“The largest single value of Unified Communications is its ability to reduce "human latency" in business processes,” Gartner Group, 2007. Unified Communications (UC) is set to be the key theme for enterprise communications in 2008. Solutions such as the Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) are tearing down the boundaries between an enterprise customer’s telephony and computer networks, and “unifying” all types of business communication. Ultimately, UC will deliver massive benefits for enterprise in terms of business efficiencies and productivity, and reduce the problem of “Human Latency.”

This presentation will outline a number of examples of effective UC in action. But UC is still at a very early stage of its development and it cannot be expected to deliver results overnight. The many different types of communications used in business - instant messaging, VoIP, mobile, video, e-mail, voicemail and SMS – still exist in isolation from one another and often depend on completely separate network infrastructures. So what’s the fastest way to bring all this together without another huge round of network investment? The elements and applications that make up today's UC construct do not require a complete IP or VoIP infrastructure to deliver their business process and bottom line benefits. Instead, this presentation explains great results can be delivered adding many UC capabilities on current PBX and PSTN networks with an effective gateway strategy, which can serve as the “glue” between different types of network.