IP Convergence: Beyond VoIP, Beyond Cost Savings

As with any new technology you will find different opinions of what you should consider and do when deploying new technology.

Recently Zeus Kerravala from Yankee Group posted a blog  urging enterprises not to consider VoIP as a foundation for deployment.  Stating concerns of complexity and that only a minority of enterprises completing their VoIP deployments.

I would like to offer a supportive opinion that can be found in a whitepaper that my peers and I have recently released.  You can download a copy here.

The whitepaper is based Global Crossing’s experience of deploying Microsoft’s Office Communication System within our internal IT infrastructure as well as recent market data.

Global Crossing  was successful in deploying a Unified Communications platform (text, email, video, voice and data) within the last 24 months (Live Communication Server in 2006 which was upgraded to Office Communications System in 2007) based on efforts which were completed in 2004.

In 2004 , Global Crossing deployed an internal network infrastructure  (LAN and WAN) that was capable of providing convergence of Voice, Video and Data. Not only did Global Crossing deploy a network, more importantly we broke down the traditional silo’s found in IT departments across Voice, LAN and WAN teams.

This foundational element enabled application layering (VoIP, Video, Data) that is available in our full featured Unified Communications platform today.

Enterprises considering a Unified Communications deployment will  need to deploy a stable, converged network in conjunction with a presence enabled framework.