Unified Communications
The transfer of information is critical to business performance and, as technology advances, available methods of communication are expanding. The convergence of communication types enables businesses to maintain staff efficiency amid a “sea of information.” The ability to see when contacts are available, both within an organisation and at affiliated supplier and customer organisations, eliminates time wasted in “phone tag” and the composing of long emails.
Solution
Unified Communications involves the integration of telephone tasks including phone calls, voicemail and conferencing, with the work done on computers, such as creating and sharing documents, exchanging instant messages and email, and scheduling appointments.
Microsoft has invested heavily in Unified Communications, creating Office Communications Server or OCS and its client, Office Communicator. OCS addresses many business challenges by creating an interface for defining a person’s presence, voice calls, and text interactions on the PC. Any interactions including missed calls, text conversations and voice calls are recorded and saved on Microsoft Exchange server and presented to the end user in Microsoft Outlook.
Benefits
Microsoft has shown its commitment to the applications by investing in research and development that has expanded the functionality in Office/OCS 2010 and Exchange 2010 to include support for mobile phones with SMS and missed call information, from the Windows Mobile platform, recorded on Exchange. Users will be able to read and respond to SMS by email.
Hands-on Systems Experience & Expertise
Hands-on Systems was an early adopter of OCS and has gained much experience in successfully implementing the solution for many of our clients. Click here for further information on Microsoft’s Unified Communications solution.