The growth of the virtual workplace continues unabated, driving the need for enterprises to invest in tools and services such as web conferencing, instant messaging, audio conferencing, and video conferencing, to enable distributed workers to effectively communicate and collaborate. Unified communications offer organizations the ability to integrate these applications into a common set of user interfaces, but significant challenges including platform flexibility, the ability to integrate with existing systems, and support for mobile workers presents IT executives with the challenge of determining the best architectural approach. Adopting a UC approach that best integrates into existing infrastructure offers the easiest route to realizing quantifiable benefits of unified communications.

Increasing virtualization of the workforce is driving the need for organizations to invest in tools to enable distributed workers to effectively communicate and collaborate. Those that are able to meet this challenge can realize quantifiable business benefits, including increased revenue, improved employee productivity, and reduced costs.

Developing a UC implementation approach requires careful consideration of vendor approaches, including platform architecture, features, and ability to integrate within existing architectures. Enterprise IT architects should carefully evaluate UC solutions against the requirement to integrate with legacy, current, and planned systems, including real-time communication, non-real-time collaboration, business applications, and mobility.