Business Communications Solutions

                 

Executive Summary

Industry analyst research has revealed the top three issues on every executive’s mind – maintaining a competitive advantage, attracting and retaining customers, and designing business strategies. Communications companies now have the opportunity to provide these executives with a way to address these issues. They must put people back in the center of business communications. They must learn how to take advantage of the convergence of IT and communications and see how to look forward to a software future which takes into consideration their investments in people and technology.
This paper discusses NEC’s UNIVERGE®360, which is NEC’s approach to unifying business communications. It provides a foundation for understanding the importance of putting people at the center of communications and reveals how your communications needs determine the Unified Infrastructure, Unified Communications and Communications Enabled-Business Processes necessary for a true Unified Business.

Roles and Preferences for the Knowledge Worker

To understand how the UNIVERGE360 approach can transform communications into a Unified Business, consider Amanda – a specialist in field sales. Amanda needs full access to staff and corporate sales figures, selective access to company-wide profit and loss statistics and limited on-demand links to the Engineering and Product Development teams. Amanda has worked with mobile platforms ranging from cellular phones to tablet PCs for more than a decade, but she is in transition. Her continued use of a Blackberry requires participation in dedicated wireless email networks, but she has begun to use a dual-mode phone operating in both cellular frequencies and Wi-Fi meshes. She wants to be ready for WiMax services as well but does not want to think about log-ins or specific protocols as she switches from phone to tablet PC to RIM Blackberry.

From her corporation’s point of view, Amanda’s single log-in should serve as an authentication and authorization feature that follows her through a variety of enterprise, metropolitan, and nationwide networks. The company’s IP-based data systems and gateways should handle mobile presence without complex translations, and security services within the enterprise should allow her full access to the networks she is authorized to access while automatically sending challenges for limited-access systems. The QoS mechanisms placed on access links should provide necessary bandwidth for static data, voice, and video services with predictable delay characteristics.

While the services outlined above have been promised by both equipment providers and software-framework developers, most of what they have actually provided lacks particular aspects of the end-to-end access vision. Enterprise equipment vendors have begun to partner with software developers, but they still lack mobility and client log-in services. Mobility software startups can create secure follow-me services viewed from the client’s perspective, but the services do not include reliable links to unified messaging infrastructure in the enterprise. Only NEC can make this vision a reality from start to finish today through its Unified Infrastructure, Unified Communications, partnerships and services.

NEC recognizes that essential elements are necessary to achieve a more unified and efficient enterprise. Too many telecommunications equipment providers limit their definition of Unified Communication to just the network because the plumbing is seen as equivalent to the full communication system. NEC pays close attention to the implementation and updating of infrastructure, but we do not believe the story ends there – it is merely the foundation upon which UNIVERGE360 is built. With this foundation, Unified Communications encapsulates all end-user applications in a single environment common to mobile devices and desktop environments. These are two of the elements that make up a Unified Business, which is defined by a user’s role in a business process, as part of a team, and as a communication consumer in her own right.

                 

Unified Infrastructure

Unified Infrastructure is composed of three elements – the data center, network and desktop and end-points. NEC addresses each of these elements through its products and partner products. Many organizations have moved to a model where one data center manages all infrastructure – even voice! These businesses have been led to believe that this structure provides better control and easier management. This is simply not the case. Voice is complicated. To properly optimize voice for any network – whether NEC or an existing one – experts are required.

Through more than two decades of developing data center and carrier-based infrastructure solutions, NEC’s Unified Infrastructure has taken advantage of leading purpose-built architectures, including the SV7000/8000 communication servers and gateways, as well as complementary products developed by partners. All infrastructure products from NEC are scalable by design and utilize a single software image. Reliability, security, and fine-grained Quality of Service (QoS) are standard features of all platform elements, and all are managed from a common end-to-end management system. A significant expansion to enterprise infrastructure is taking place with the upgrade of IPX and UNIVERGE® SV7000 families to the new UNIVERGE® SV8000 family. The UNIVERGE® SV8100 and the UNIVERGE® SV8300 are based on use of the Session Initiation Protocol for client-side IP services. They form the basis of an IP Multimedia Subsystem and Fixed-Mobile convergence strategy. and integrate Elite IPKII and UNIVERGE IPS architectures with full support of IP and SIP.

What this means is that the SV8000 Series serves as the single management platform for a host of services such as email, instant messaging, converged voice communications, and presence notification. It can provide the portal to corporate back office software services such as CRM, ERP and order-processing. And these services can be accessed from PCs, fixed XML terminals, or mobile devices.

NEC enterprise infrastructure is rounded out with HYDRAstor grid storage architecture, which utilizes the same rack space as members of the SV8000 Series while offering self-healing fault-tolerant solutions for storage.

NEC also offers Assured MobilityTM wireless LAN network elements, such as UNIVERGE controllers, access points, and mobile handsets, for augmenting FMC support. Digital Signage, which includes controllers and NEC-developed displays, provides a system for managing and scheduling video, still image, and audio/video feeds.

The NEC infrastructure repertoire also includes voice client devices, including the full line of UNIVERGE IP deskset phones. Like the software application suites, the IP phones themselves use XML as the basis for open-interface application development. In addition to fixed-location IP phones, the SP30 softphone enables end users to call from any location using their enterprise extension, while utilizing all the call features available on the UNIVERGE phones.

                 

Unified Communications

The term Unified Communication (UC) is all the rage in the industry. It is being positioned as the next big thing in enterprise communications. The fact is that UC is more than just a killer app or a one-size-fits-all solution. UC is actually a compilation of applications that, according to most analysts and industry vendors, enable users to maximize productivity.

The technologies and applications in UC can include everything from contact center solutions, instant messaging, video and web collaboration to presence. UNIVERGE360’s Unified Communications layer includes applications developed for three end-user environments: UC for Business, UC for Enterprise, and Assured Mobility.

For the small-medium businesses, UC for Business (or Business ConneCT in Europe), offers call-center, unified messaging, call control, and IM/chat features and can be integrated with Microsoft Office/Exchange and Microsoft Vista. UC for Business provides most of the features of a PBX directly to the PC and integrates employee, contact center, and operator functionality, enabling every employee to act as a de facto operator or virtual agent without detracting from other tasks on the desktop.

The UC for Enterprise suite offers an expanded version of the feature set for SMB as well as the conferencing, telephony, presence, and management tools necessary for larger networks. The centerpiece of Assured Mobility is NEC’s UNIVERGE Mobile Client, which provides full access to desktop applications in both cellular and Wi-Fi environments. Mobile Client extends advanced enterprise and productivity applications through the UNIVERGE SV7000 IP Controller and Mobile Gateway to a wide variety of smart phones, PDA's and dual-mode mobile devices running the Windows Mobile operating system. Applications appropriate for a mobile client include directory management, contact management, buddy lists, and instant messaging.

                 

Unified Communications

The term Unified Communication (UC) is all the rage in the industry. It is being positioned as the next big thing in enterprise communications. The fact is that UC is more than just a killer app or a one-size-fits-all solution. UC is actually a compilation of applications that, according to most analysts and industry vendors, enable users to maximize productivity.

The technologies and applications in UC can include everything from contact center solutions, instant messaging, video and web collaboration to presence. UNIVERGE360’s Unified Communications layer includes applications developed for three end-user environments: UC for Business, UC for Enterprise, and Assured Mobility.

For the small-medium businesses, UC for Business (or Business ConneCT in Europe), offers call-center, unified messaging, call control, and IM/chat features and can be integrated with Microsoft Office/Exchange and Microsoft Vista. UC for Business provides most of the features of a PBX directly to the PC and integrates employee, contact center, and operator functionality, enabling every employee to act as a de facto operator or virtual agent without detracting from other tasks on the desktop.

The UC for Enterprise suite offers an expanded version of the feature set for SMB as well as the conferencing, telephony, presence, and management tools necessary for larger networks. The centerpiece of Assured Mobility is NEC’s UNIVERGE Mobile Client, which provides full access to desktop applications in both cellular and Wi-Fi environments. Mobile Client extends advanced enterprise and productivity applications through the UNIVERGE SV7000 IP Controller and Mobile Gateway to a wide variety of smart phones, PDA's and dual-mode mobile devices running the Windows Mobile operating system. Applications appropriate for a mobile client include directory management, contact management, buddy lists, and instant messaging.