Unified communicating is using a combination of communication services to make the communication process easier. By using advanced data sharing and communications devices business partners, clients and coworkers are connected and can share data, exchange documents and ideas at that moment.
Basics:
Unified communications software is taking voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) technology to the next level, transforming ordinary business phones and desktop computers into a virtual communications platform. The central contribution of unified communications technology is integration. The system brings together all available communication modalities and makes them available on a robust multimedia interface. [1]
Unified communications (UC) is the integration of real-time communication services such as instant messaging (chat), presence information, telephony (including IP telephony), video conferencing, data sharing (including web connected electronic whiteboards aka IWB’s or Interactive White Boards), call control and speech recognition with non-real-time communication services such as unified messaging (integrated voicemail, e-mail, SMS and fax). UC is not a single product, but a set of products that provides a consistent unified user interface and user experience across multiple devices and media types. [2]
The proliferation of personal information devices such as home computers, mobile phones and digital organizers coupled with the rise of new mediums such as e-mail and the World wide web have forever altered the way in which information consumers work and play. These fragmented information channels often result in inefficient working patterns as users switch from device to device and between media. The convergence of the analog and digital infrastructure has facilitated the introduction of new technologies and information products. Loosely termed “unified communications” or “unified messaging”, these new information technologies begin to address the technical challenges of convergence. However, in a nascent state, the introduction of new technology can create new challenges as information consumers must change the way they work and potentially break bad information-seeking habits. For the forward thinking researcher or practitioner these challenges can create significant opportunity.[3]
Early Years – 1980s: In the 1980s, the idea of UC was emerging from the worlds of voice messaging, IVR, and e-mail. Voice mail systems with IVR-like features were recognized as an access mechanism to corporate information for mobile employees, before the explosion of cell phones and the proliferation of PCs. One of the most interesting access points was to the increasingly popular e-mail, and VMX, an early voice mail leader, offered an “e-mail reader” feature on their voice mail system in 1985.
Mid-Years – 1990s: By the 1990s, this “unified messaging” (UM) idea had caught on and many investments were made to bring voice mail and e-mail together on the cellular or remote office phone and on the office desktop screen or PC. Digital Equipment partnered with VoiceSoft in 1989-1991 to provide UM with DEC All-in-One; by 1995, Lotus (pre-IBM) had partnered with AT&T to create Telephony One Stop; also, Microsoft was partnered with a VMX/Octel/vMail division to produce what became Octel Unified Messaging in 1997, a precursor to Microsoft’s own offer of UM in Exchange 2007.
As cell phones became more popular, these UM systems were enhanced to become “find me/follow me” systems, so that callers had an option to “find” the called party at that party’s current location and number; lacking presence indications, this was either a multiple ring process or a relatively unreliable user-controlled setting process. Yet this was a popular feature with good user adoption.
At the desktop, unified messaging combined e-mail and voice mail in a single interface, but soon the vendors added call controls to those screens, initially using Computer Telephony Integration techniques, so that the users had their first version of what would become a UC and softphone PC client.
Growth Years – 2000s: By the early 2000’s, many companies had figured out that there were new ways of providing user communications. Of course, IP Telephony had arrived, spawning dozens of startups, most of whom got acquired by the likes of Cisco, 3COM, Nortel, Microsoft and others. When that was combined with the mid-year UM, mobility, desktop and speech experiences, customers could now buy a single “unified” communications experience. However, the customers were not ready to write off their investments in PBXs with voice mail and in E-mail systems, so most of the new solutions experienced slow uptake, with customer demands for “integration” with the installed infrastructure and vendors. [4]
The history of Unified Communications lies in the birth of voice over ip (VoIP) back in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. We were all concentrating on toll bypass for enterprises to save money by placing voice over their data circuits. Then Cisco bought a company called Celsius who was exploring making VoIP to the actual phones and not just moving voice packets as data packets across just the gateway links. This was a gamble on Cisco’s part since everyone still relied on silo hardware based PBX switches and even the switch vendors stated many times this will not work.[5]
The series started looking at how dial-up Internet access changed the PSTN engineering rules for access, leading to a softswitch architecture employing VoIP protocols to offload remote access server traffic from the voice network onto the data network, placing the first VoIP “Trojan horse” into the PSTN. The domination of data in the PSTN also shifted the engineering rules for core networks. Whereas the primary architectural consideration used to be “voice first, data second,” the shifting traffic mix toward data in public networks changed the rule to “data first, voice second” when building core infrastructure. As we look forward, we see this same paradigm shift with the growing amount of video traffic across public IP networks, and the rule will soon be (if it isn’t already) “video first, data second, voice third.” And we expect that in a few years, video will replace voice calls as a preferred real-time communications medium.[6]
Conclusion:
Unified communications have made a real break-through when it comes to communication. They lifted the communication process on a higher level and all that is left for us to do now is to wait for the next improvement in communication technologies (see http://www.northsydneyit.com.au).
Refrences:
[1] http://www.telephonyworld.com/basics/article/top-five-benefits-of-unified-communications/
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_communications
[3] An introduction to unified communications: challenges and opportunities by Dagny Evans
[4] ‘A Short History of UC’ by Marty Parker
[5] http://globalknowledgeblog.com/technology/unified-communications/a-brief-history-of-unified-communications-uc/
[6] http://www.sipcenter.com/sip.nsf/newsview?open&type=News&docid=WEBB8L4M4K
