Unified Communications: What is it?

The world of enterprise communication has changed a lot over the last two decades and it's no surprise that companies need to update to the latest technology. Anyone who has done research on modern business communication systems is likely to have heard of VoIP and Unified Communication (UC). To a layperson, the terms may appear interchangeable or confounding but both options have significant differences in terms of price, range and intricacy.

Price

Though this is not the biggest differentiator between VoIP and UC, it really is frequently the one that matters most to organizations. VoIP is drastically cheaper to execute than UC, although a VoIP deployment can be the first step towards incorporate communication. Businesses that are looking to cut prices or those that already operate on razor thin margins are more likely to favor VoIP since it offers considerable savings over conventional phone lines.

Implementing a complete, end-to-end unified communication solution usually demands more investment - money, time and manpower - so it's a workable choice for bigger organizations or those that can afford to future proof their system for the long term.

Extent

VoIP is rather simply Voice over Internet Protocol and normally, it does what it says. Companies can route their voice communication over fast Internet connections instead of through circuit switches. UC has a much broader range and contains video conferencing, speech recognition, existence, email, voicemail, messaging, facsimile along with VoIP. Typically, the voice part of unified communication is powered through VoIP.

Nevertheless many hosted VoIP sellers also offer additional services such as video conferencing, voicemail to e-mail transcription etc. as part of the fundamental VoIP service. This is frequently the source of confusion for companies but the difference between these plans and UC is that the latter contains many different programs that are developed/designed with similar interfaces. Each distinct application can communicate seamlessly with one another. To the end user, the experience of using one tool isn't distinct from using another - whether it's for messaging or voicemail.

Intricacy

Incorporate communicating options have many different elements that have to work collectively to present a common interface for the end-user. It's more moving parts so to speak. VoIP is simpler to deploy and creates positive ROI within a short period of time. UC projects can span months or even years and it can take several iterations to eliminate bugs or personalize the deployment suit the needs of the organization.

Computer Resources of America is a VoIP solution provider in NYC