Unified Communications: Features

Less than a decade ago, face-to-face via video was restricted to the imagination of science fiction writers and movie buffs. Trekkies and wannabe Jedi Knights salivated at the prospect. But now the ability to communicate via video links is a cornerstone in unified communications architecture.

Don't believe the hype: Unified communications has issues. Despite promising to enable greater flexibility and technological fusion in the way we communicate, UC is a hotly contested space - and concept - that does not always live up to its unifying pretensions. According to some industry observers there is even debate as to what UC is and whether a lack of interoperability will hamper progress

Making sure you give the right people the right impression can make or break a deal. For recruitment firms conducting interviews in multiple cities, travel time, costs and scheduling can be a drain; especially when business is booming and you need to be in too many places at the one time. For executives that need to get that all important face-to-face meeting time with clients, wasting valuable hours waiting in transit lounges or stuck in traffic is a maddening obstruction that can impact the bottom line through lost productivity and an injured company reputation.

MICROSOFT

Microsoft's Response Point is PBX software that runs on Embedded XP inside of hardware sold by three Microsoft partners -- Aastra, D-Link, and Quanta -- with more partners to come later in 2008, according to Microsoft. You can engage a VAR to install the system or do it yourself without much effort.

Fonality takes a different approach with PBXtra, which, like cousin Trixbox and Critical Links' EdgeBox, incorporates the open source Asterisk. PBXtra is not only the most affordable system in this roundup, but is unique in being a managed product. Customers get a low-end Celeron tower PC that's set up without incurring any installation costs, and a Web interface that lets users customize the system (such as recording voice prompts) without IT help. Fonality remotely monitors the system, provisions the phones, and backs up data off-site.

Allworx's trio of product lines include two VoIP telephone handsets, three combination telephony and network servers, plus five software packages that are separately licensed for unlimited use. The PBX contains many standard features, including unified messaging and site-to-site access; the five separate applications add specific advanced functions, such as call queuing or conferencing, allowing you to purchase only the capabilities you need. Each server eases administration with automated backup.

Critical Links' EdgeBox line includes three Asterisk-based appliances: Office (40 users), Business (100 users), and Enterprise (300 users). The 2U rack-mount servers vary in disk space (80GB to 250GB), connectivity (such as integrated Wi-Fi), and redundancy options.

Here are five questions for enterprise network managers to bear in mind when considering UC deployment:

Unified communications offers the potential for anywhere, anytime connectivity between employees and the enterprise. But as the InteropLabs hotstage team found in piecing together more than a dozen commercial and open-source voice, data and messaging platforms, the technology is still at a relatively early stage, and today represents more promise than practice.

Once confined to marketing departments and media companies, the Mac is spilling over into a wider array of business environments, thanks to the confluence of a number of computing trends, not the least among them a rising tide of end-user affinity for the Apple experience.