Moving Unified Communications Forward

A Head-to-Head feature with Nortel and Green Packet

While unified communications (UC) has been around for some time, it seems that the time is now ripe to embrace it head on. Business Management gets the views of two industry experts about the benefits and how to get the most out of the solutions on offer.

“It is very important to analyse why the business needs UC and identify these needs clearly in the project preparation”
-Jim Brindley of Nortel

The Panel:
Jim Brindely represents Nortel as Middle East Innovative Communications Alliance Prime.
Nik Ismail is the Director and Vice President of Business Development for Green Packet.

BM. How can unified communications help firms achieve their business goals?
Jim Brindley. It can boost employee productivity.Users now have one location to access and manage the many ways they communicate. No more wasted time checking various voice mail, email and instant messaging (IM) systems. With presence information indicating when colleagues are available, you can eliminate unproductive phone tag.

It also allows you to stay in touch wherever you are. You are no longer chained to desktop phones, mobile workers can answer voice calls on their laptops wherever they have network connectivity, such as airports and hotels. Callers don’t have to remember separate home and on-the road numbers. Voice calls are delivered over cost-effective IP connections and your existing telephony infrastructure.

And it dramatically reduces communication costs.Nomadic workers can take full advantage of broadband connections to make and receive calls when away from the office. No more expensive calls from hotel rooms. No need to use a home phone for business calls. No need to run up the wireless minutes. Yet you maintain consistent voice quality and accurate presence status (on/off phone).

Nik Ismail. All businesses aim to improve productivity and cut costs. However, mobility is the key factor in many businesses today and with employees spending much of their time outside the office some costs are increasing instead of decreasing. Travel and communication costs including equipping employees with the various mobility tools they need to stay in touch and mounting phone bills can quickly take their financial toll on a firm.  

As many enterprises are moving towards a flexible and mobile environment unified communications help by providing a competitive edge via seamless mobility and more effective communication tools in economical and scalable solutions. This can drive communication costs down by 30 to 40%.

Furthermore, UC promote communication efficiency in the workplace, which ultimately translate into improved productivity towards achieving business goals. UC converge various fragmented channels of communications, devices and access networks to bring about cross-format, cross-device, cross-network communication ability. UC allows employees to have seamless access to data, voice, image, instant messaging, and video on their fixed line phone, mobile devices, and laptop utilising any of the available networks including WLAN, 3G, WiFi, or even WiMAX.

BM. For some companies, issues about quality are still obstacles to entering the UC market. What is your response to this argument?
JB. It’s a good point and one we recognised three years ago. This is the key reason that Nortel and Microsoft formed the Innovative Communications Alliance. Our customers told us that unless there was a joint development effort they would hesitate to adopt UC. Our partnership brings together the best of both worlds – the world’s leading desktop software with the business-grade telephony from Nortel. Our joint R&D teams have delivered together market recognised as leading UC solutions. We have also brought to market a portfolio of professional services to help customers design, implement and operate their UC projects.

NI. When making a considerable investment in a UC product it is best to choose a proven product, one that is developed by a company with experience and which can provide services and support. Green Packet has global offices in the US, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, China, Taiwan and Bahrain, as well as distribution centres in Australia and Europe.

Green Packet has already enjoyed success in its home market of Malaysia, in China, Taiwan and Bahrain securing contracts with major firms in various industries, major telecommunication providers, Internet service providers, as well as VOIP service providers. 

Green Packet’s strength is in our research and development and our first-to-market experience. Our research and development centres are located in the USA, Malaysia and China. We know what employees need and what employers require to keep in touch with their employees and maintain productivity.

BM. How are companies managing risk when using UC?
JB. Here are the areas that I would advise careful consideration. Business drivers: It is very important to analyse why the business needs UC and identify these clearly in the project preparation. It is not the same as implementing another router or pbx, for example. These projects will change the way people work. At Nortel we have consulting teams working at the CIO/CEO level to help firms get the most business value out of their UC investments.

Architectural design and vendor selection is vital. Selecting the best design and the best products for the solution will ensure it is right first time. We often help customers integrate non-Nortel products as well.

Network Assessments: For those firms migrating to UC we firmly recommend the assessment of your network infrastructure before adding the potential stress of a UC service on top. The analogy here is that building the tower of Pisa on poor foundations will not stand the test of time as well as the Pyramids in Egypt. We are able to do this for our customers regardless of the infrastructure vendor.

NI. With employees communicating from all ends of the globe across different media, data security is of the utmost importance to firms. Green Packet’s solution for enterprises offers seamless mobility, secured connectivity and UC. Our UC is securely connected via a Mobile Private Network (VPN), a combination of two powerful technologies – Mobile IP and IP Sec VPN.

It enables users to securely connect to their office’s LAN even while on the move, connecting to various access networks such as WLAN, 3G, Wi-Fi, or even WiMAX without having to worry about the integrity of the data that is being transmitted or received. 

BM. What do your solutions offer companies?
JB. Simply put. I offer my customers the best possible UC experience. From the advisory stage through to on-going support we have made the strategic investments in R&D and services. We also have a global footprint with trained engineers and project teams all around the world to support our customers. We have a proven track record and have delivered well over 600 projects.
If you are considering IP Telephony and Unified Communications then I would be delighted if you consider Nortel.

NI. Green Packet’s UC solutions operate on a ‘one-click-access’ mode to provide utmost convenience and efficiency to companies. Users need only access a single client interface, apply a single login, and a single authentication control to conduct their day-to-day communication needs.

Our UC solutions allow companies to be connected seamlessly at all times and across all access networks including LAN, WLAN, Wi-Fi, 3G, and WiMAX. The switch between networks is intelligent and is an auto hand-off based on the best available and best pricing factors. The switch is supported by session persistence hence users continue to enjoy seamless, uninterrupted connection, totally oblivious to the fact that they have been switched to another network.

Our solutions offer improved productivity and cost savings by unifying fragmented communication channels. Users do not have to attend to different communication channels, instead their mobile phone, business phone, instant messaging and office directory can be managed via one client.

The UC platform can be integrated with corporate telephony system (IP PBX) to allow overseas-based employees to call their fellow colleagues without incurring international roaming charges. Our UC solutions are modular and scalable to suit the needs and size of any company. Green Packet’s UC is represented by our product known as the ‘Interact’ series for consumers, enterprise and operators. With Green Packet’s UC, employees can communicate with their colleagues in real-time and with customers more efficiently when they are on the move.