But what does migrating to UC really mean? Even the simplest initiatives -- such as rolling out unified messaging (UM) or deploying desktop video -- can create major upheavals in business processes and operations. In many respects that's a good thing: sales teams close business faster, for instance, and geographically-dispersed teams can collaborate more effectively. But IT folks shouldn't underestimate the monkey-wrench that UC throws into long-established routines and processes.

For starters, there's that whole "unified" moniker. Like "convergence" before it, "unified" communications requires the coming together of IT groups that were historically separate. Just as convergence (a.k.a. VoIP) was the catalyst that ultimately joined networking and telecom teams, UC will ultimately integrate multiple IT silos, particularly networking, desktop support and messaging.

In most companies, e-mail and messaging are handled by one organization, while another deals with voice mail and telephony issues. With UC, those two groups become joined at the hip -- not just in the strategic planning stages, but through engineering, architecture and implementations. Having separate groups oversee, for instance, voice mail and e-mail account administration will no longer make sense in a UC world.

Another issue that's rapidly coming to the forefront is e-discovery (electronic discovery). Many organizations have entirely separate policies governing the retention of voice mail and e-mail. Some are under the impression that voice mail is not discoverable, whereas e-mail is; others labor under the delusion that merely having an official policy for document destruction will somehow preclude damaging documents from showing up in court. I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV. But I can tell you this: both assumptions are flawed. And the move to UC is an excellent time to review e-discovery policies and compliance concerns across the board -- because it's a whole new world out there.