Nortel’s unified communication approach

Nortel has unveiled a new educational program designed to provide IT professionals and students with a broader understanding of unified communications . This new program is the most comprehensive, vendor-neutral training and certification curriculum available today. The new program includes the certification self-study guide entitled Unified Communications Solutions: A Practical Business and Technology Approach, from Nortel Press .

Unified communications offers enterprises the ability to increase the tempo of their operations, drive capital and operational expenses lower while increasing productivity and revenues with a return on investment within as little as 12 months.

“The road to unified communications can be complex and daunting; in many cases, it forces technology professionals beyond their traditional knowledge base. Unified communications certifications give IT professionals critical skills to achieve early wins and accelerate long-term success,” said Nora Freedman, senior analyst, IDC. “Certification programs, like Nortel's, help IT professionals make informed decisions towards successful unified communications deployments, including how to evaluate vendor options, which is the best migration path from their existing infrastructures, and what is the value of integrating communications with applications and processes.”

“The unified communications self-study guide from Nortel Press is right on the mark in providing flexible and valuable instructional tools that are an ideal resource for preparing for Nortel's certification exam,” said Andy Simmonds, Enterprise Solutions, Service Design, BT Global Services. “More importantly, the vendor-neutral Nortel unified communications solutions certification provides me with an industry recognized competitive differentiator.”

“This is the definitive program to deliver the power of unified communications the right way,” said Joel Hackney , president, Enterprise Solutions, Nortel. “The “why” of unified communications is becoming readily obvious, but “how” to implement these solutions in the most effective ways has proven to be the most challenging aspect of the equation. Nortel's new program provides the educational background needed to make implementations successful and underscores Nortel's continued leadership in innovation and delivering the benefits of unified communications. This is the latest step in a long journey in the evolution of how business is conducted.”

Enterprises need to have knowledge and confidence as they head down the path towards successful deployment of unified communications to improve business process and reap the rewards of increased productivity. Enterprises should begin unified communications deployments from a practical approach of how the solution fits into their business priorities and identify what parts of their business would benefit.

“The book was written to fill a gap in knowledge within the industry on how to best approach the unified communications deployment decision from a practical business and technology perspective,” said Hassan Hamadani, Middle East marketing manager, Nortel. “Supporting mentoring programs and other education initiatives have also been designed to make it easy for IT professionals to earn their unified communications professional certification.”

In addition to traditional IT professional training venues, Nortel's unified communications courses and certification will be offered through the Nortel Technology Solutions Academy. This program offers education institutions around the world the opportunity to train and certify students on the technologies that are shaping the future of business communications. More information is available at www.nortel.com/academy . To order a copy of Unified Communications Solutions, access a free preview of the book . To view all of the available Nortel Press titles, please visit www.nortel.com/nortelpress .

Unified communications brings order from the chaos of business communications by integrating communications with business processes and applications to truncate the decision-making process and remove human latency from the equation. It brings voice, IM, conferencing, presence and video capabilities to the desktop with simple, one-click access and speeds communication by enabling employees to instantly connect with co-workers, allowing them to know if the recipient is available and by what means they should be contacted. Unified communications can increase productivity by 18 percent and delivers an ROI of 178 percent.