INSTANT COMMUNICATION

Once upon a time telephony systems and software belonged to different worlds. But integration between different products is increasing, driven by the demands of the user, who wants to switch between communication channels at work, as easily as he does at home.

During the past ten years, we have become accustomed to having a multitude of communication channels at our disposal. In addition to face-to-face conversations and the trusty telephone, we can chat, e-mail, and use video-conferencing. We can also work together from different locations in the world using the internet, and we can record and create video and audio files and send them wherever we want.

Technology development

One thing is certain, and that is that during these past ten years the customer has been the driving force behind technological development. With e-mail, chat and VoIP, people nowadays often have better communication tools at home than they do in the office. But they want and expect the same possibilities at work.

Telephony systems, traditionally our product, are basically about voice communication. We want to grow closer to the more data-oriented forms of communication, such as e-mail and instant messaging. From a supplier of telecom equipment, we are growing into a solution provider. Moving from telecom to information and communication technology, ICT, means that consultancy will also become increasingly important.

Microsoft LCS

As our activities grows more towards ICT, we ask ourselves: do we want to do this alone or with a partner, like Microsoft, for example? Microsoft is consolidating different types of communication software under the name ‘Live Communications Server’ and it is a perfect fit. 

A partnership with Microsoft means an expansion of our product range from hardware and software, to software and services.

Microsoft Live Communications Server (LCS) brings different communication channels together in one place: the desktop. And with a nifty little feature called ‘presence list’, it is instantly clear who is available for what type of communication, be it e-mail, phone or chat, which is increasingly being used in a business environment.

Different channels

The combination of NEC Philips telecommunication systems and Microsoft LCS means that users can make optimum use of the most appropriate communication medium. And when the options are clear, people will not be so quick to revert to their usual communication means, because it might not be the most cost efficient or user friendly at that moment. E-mail, for instance, costs time and data storage. Being able to see on your desktop that a colleague is available to chat or phone, may shift communication to different channels.

As market leader in sophisticated telephony solutions, NEC Philips can deploy Microsoft LCS in a telephony environment. The telephone then becomes part of the IT-world. Existing telephony networks do not have to be reconfigured to work together with Microsoft LCS. We have developed software, called Realtime Communication Centre (RCC), with which we can connect the telephony network to the computer network. If necessary, we can also create tailor-made solutions by connecting to other systems, such as SAP.

www.nec-philips.com/rcc