Today's employees have a variety of methods for interacting with coworkers, business partners and customers, including voice, IM, e-mail and video. They can also use a variety of devices, including VoIP phones, laptops with Webcams, and smartphones and tablets. Unified communications aims to integrate all these tools into a comprehensive platform for seamless interactivity. Unified communications are also becoming tied in to collaboration and enterprise social networking systems. Our Unified Communications Tech Center delivers best practices, examines new products, and shares strategies to help you make the most of UC.
News and Analysis
Ospcode's Private Chef Gets Cooking with Facebook
News roundup: Opscode updates Private Chef automation software; AirWatch and ForeScout team up for mobile security; WatchGuard unveils seven XTM appliances; HP gets agile.
Best of Interop 2013 Nominations Open
Nominations are now open for the Best of Interop awards in Las Vegas. The awards recognize innovative hardware and software that advance business technology. Award categories include cloud and virtualization, networking, mobility, security and storage.
More Stories
Blogs
802.11ac: Cisco, Aerohive Offer Forecasts
December 27, 2012 11:00 AM
Posted by Lee H. Badman
802.11ac promises significant improvements for WLANs. I interviewed representatives from Cisco Systems and Aerohive Networks to get their input on 11ac, how it will affect corporate networks, and if and when IT should upgrade.
See all blogs by Lee H. Badman
Weighing Cloud UC Options and Costs
December 19, 2012 12:10 PM
Posted by Michael Finneran
Unified communications can be provided as a cloud service, and customers have a huge number of options. But in the long term, cloud UC isn’t necessarily cheaper than premises deployments.
See all blogs by Michael Finneran
Will Mobile Drive or Replace UC?
December 13, 2012 01:02 PM
Posted by
UC vendors must create a more integrated experience on mobile devices to capture the ease of use and flexibility that users demand on smartphones and tablets—and to counter native capabilities that could make UC less relevant.
A UC Deployment's Most Important Ingredient: the VAR
December 07, 2012 01:13 PM
Posted by Michael Finneran
Picking the right UC technology is important, but unless you have unlimited IT resources you’ll be relying on outside services for deployment, training and more. The right VAR can make a UC rollout shine.
See all blogs by Michael Finneran
The Case for UC Interoperability
November 28, 2012 07:44 PM
Posted by Michael Finneran
A lack of interoperability among unified communications platforms isn't suited to today's business needs, particularly because partners, suppliers and resellers need to collaborate and communicate more closely than ever. It's time for the UC industry to step up.
See all blogs by Michael Finneran
802.11ac: 5 Steps to Prepare for Next-Gen WLANs
November 26, 2012 11:56 AM
Posted by Lee H. Badman
The 802.11ac wireless standard will be ratified in 2013, and pre-standard consumer hardware is on the market. Follow these five steps to prepare now for the day when 802.11ac comes knocking.
See all blogs by Lee H. Badman
Best of the Web
VXLAN termination on physical devices
VXLAN is an Experimental IETF draft of protocols to enable the creation of a large overlay, multi-tenant network.
ONF Deadly Serious About OpenFlow-Based SDNs
: OpenFlow is poised to reach over-hyped status, yet there are practical, useful reasons for keeping an eye on Openflow. The biggest cloud players are involved and driving the feature creation.
Practical Introduction to Applied OpenFlow
Get a primer on the Openflow protocol and what it can do for networking.
On Resilience of Spit-Architecture Networks
This research papers investigates the practical issues in split-architecture networks and the placement of the controllers, such as Openflow controllers, in the network.
