Unified Communications: Why PMs Should Plug in NOW!

Bob Weinstein is a journalist who covers technology, project management, the workplace and career development.

  Communications Management  

It’s not hard to figure out the reason why companies are scrambling to get a piece of the unified communications pie. It's certainly not to make it easier for businesses to communicate. It’s pure capitalism: money – the wonderful green stuff that fuels industry, creates jobs, puts food on the table and educates your kids. And that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

Parts or components of UC, such as unified messaging (voice-mail/e-mail integration), have been available for more than a decade. Yet like all evolving technologies, there was a fine-tuning gestation period before they were perfected and adopted and achieved market acceptance. The proof is in the pudding, as they say, because there isn’t a global IT company that hasn’t jumped into the exploding UC marketplace.

UC is a significant turning-point technology that PMs ought to plug into. There is little doubt that UC could be a valuable project tool. But first PMs have to understand it. Second, they have to know who the major players are, and third and most important, they have to know how to best use it in their jobs.

Unified communications will revolutionize the way we communicate in 2008, asserts Yankee Group’s Zeus Kerravala. Kerravala manages Yankee Group's infrastructure research and consulting. Last year, he wrote a story that appeared on SearchVoIP.com about how …

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