Unified communications represents a concept where multiple modes of business communications can be seamlessly integrated.
One of the main focuses of unified communications is to reduce communication response time, or in other words perceived speed, which often is essential in decision making and acting upon instructions. For example, an important action that takes two days to complete but is received a day late, takes three days to complete. Unified communications technology aims to minimize that delay.
It also focuses on the following: telecommunication voice systems and services, data communication networks, IT systems, mobile telecommunications services, and videoconferencing technology and telepresence services.
Unified Messaging (or UM) is the integration of different electronic messaging and communications media (e-mail, SMS, Fax, voicemail, video messaging, etc.) technologies into a single interface, accessible from a variety of different devices.
While traditional communications systems delivered messages into several different types of stores such as voicemail systems, e-mail servers, and stand-alone fax machines, with Unified Messaging all types of messages are stored in one system.
