Unified Communications have changed the communications market:
- Communication solutions developed for application in existing IT and IP infrastructure
- New players enter the market (IT and software vendors)
- Incumbents must deal with considerable changes in the marketplace
Until recent years, telecommunications, IT and IP networks were still largely disconnected. Current systems tend to use the existing IP infrastructure for the transmission of voice data (Voice over IP – VoIP), while the communication server itself is a standalone system.
Turning to the existing IP networks has given companies new challenges, in particular with respect to the transmission quality and availability. Language is very sensitive to transfer delays and telephony systems are expected to have constant availability.
The latest developments in communication follow trends that are driven from the private sector. Applications, which in the private sector are now standard, are expected in the work environment. In addition, communication behavior is changing. Already far more than half of the corporate communication is via e-mail. The separation of work and leisure time is increasingly blurred. Employees expect that all necessary information is available regardless of time or place. This is especially true for young professionals.
Only through the complete integration of communication in the IT environments, these and future needs to be mastered. This is the approach of unified communications – a single platform for all communication channels of a company.
Unified Communications offers businesses new opportunities. A single number for each employee, regardless of the currently used technology, allows faster access to customers and intelligent integration of communication capabilities in applications integrated with Web 2.0 applications such as wikis, weblogs, chat and social networking .
