A Brief Introduction to the competitive environment of the Unified Communication System

A Unified Communication System that is intertwined in communications and networks brings intelligent and information-based work models to enterprises. However, although many enterprise vendors are optimistic about this platform, competition is everywhere. So let's analyze the advantages of the Unified Communication System and its cooperation with the benign competition.

Unified Communication Systems and mobility are the two major trends of Enterprise communications recognized by the industry. The trend of integration is becoming more and more obvious. However, some equipment vendors, IT directors, and users are still confused about the relationship between the two. The starting point of an enterprise is to strengthen its employees' Unified Communication applications and capabilities. Equipment vendors focus on mobile clients to achieve similar results, such as through Blackberry and iPhone.

The survey found that the confusion about Unified Communication and mobility is concentrated on FMC fixed-shift convergence ). FMC can achieve seamless switching between the cellular network and the enterprise network, so that enterprises can achieve seamless communication and access, while taking into account mobile devices and saving communication fees. Although FMC is not required for Unified Communication, FMC must need some functions of unified communication, such as presentation. In general, enterprises that use FMC systems can also understand the benefits of Unified Communication without rejecting Unified Communication. In fact, FMC is an indispensable part of a complete enterprise communication system.

There is no doubt that mobility is an indispensable part of many enterprises, because their employees need to keep in touch with their superiors, colleagues, and customers anytime, anywhere and through any device. Unified Communication can help them solve these problems.

When enterprises consider deploying a Unified Communication System, they should also consider mobility. At the technical level, mobile clients and mobile terminals must be considered for mobility. At the enterprise level, enterprises should consider which employees should have mobility capabilities, or may not be limited to supervisors, sales, customer service, etc.

Nowadays, mobile devices of many employees are not provided by the company, which makes it difficult to promote mobility in a unified manner. Applications compatible with different terminals are different, and some are not even supported at all. Therefore, to develop mobility and expand applications of Unified Communication, enterprises and equipment vendors must first start with mobile terminals.
 
Although the Unified Communication System has always been popular, it does have competitors, but we look at the problem from another perspective, but there are new discoveries.

Cisco CEO Chambers has a famous saying when talking about Unified Communication Systems and Collaboration: "Everything is a service, including the service itself." However, the author of this article has put forward different ideas, dave McAfee, an expert in UC, said: "Unified Communication is neither a product nor a service, but a strategy ".

David believes that unified communication, as a strategy, can contain six major components: Voice, information transmission, presentation and IM instant messaging), mobility, conferencing, and APIs application interfaces ).

These six parts are the basic components of Unified Communication. There is no doubt about the role of speech in unified communication. In fact, many Unified Communication systems are speech-based and belong to the extension or expansion of PBX. Information Transmission includes emails, voice emails, faxes, and other necessary components. Presentation and IM are different from information transmission applications and have the characteristics of real-time performance. Rendering includes location rendering and status rendering, which are usually integrated into the IM system. Mobility is the basic requirement of mobile UC. In fact, a truly comprehensive Unified Communication System should have mobile capabilities. Meetings, including audio and video conferences and Web conferences, are indispensable tools for collaborative work. APIs integrates an interface of all the above applications, and all activities of Unified Communication are operated from this interface.

However, since it is a strategy, not all Unified Communication systems must have six parts. For example, some enterprises do not need video conferencing, they can completely deploy a UC system without the video conferencing function; for example, the IM system is not required, and some enterprises only need the mail system to be OK.

Face up to this differentiated demand, UC equipment vendors should consider a question: should they cooperate or work alone? Cooperation representatives focus on different components to ensure that they do the best at their own level, while handling the interoperability between devices and systems. One-stop solutions are designed for manufacturers, proficient in each part, and can be freely combined among these six parts according to the specific needs of the enterprise. Currently, these two models coexist and are expected to coexist for a long time.