction systems; real-time and near real-time communications; and transactional applications.