Unified Communications

Effectively collaborate and communicate while ensuring scalability and security of information

Your Challenge

A critical difference between email and other communication technologies, such as the telephone, is that email messages are not just transmitted and received, they are also retained. Since these retained messages contain not only the message content itself, but also unstructured attached content, email systems have become the repository for vast quantities of information and knowledge. In fact, in most organizations a messaging system is the single largest repository of content, but the management, security, archiving and retention of this content is entrusted to systems that were originally designed to do no more than transmit simple text messages from one user to another.

Because existing messaging systems were created to send messages instead of retain them, the load created by retaining gigabytes or even terabytes of data has lead to ungainly, unreliable, unscalable and unsecured corporate email systems. Since unmanaged messaging systems are typically standalone, any archiving and records management capabilities tend to be single-platform and proprietary. Finally, to break free of the scalability and data storage issues, many organizations decide to simply push the data out to user machines—the least-secure, least-managed and least-controlled environment of all. This approach represents substantial risk for the long-term success of an organization's content management strategy.

Open Text's Unified Communications products are:

• FirstClass is a unified messaging system enabling communication and collaboration across a wide range of messaging formats and devices. It provides email, calendaring, contact manager, centralized directory, instant messaging, and shared workspaces.