This new white paper, co-authored with Brent Kelly of Wainhouse Reasearch, highlights a great example of UC providing "communications integrated to optimize business processes." Until recently, conferencing has often been thought of as a substitute for a physical meeting room. Now, as conferencing is integrated into daily working tools and software, it can be much more.

The white paper examines the value of "unified conferencing" in which each mode of collaborative real-time communications—instant messaging, voice calling, desktop/web sharing, and video communications—are all accessible in a single context, enabling the users to easily invoke and manage the meetings. Features of a unified conferencing solution include:

- No boundaries between media types, i.e. is not just one conferencing mode, like web conferencing, with links to other modes
- Participants can be included in a conference with simple drag-and -rop from directories and buddy lists
- Visible presence indication speeds access to meeting contributors
- Conferencing tools are available from office productivity and workflow software applications, to facilitate efficiency

The white paper, sponsored by Microsoft, highlights the unified conferencing features of Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2. 

The white paper includes examples from manufacturing, sales & service, product development, enterprise management, healthcare, and financial services. 

You will also find suggestions from Brent and me for consideration and action related to your conferencing investments and solutions. We hope you will find this a useful resource.

You can download the white paper by clicking here: Unified Conferencing White Paper.

We welcome your feedback and comments.