Unified communications technology automates, unifies, or integrates all forms of communications with the aim of improving and maximising processes that have previously been heavily dependent on human interaction.
For example, unified communications allows for a voice message sent to a phone to be automatically forwarded to a mobile phone or sent as a text or even sent as an email to a PC or PDA.
This reduces the time to respond to calls and messages and improves the efficiency in which an individual responds. It also eliminates the need to rely on several devices, as you will now be able to access all functions from one device, thereby unifying all of those processes.
With the continued development of PDAs, PCs and thin computing to name but a few, people using unified communications can communicate to anyone, anywhere, regardless of the device that they are using and indeed the application e.g. IM (see IM in glossary), chat, voice etc.