People in the industry have been hearing about unified communications for years. It is just one of those technologies which keep being flagged as the next big thing, but never really happen. And this time?

Well it seems to me that we are now really close to the home run with UC. All the pieces are in place to really get people to have all their communication devices and pieces of software to talk to each other and act as one seamless solution. So what exactly does UC do for the average business exec?

Meet Ann, an average businessperson, who works in a professional office with quite normal business requirements.

Ann would have a mobile phone, with its phone book, which she occasionally loses and so needs to re-enter all her contacts.). She has a personal e-mail account with her ISP, which she accesses from home, and her work e-mail account which she accesses from the office. Both these accounts have their own separate contact lists, let us assume a Microsoft Outlook contact list, different from her mobile phone directory, of course. At the office she has a desk phone, with its internal extension, and direct dial in number, which is pretty stand-alone from anything else, and does not have access to a contact list.

She is also on instant messaging, has a Skype account and which she uses to also make free Skype-to Skype calls. She uses a separate contact list for Skype and a headset, separate from her desk phone. She is also on Facebook, and needs to manage a list of friends and contacts on the social networking site too. Although this is predominantly a social activity, she inevitably ends up communicating with work and business colleagues too.

In a typical UC world Ann would have one digital address book. In it she keeps all her contacts, e-mails, fixed line numbers, personal home numbers, mobile numbers and instant messaging nicknames. Because it is centrally backed up, no issues of ever losing the data. She would also be able to synch with her social network contacts if required.

Internally she is able to know who is in the office, who is in a meeting and who is on the phone. No more wasting time trying to talk to people when they are not in or busy and inviting people to meetings when they cannot make it. She is able to have quick IM chats with her colleagues, and involve a number of them in a conference. All at zero cost, whether they are in the office or travelling abroad, using the internet as the communications medium.

Ann will also have her desk phone integrated with her online presence, and is able to click on an Outlook contact and initiate a call. She is able to very easily, through a web interface configure her phone for the usual services such as follow-me, call forwarding and play her voicemail messages directly from her inbox. Again all this, comes at no per minute costs and is available both in the office and outside. So she is able to extend the "office communications experience" to anywhere. And that includes video too. Her desk phone will be able to seamlessly receive and initiative calls to contacts who have a Skype account, thus saving on costs.

Finally she has her mobile integrated into the system, so that she can pick calls from her extension, on her mobile, when not at her desk. And she can also read and send e-mails, of course, if and when she needs to. Her mobile set-up will also allow her to chat over Facebook or Skype, and even do Skype voice calls over Wi-Fi.

All the above is quite basic UC functionality available today. The more interesting part is when a business starts integrating these UC features into their automated business processes, their CRM (customer relationship management) systems, and other customer facing applications. And it is all very affordable too.

So when you are making your next investment in a voice system, don't just pick the first PABX dumped your way. Make sure that you are looking at a next generation UC system, which gives you the ability to not only have the usual basic voice functionality, but to move ahead to a fully integrated communications set-up, today an essential tool in remaining competitive.

Mr Fearne is the managing director at ICT Solutions, a leading systems integrator in Malta and chairman of the IT Business Section of the Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry.