In 2007, both IBM and Microsoft introduced new products, enhancements and integrations that will have a significant and lasting effect on communications in and across organizations. Named “unified communications,” or “UC”, these technologies typically include previously separate applications like email, instant messaging, online conferencing, collaborative portals, and even such familiar products as fax and telephone. The “unification” is made possible by the ubiquity of Internet Protocol (IP) communications, the Internet itself, and the emerging concept of presence-enabled applications. The promise held out by these companies, along with other entrants such as Cisco, Avaya, and Siemens, is that UC will allow people to collaborate more efficiently over great distances through the advantages of real-time communications (e.g. instant messaging, chat, online conferencing) and presence (i.e. the ability to see a potential recipient’s availability to receive a message or phone call through their “online now”, “busy”, or “offline” indicators) once they are integrated with more familiar communications modes like telephone, fax, and email. Productivity, creativity, and innovation are projected to soar by the UC providers once co-workers and business associates become accustomed to these powerful new capabilities.

Of course, no great technological action can take place without an equal and opposite reaction. UC is no different, as it introduces new and greater risks and liabilities into the organizations hoping to harness its productivity-improving power. The need for security, logging/archiving, and monitoring usage of communications applications is not a new one. Even before unified communications emerged to take center stage in the trade press, companies began to face the inevitable adoption of more modes of communication, many of which were consumer applications like instant messaging, blogs, and wikis. Companies using IM, email, and unified communications are grappling with how to make use of these communications media securely and compliantly while minimizing effort and cost of managing policy across all applications.

Obviously, each new communications application can be implemented, administered, secured, and managed on its own. But why incur the added costs of trying to set and enforce security and compliance policies in two, three, four, or even five separate systems? Small and medium businesses are realizing that unified communications and the Internet will allow them to compete on equal footing with the big guys. But how many SMBs can afford to have five different system administrators just to manage and report on the use of email, IM, conferencing, VoIP, and collaborative apps? Five different backups to do every night? Five different – and unintegrated – reports to run? Five different search-and-restores to run for an audit of electronic message retention? The cost becomes prohibitive.

This is why the concept of Unified Policy Management holds great promise.

Business leaders and CIO’s have figured out that better communications and collaboration provides competitive advantages, so the forward-thinking organizations are demanding their IT departments must implement (1) email, (2) enterprise instant messaging, (3) online conferencing, (4) server-based faxing, (5) presence-enabled VoIP, (6) collaborative apps, (7) mobile messaging, and (8) secure file transfers. This is a pretty solid to-do list for any CIO!

Now imagine that the CFO, legal department, and compliance officers ask the IT department to (1) monitor inbound and outbound message content to prevent data leakage, (2) monitor for inappropriate use, (3) archive electronic messages that are business records, (4) scan messages and files for viruses and phishing attempts, (5) ensure only authorized access to messaging systems, and (6) report on all of this activity both regularly and ad hoc (and oh, by the way, if you’re in securities, energy, or

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