Business and IT Glossary > Unified Communications and Collaboration (UC&C)

Unified Communications and Collaboration (UC&C or UCC)

Unified communications and collaboration

Unified communications and collaboration (UC&C or UCC) is the closest term that describes what we have been calling real-time collaboration. UC&C as a market and set of technologies has emerged from unified communications (UC) to incorporate real-time and asynchronous collaboration capabilities into one suite.

Unified communications has always encompassed a voice-led product offering, but as the market has shifted and demand for omni-channel forms of communication has increased, buyers no longer want just voice. They want video, collaboration, and team collaboration, which is more than UC or UCaaS can provide.

UC&C platforms allow for calls that are both voice-based and video-based, enable meetings with users and rooms, and are about the shift from  team collaboration (previously called instant messaging or mobile collaboration). The fervor behind UC&C is an effort to recast UC with people-centric collaboration capabilities integrated into everyday business processes.

The market for UC&C has exploded as Cloud Telephony has overtaken on-premise PBXs. Now, enterprises are realizing that being able to communicate via multiple modalities at the same time is increasingly important in the remote work era we currently live in. In a post COVID world, video meetings now are viewed as a must have feature set for remote work.

For more, head to our coverage page for unified communications and collaboration.