We are very privileged to have a new addition to the Enabling team: Mr. Satish Shah.  Satish is a co-author of "UC for Dummies" which will be available in November.  To whet your appetite for the book, here's an excerpt from Chapter 3:  The Business Benefits of UC.

It should be very clear that the costs increase with the increase in number of communication modes that a company enables for their employees. In addition to the costs associated with the use of different modes of communications, you should be aware that the costs of management, monitoring and compliance also increase exponentially. 

Obama BlackBerry

The 44th president of the United States, President Barack Obama hoped that he could continue to use  his BlackBerry after his inauguration. The security of his communications through the BlackBerry became a major concern to the U.S. Secret Service. On January 21, 2009, it was reported that the President would be allowed to use his favorite toy, the BlackBerry.

 Let's look at how Mr. Obama communicates:

* He has been using the same e-mail address for many years

* He also uses a laptop and Twitter

* He receives briefing books and memos on his BlackBerry

Even our current president can't live without his BlackBerry. It gives him the capability to communicate and collaborate from anywhere, anytime, and with whomever he pleases, including you and me. It's really become the norm in our society for folks to always carry a BlackBerry, a smart phone, a PDA, or other such device with them.

If a company provides its employees with five modes of communications, there are five ways for someone to break in and steal the company's most critical data. Each mode of communication is a potential security hazard. How often have you heard about a bank employee's laptop being stolen with clients' secure financial data, making those clients vulnerable to someone doing something detrimental with the confidential information? Additionally, in light of major government bailouts, taxpayers are demanding that financial and healthcare providers be extremely transparent. The federal, state, and local governments, as well as the FDA, SEC, HIPPA, and Sarbanes-Oxley, all require companies to be compliant and archive their communications data for three to ten years.

Increased efficiency is the first of many UC advantages.

A hospital in California was looking for a solution to improve its capability to communicate and collaborate more efficiently, especially in the radiology department. The radiology department recently had expanded to include radiologists from India and Australia to provide round-the-clock coverage. When patients were x-rayed in California, their x-rays were loaded in a Kodak system that allowed authorized colleagues access to them over the Internet. So a patient's x-rays taken at 5 p.m. in California by the technician and then loaded on the Kodak system were available to the radiologist in India or Australia after the California radiologist  went home. Now the radiologist in India or Australia could analyze the x-rays and enter the diagnosis into the system. In the morning, when the California radiologist and technicians returned to work, those x-rays were viewed and the diagnosis was entered.

If the radiologist or the physician in California had questions or wanted to consult with the radiologist in India or Australia, or with an expert, he or she could participate in a Web conference (Microsoft Office Live Meeting or Cisco Webex, for example), open and view the x-rays online, consult with the other participants, annotate a specific area on the charts by using annotation tools, and reach a well-informed conclusion. Just for an example, 4-6pm in California would mean 9-11am in Australia (next day) and 5:30-7:30am in India (next day).  UC is a brilliant innovation that improves efficiency in communications and collaboration.