Unified Communications (UC) suppliers have been busy extending their software to work on mobile endpoints, such as the Apple Iphone, blackberry, smartphones etc. But there has been little focus on solutions that extend UC to address in-building roaming applications. This is a huge area that has been overlooked with requirements in nearly every industry such as gaming, education, retail, financial services, transportation, etc. Most business and IT leaders look toward a few technologies to solve the in-building UC roaming problem including Voice Over WLAN, IP DECT, Dual Mode endpoints, reliance on the cellular network and, in the extreme, deploying their own cellular antenna to improve coverage. To sort this all out, I invited Shane Yu Director of Unified Communications Consulting at Avaya where we’ll review these options and provide guidance as to which approach may work best for your corporation. If you’re looking to extend UC to in-building nomads, then you need to listen to this podcast

Mr. Michael Whaley, Network Engineering Specialist at American Century Investments is my quest as we discuss American Century Investment’s teleworking strategy and solution. American Century Investments was looking to reduce the operational burden of supporting a large teleworking population while delivering an office IT experience to those working from home. Mr. Whaley describes how American Century Investments paid for a new teleworking solution with wide area facilities cost savings while increasing security, employee productivity and reducing IT management’s operational spend. It’s a fascinating podcast, if you’re developing a teleworking plan, then you need to listen in.

Mindwave Research recently changed its operational model to reduce facilities cost, improve productivity, gain access to a broader labor pool, increase customer service and be a greener company. At the heart of this operational change was the shift toward teleworking. By deploying a teleworker solution, Mindwave reduced its facilities cost by over 80%. They are leveraging IM, video conferencing and other unified communication services to keep employees connected and working together while they telecommute. Jason Snook, IT Director at Mindwave is my quest as he discusses the realized increased productivity and drastic reduction in commute travel time and CO2 emissions its employees would otherwise emit into the atmosphere.

Working from home has always been a different IT experience then being in the office. Home connectivity was restricted to dial-in, VPN or client based solutions with voice service usually being the house phone. This poor experience dampened the growth of teleworking, which was good news for most IT leaders as their concerns were security vulnerabilities and management. But with advanced integration of networks and communications in a small appliance the gap between office and home IT experience is closing fast. A confluence of factors ranging from green initiatives, to governmental requirements, work-home life style changes, business expense controls and new teleworking solutions are giving business and IT leaders the motivation to embrace and massively deploy teleworking solutions. Mr. Calvin Chai, Senior Marketing Executive at Cisco is my guest as we discuss Cisco’s new Cisco Virtual Office offering; a teleworking solution that can be deployed in scale.

Teleworking with unified communications is now a major contributor to green initiatives. The thinking is simple, reduce the amount of cars commuting and carbon emissions will decline. On average there are 0.45 Tons of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere for every 1,000 miles driven while a typical commuter travels 7,000 miles per year. Assuming that in the US telecommuters work at home at least one day a week results is some 22.6 million Tons of CO2 that will not be emitted into the atmosphere. That’s just in the US and other countries are more aggressive in their telecommuting initiatives. But to make telecommuting realistic it needs to support multiple endpoints, communication services and all of the conveniences of enterprise communication systems including presence, directory, the corporate dial plan, etc. Combining unified communications with teleworking is delivering on this level of usefulness. Andrey Kuzyk, Senior Marketing Manager Unified Communications at Avaya joins me to discuss teleworking solutions, which helps to support a greener corporation.