Unified communications: the problem and the answer

A lack of application integration

A huge factor in the drive toward unified-communications architectures is the lack of integration -- and concomitant loss of effectiveness -- that characterizes real-time communications tools today.

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The problem:

A lack of application integration

A huge factor in the drive toward unified-communications architectures is the lack of integration -- and concomitant loss of effectiveness -- that characterizes real-time communications tools today.

Take knowledge workers in a typical enterprise environment. They have desktop and mobile phones, plus e-mail. They will likely also have an enterprise-provided IM service, or access to a public IM service such as AOL Instant Messenger, Microsoft MSN, Yahoo IM or GoogleTalk.

They also may have desktop videoconferencing capability through their phone system or other application environment. Although these systems should lead to greater ability to communicate, they often impede it, as users go through a complex series of steps to determine the optimal communications channel for a given scenario.

Attempts to reach colleagues often will result in numerous voice messages or chat requests across multiple services and devices, including desktop and mobile.