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We recently had a chance to talk about the support systems integrators, consultants and value-added resellers provide unified communications deployments, with Steve McDonald, enterprise architect and co-director for the unified communications practice at Optimus Solutions. Optimus provides systems designed to streamline business processes and improve communication in the workplace. The company's 170 employees offer a range of integration and consulting services, as well as hardware, software and storage product offerings.
Optimus brings companies like Cisco, IBM, and Microsoft to the table, along with its other 130-plus vendor partners. According to McDonald, one of the most important differentiators offered by an integrator or VAR is their focus on business value. McDonald said: "When we talk about unified communications we don’t talk about it in the context of voice [features] or the numbers of voice lines but about how employees, customers, and the supply chain can collaborate.”
He noted that CIOs have been focused on cost reduction over the past several years but that they are now looking at how to leverage their existing infrastructure to create new business opportunities. He said: "[Unified communications] isn’t just voice, e-mail, and [instant messaging]; it is a better way to interact with a multimodal communications model in the context of customers and suppliers. So we’ve seen a shift that moves beyond internal efficiencies.”
The value add of a company like Optimus comes from consultations that drive technology at a business level and work to execute on a strategy. McDonald believes VARs are key because of their ability to work with multiple suppliers and to leverage their hardware and services.
Our thanks to McDonald for his insights. We’d also like to add we’re glad to see that companies like Optimus (which traditionally serve the small and midsize business market) are approaching unified communications with the same sophistication that larger integrators and supplier-direct relationships bring to the large enterprise market sector.
Next time: Convergence highlights from CTIA.
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