One ring to rule them all
Unified communications (UC) has been on a slow burn for a while now. While the looming battle between Intel and the ARM ecosystem has hogged much if the IT/telco convergence limelight, many companies like Microsoft and Cisco are investing a lot in converging the two at a business infrastructure level.
BT's Communications Complete UC offering is based on the Cisco Unified Communications 500 series platform. The Telco giant has announced plans to integrate RIM's BlackBerry Mobile Voice System (MVS) into its UC solution.
Apart from the other purported benefits of UC, like having a single identity for all your communications channels, the cunning part of this plan appears to be the ability to switch your Blackberry onto Wi-Fi - instead of the mobile network - when you're in the office, thus reducing call and data costs.
"The solution will enable the delivery of unified communications tools for small to medium-sized businesses, which previously only benefited larger firms," said Bill Murphy, MD of BT Business. "Technologies that better integrate key business processes, reduce costs and keep workers in touch with customers regardless of location, help firms to operate more effectively and to be in better shape for the upturn when it comes."
"Small and medium-sized businesses have the same concerns as all of us - driving down costs and delivering a better customer experience. Unified communications can support those two objectives. The new service will bring together the strengths of all three companies - Cisco, BT and RIM - to deliver a great offer for companies of all sizes," said Rick Moran, VP of marketing at Cisco.
