:: EXECUTIVE BRIEFINGS ::
Unified communications offers great advantages. But it also represents a change in the way a company communicates. The keys, according to Adam Gartenberg, the offering manager for IBM Lotus Software, are to educate end users and show benefits as quickly as possible. In the longer term, the company should expand projects and introduce new features that let workers communicate in ways they never have before.
Unified communications is a complex area simply because it covers virtually all the communications tools that people use. It's much easier to think about it in the context of how the tools are knit together, says E. Brent Kelly, a senior analyst and partner with Wainhouse Research. The good news — for vendors, service providers and end users who need better ways to share information — is that successful UC platforms tend to drive up the use of each discrete communications element.
The best piece of advice for companies that don't see the holistic UC picture — the ways in which communications tools fit together in a cohesive package — is to stay away. But companies willing to stand back and focus on the big picture can reap tremendous benefits by cutting costs, increasing efficiency and making workers more efficient, says Art Rosenberg, principal analyst for the Unified-View.
The unified communications game changed when Microsoft, through the introduction last year of the Office Communications Server 2007 (OCS), made a deep commitment to the approach. Rick McCharles, president and founder of RIC Services, points out the positives and negatives of Microsoft's arrival. The keys to a successful unified communications rollout, he says, are a solid infrastructure and clear organizational procedures and goals. The bottom line is the recognition that unified communications is an evolving framework, not a set group of specific technologies.
