Software services company LINK Development today launched its Unified Communications solution at Gitex 2007 exhibition.

The solution enables enterprises to enhance employee productivity and improve customer service, by integrating various communication tools and facilitating collaboration across virtual teams. It also enhances work mobility, by allowing employees to access content they would normally have on PCs, using their mobile devices.

Based on Microsoft Unified Communications technology, LINK Development’s software solution integrates e-mail, fax, voicemail, and telephone communication, without the need for costly hardware upgrades. In effect, it enables a PC to behave more like a telephone and vice versa.

LINK Development CEO, Hanan Abdel Meguid, says that the value of Unified Communications lies in its ability to bridge the divide between the completely separate worlds of computing and telephony, resulting in too many devices and too many applications that are not linked together.

“Business communication needs to become easier and faster," she says. "With Unified Communications, a typical scene in an office would be of employees video conferencing with colleagues from their PCs and forwarding voicemail as they would with e-mail, whereas mobile phones can be used for instant messaging or to playback e-mail while away from the office.”

By integrating tools like e-mail, instant messaging, Voice over IP and video conferencing, Unified Communications is effectively leading to a convergence in the computing and telephony industries, and enabling a new level of business efficiency and productivity.

Hanan added that although Unified Communications has been bubbling for many years, there are signs now that it is accelerating fast and is set to become a significant new way of business communication within the next decade. She credits part of its appeal to it being a software solution that easily works with existing devices, with no substantial investment in new hardware and no need to overhaul legacy telephone systems.

“Unified Communication is the latest solution launched by the company designed to streamline communication and enhance productivity. It is a natural addition to our suite of collaboration solutions, such as corporate intranets, team workspaces and self-service applications for employees to share reviews and ratings of content and services,” Hanan says.

While Unified Communications also has useful social applications, it is the business advantages that make it a growing trend. According to research company Dataquest, the greatest value of Unified Communications lies in its ability to minimise delay in business continuity while on the move. Dataquest estimates the current Unified Communications market to be worth $40 billion worldwide.

LINK Development is a subsidiary of LINKdotNET and telecomms giant Orascom, and is a Gold Certified Partner of Microsoft in the Middle East. The Unified Communications solution is based on Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, Microsoft 2007 Office System, and Microsoft Office Roundtable.

Sabah Corm, Business Group Manager, Information Worker Division at Microsoft Gulf said: “Microsoft Corporation, as a major driver of the move towards Unified Communications, believes that it will completely redefine business communication.

Integrating the experiences associated with the telephone into the work done on a computer has the power to fundamentally change the way people work and communicate, and Microsoft believes Unified Communications will revolutionize the business landscape this decade in the same way that e-mail did in the previous one.”

Through unified communications, a call can be instantly made on a PC by clicking on a name, voicemail can be heard and forwarded like email, and video conferencing becomes incredibly simple.

LINK Development is demonstrating its Unified Communication solution at Gitex, which takes place on 8th-12th September. LINKdotNET and LINK Development are exhibiting from the Dubai Internet City stand (Concourse 2) and in the Egyptian pavilion (Hall 2).

For more information, please contact:
Nathalie Atalla
Public Relations Manager
LINKdotNET
Tel: (202) 2768 65 00 ext: 1116
Fax: (202) 2768 65 55
Email: nathalie.atalla@mail.link.net