If you still think of the cloud chiefly as a platform for storing and transmitting data, you’re behind the curve. The cloud has grown into a place to store, share, and act on knowledge and business intelligence. Traditionally, communication relied on having physical equipment on the premises. But the cloud has enabled unified communications allowing major advances in communications, without all the hardware, including:

• Extended functionality. Beyond standard PBX-style communication, unified communications includes voice, video, document and desktop sharing, instant messaging, and other collaborative tools, all housed in the cloud. Each component is available to initiate new communication or combine within an existing exchange, and each user’s profile in the cloud serves as “command central” over it all.
• On-demand services. We’ll see the birth of Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS). “The belief is that you’ll be communicating out of an existing environment that you’re already in—Salesforce, Office 365, a website, an app, a social media platform—and at an API level, you’ll communicate to the other person in a platform that they’re in,” Clark Peterson, chairman of the Cloud Communications Alliance. “CPaaS will facilitate real-time, contextual information passed back and forth that enables a whole other level of decision making. It actually transfers information along with your communication to make it much more intelligent.”
• Ease of use. The cloud base also gives unified communications an implementation advantage over traditional key systems or other phone hardware setups. It eliminates the need to physically set up a new line for each new employee or each new office location. At the same time, it relieves you of responsibility for maintaining and upgrading that equipment or managing the software on which it runs. All of that is taken care of for you as part of the provider’s service package.

“Now, all the intelligence of your communications platforms has moved to the cloud,” says Peterson. “You can have a voice over internet protocol (VoIP) handset, and all the intelligence comes from platforms in the cloud,” including unified communications.

Read the Unified Communications: An All-in-One Solution guide to learn about how the cloud is driving communications capabilities that can streamline your operations and exponentially grow your business.