Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) solutions enable customers to benefit from multiple communications channels, while simultaneously reducing complexity. BT's UCC proposition enables organisations to collaborate more efficiently with employees, suppliers, customers and business partners. By enabling an organisation’s fixed, mobile and virtual communications infrastructure to work seamlessly with desktop software and applications, users can take part in almost any kind of communication with anyone at any time.

The BT Managed Unified Communications and Collaboration proposition is based upon Microsoft products, providing rich “presence” information and simplified access to communications tools such as voice, conferencing, instant messaging (IM), email and desktop collaboration. As a result users are empowered to select the most appropriate form of communication each time, every time when contacting people, e.g., urgent messages can be sent via instant message when a user's status is set to “in a call”. In keeping with this enriched user experience, it is key to this proposition that organisations experience a single consistent, straightforward interaction with BT when making contact. Therefore this proposition provides a single contract, single Service Centre and one bill across the multiple lines of business involved in the delivery.

• Unified Communications and Collaboration - Exec Summary (Pdf - 915kb)
• Introduction to Unified Communications (Pdf - 2.9 MB)

Deeper Insight into Unified Communications

Having familiarised yourself with an overview of Unified Communications, you may wish to gain a deeper insight. This document provides more detail of Unified Communications as a concept plus details on the benefits and also on different Unified Communications solutions - with Microsoft, Cisco and Nortel.

• Unified Communications in more Detail (Pdf - 3.5 MB)

Perhaps you would like to know how to completely transform your global communication and collaboration experiences. BT Unified Communications Video will completely alter your perceptions of video-conferencing

• BT Unified Communications Video Conferencing (Pdf - 361 kB)

For more detail, please contact your Account Manager or else contact the Convergence team at: convergence.ireland@bt.com

The different options for Unified Communications

Unified Communications will radically alter the ability of your business to perform in a faster-moving, more competitive world. Different technology options are available and we have put together solutions with the leading vendors. Contact us and we will design a solution to meet your needs.

BT will work with you to select the most appropriate vendor to meet your needs. The following slides on BT’s approach to Unified Communications are helpful as an overview.

• BT and Microsoft: Technical View of Unified Communications from Microsoft (Pdf - 78kb)
• BT and Cisco: Technical View of Unified Communications from Cisco (Pdf - 133kb)
• BT and Nortel: Technical View of Unified Communications from Nortel (Pdf - 114kb)

Business is personal, but the world’s a big place

One of the challenges of global business is how best to work with people in remote locations. Effective communication depends on the subtleties of face-to-face interaction as well as your voice: being there in person can make all the difference in critical discussions. As a result, people still travel to attend most important meetings. It’s costly, it affects productivity, and it also has an impact on your personal life. Fortunately, with next-generation networks and video conferencing technologies, there is a better way.

BT Unified Communications Video: it’s just like being there

BT’s Unified Communications Video solutions can transform the way you work with remote colleagues and customers. Using ultra-high-quality immersive video and audio, you can reproduce that crucial ”in-person” experience, even when you’re talking with people on the other side of the world.

You can have meetings with life-size images of remote colleagues and customers, making eye contact and talking with each person as if they were on the other side of the table. Screens, cameras, microphones and speakers are strategically placed to make the experience as natural as possible.

BT Unified Communications Video solutions combine our next-generation network capabilities and conferencing expertise with advanced technology from Cisco. You can take advantage of the latest immersive video solutions, while BT’s intelligent networks maintain the quality of your meeting experience.

An immediate personal presence

BT Unified Communications Video solutions can transform many business activities that would normally depend on travel. These include board meetings, sales presentations, product development, customer support, trading operations, access to specialists from remote locations, and more. They can help you make better use of company time, give you an immediate personal presence in remote locations, and help to reduce travel costs at the same time.

BT offers a range of managed services, and the skills and experience of a dedicated conferencing division, to make it as easy as possible to take advantage of the next generation of remote collaboration solutions.

BT is the only European provider to achieve a Cisco Certified TelePresence Connection certification. This confirms that BT provides the global network capacity to support Cisco's life-like virtual meeting solution.

For more information please contact BT Specialist, Fiachra Murray