This morning, I attended the session Things to Consider before Deploying Unified Communications, moderated by Jim Burton. The session featured three speakers: Jeff Ridley of ShoreTel, Inc., Bud Walder of Dialogic, and Lior Moyal of AudioCodes.

 

The speakers spoke about the various considerations one needs to look at when deciding whether or not to deploy a unified communications solution.

 

First up was Jeff Ridley, who defined unified communications as the convergence of rich communications media and presence with a company’s business information and processes.

 

His presentation focused on the top five things users need to look at when selecting UC:

 

Bud Walder of Dialogic asked if UC is an all or nothing proposition (his answer was no) and how closely does a UC solution need to be tied into VoIP Infrastructure (not necessarily tied in).

 

Walder explained that unified communications is a set of applications coming together in a much better, more integrated fashion than ever before. And while VoIP infrastructure can help enable that, it’s not necessarily a must have.

 

Burton added that infrastructure is an enabling part of the equation. In fact, he said the hardware might even be irrelevant. It’s all about voice enabling the application and the business process as opposed to buying a specific piece of hardware.

 

AudioCodes’ Moyal offered up a wish list of enterprises including the unification of real time communications (voice, instant messaging, conferencing); unification of experience across multiple devices (desk phone, laptop/desktop, mobile phone); and unification of messaging types (voice mail, e-mail, fax, calendar, contacts).

 

Infrastructure is an important consideration, he said, even if it’s “all about the apps”

 

Lior discussed some of the more basic decisions that need to be considered when selecting the infrastructure components.

 

He mentioned that speech enablement is a requirement, as is the ability to deploy your hardware components in a distributed fashion across multiple locations, wit centralized management capability. Another consideration is planning ahead for a smooth and gradual migration path.