Unified communications (UC) is a business and marketing concept describing the integration of enterprise communication services such as instant messaging (chat), presence information, voice (including IP telephony), mobility features (including extension mobility and single number reach), audio, web & video conferencing, fixed-mobile convergence (FMC), desktop sharing, data sharing (including web connected electronic interactive whiteboards), call control and speech recognition with non-real-time communication services such as unified messaging (integrated voicemail, e-mail, SMS and fax).
It optimizes business processes and enhances human communications by reducing latency, managing flows, and eliminating device and media dependencies.
A UC system may include features such as messaging, voice and video calls, meetings, team collaboration, file sharing, and integrated apps.
In the 1980s, 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.
[7] The major drawback to this service was the reliance on the phone company or vendor partner to manage (in most cases) the PBX or key telephone system.
This design required special hardware on both ends of the network equipment to provide the termination and delivery at each site.
As time went by, Siemens, Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Nortel, Avaya, Wildix and Mitel realized the potential for eliminating the traditional PBX or key system and replacing it with a solution based on IP.
With the advent of IP telephony the handset was no longer a digital device hanging off a copper loop from a PBX.
In October 2007, Microsoft entered the UC market with the launch of Office Communications Server,[10] a software-based application running on Windows.
The examples in the previous paragraph primarily describe "personal productivity" enhancements that tend to benefit the individual user.
While such benefits can be important, enterprises are finding that they can achieve even greater impact by using unified communications capabilities to transform business processes.
This is achieved by integrating UC functionality directly into the business applications using development tools provided by many of the suppliers.
Most people associate presence with instant messaging (IM "buddy lists") [18] the status of individuals is identified.
This "business process" approach to integrating UC functionality can result in bottom line benefits that are an order of magnitude greater than those achievable by personal productivity methods alone.
Compared to premises-based UCC solutions, UCCaaS platforms offer enhanced flexibility and scalability due to the SaaS subscription model.
Unified communications provisioning is the act of entering and configuring the settings for users of phone systems, instant messaging, telepresence, and other collaboration channels.