Next Generation Messaging (page 2 of 2)

Furthermore, real-time collaborative tools like Web conferencing are notoriously expensive and tough to manage and operate.

The above systems must also adjust to the context in which information is used, and should automatically cater to the users' changing needs. Users not only should be able to access information anytime, anywhere, but should also have the power to choose when, where and how they want to be contacted. Above all else, the ability for users to conduct a single search across all information repositories in which information is stored is priceless in today's business environment.

Today's Collaboration Market
The demand for unified messaging has entered a period of upheaval. Around 55 per cent of participants recently surveyed said that their company is planning on deploying some form of unified messaging in the next eighteen months (4). The Collaboration market, a $5.4 billion market in 2002, is now expected to reach to $9.9 billion by 2006 (5). Driven by spiralling management, hardware and software costs, and the need for integration, companies now realise that architecturally it makes more sense to consolidate servers.

One Integrated Suite
In the current economic climate, IT managers have to be super-smart and prudent with their IT purchases. Constant demands are made on IT managers to not only justify any investments, but to also enhance efficiencies and productivity while minimising any disruption to the current IT infrastructures in place.

What enterprises need now in order to face these challenges and achieve their collaborative goals is an integrated suite of applications covering the gamut of collaborative work: from individual to team collaboration, from asynchronous to real-time efforts. Encompassing the next generation of technologies, Oracle Collaboration Suite, which Oracle itself uses, takes a whole new approach to the communications infrastructure.

Apart from the productivity improvements delivered, Oracle Collaboration Suite brings outstanding cost efficiencies and value. In a recent report by the Radicati Group, it was found that the average company spends around $775 per employee on collaboration costs, Oracle Collaboration Suite can reduce the cost per employee by 80 per cent and significantly improve productivity.

Customers such as Fujistu Siemens Computers, Peter's Food Service and Oerlikon Kaynak Elektrodlar San A.S have all selected Oracle Collaboration Suite as part of a wider strategy to consolidate their IT infrastructure.

Oracle Collaboration Suite also delivers better management with higher availability, improved security and performance, easier upgrades. Oracle understands the demands of a more flexible and mobile workforce. In fact, Oracle implemented the Oracle Collaboration Suite across its entire organisation. iGillotResearch calculated a first-year savings of $22.3 million, and total three-year savings of around $86 million.