What does "Unified Communications" really mean?
When talking to Mark Deakin - the UK Product Manager for UC (Unified Communications), I've always been struck by the way he manages to explain quite complicated topics in a way that makes them very easy to understand. He explains UC like this:
"For most people, I have sat them down and explained the idea to them including taking about the current silos of communication we have today e.g. voicemail, email, fax, telephony, voip and how these silos cause you to have multiple identities e.g. phone number, email, fax address, skype ID etc. Finally I explain how the next wave of Unified Communications will bring all those silos into one place. Using one tool to access all these communication method and allow users to jump easily from one modality to another."
So that was quite easy to understand - one place for communications. Now I think about it, I'm already starting to see the "UC effect" with Outlook; I can receive emails, RSS feeds and (once I configure it) voicemails all in my Outlook Inbox - which is really handy.
So what does all this technology look like when put into action in the real world? Take a look at the following videos, that show off some of the cool stuff that can be done using Microsoft UC technologies.
Video: The Devil wears prada .. and does Unified Comms!
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