Webtorials has released another excellent research and analysis piece; the report is titled “Unified Communications & Collaboration Potential: Goals, Obstacles & Savings.” Based on research sponsored by Avaya with analysis provided by Steven Taylor, Joanie Wexler, and Leslie Barteaux, the report discusses the state of Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) in the enterprise and IT’s expectations with it — particularly in the increasingly mobile workforce. There is special focus on SIP and a section that calculates sample savings scenarios using UCC in various-sized organizations.
Underlying the research is the understanding that UCC software and services should provide a consistent user experience across multiple IP communications applications, devices and media types using a common interface.
UCC applications support several productivity-enhancing capabilities. For example, users can read voicemail messages by retrieving them using email and vice versa. They can also share documents with colleagues online during conference calls. And they can click to initiate dynamic audio, chat and video sessions from a range of client device types based on their colleagues’ locations and availability.
Most UCC services now have been expanded to run on mobile device platforms, given that smartphones and wireless tablets have quickly begun to outpace traditional wired phones, desktop computers and notebook computers. In fact, 89% of respondents identified tablets and other mobile devices as “very attractive” or “moderately attractive” as part of their UCC deployments going forward. At the other end of the spectrum, integration with social media was least attractive.
Cost-cutting measures are rampant throughout enterprises, and recent Webtorials research indicates that the economics theme extends to savings expectations with UCC. Enterprises are banking on UCC to integrate business processes and reduce travel, and many are eyeing the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) as an enabler, both to replace expensive TDM connections and to reduce the complexity and associated costs of integrating UCC applications.
To download a free copy of this excellent resource, please click here; our thanks to Webtorials and Avaya for making this research available.
