Customer Reviews

Unified Communications For Dummies

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I may be very skeptical and suspicious, but these 5-star reviews for this UC for Dummies book seem to be too professional - more like something the authors' colleages, editors and buddies would write as opposed to the typical person that reads these 'For Dummies' books.

When I bought this book I thought I will get a good overview on UC. However, I was deeply disappointed. The book is written for very non-technical people (i.e. for the kind of people who don't even know what instant messaging is!). The book lacks any technical information. So if you are not a technical person whatsoever, this book might be for you. Also, the author is very repetitive (i.e. keeps on repeating the same information but written slightly differently). I would have written the book in 100 pages at most and not 300 pages. One last thing, the book is very Microsoft biased, but this is for obvious reasons when you know the authors' background.

This book provides an excellent introduction and broad coverage of the emerging topic of Unified Communications (UC) becoming vital for businesses to improve personal and team productivity and reduce operating costs. While following the "For Dummies" style of simplifying complex topics for the lay reader, this book provides valuable information for technical and IT experts as well. Apart from the excellent introduction section, this book has two major section one on Planning (Applying) UC and the next one on Implementating UC. The Applying UC section provides good information on planning UC and dissects the anatomy of each of the components of UC and how they are all integrated together to provide a single solution. The Implementation section combines very practical tips and excellent technical information using examples on successful deplyment of the solution. This section also covers the important security, compliance, management and customization aspects of UC that should not be ignored by any business. The last section wraps up the book listing some of the advantages, tools and events realted to UC where the reader can get additional information. I thought one area that could have been expanded further in this book is how the reader can sell UC to the decision makers in the business and justify the cost using some ROI examples.

Overall, I would like to compliment the authors on providing the readers an excellent insight into the complex topic of Unified Communications and how to approach the adoption into their businesses.

It's nice to see a good primer on the topic of how to get started with Unified Communications that covers the main vendors in this space. Satish covers the breath of functionality offered by these UC products. This overview can help IT organizations decide which vendor to go with.

If you're looking to quickly learn about UC, this is a great book to start with.

This is a great book at a good time. With many organizations looking to develop unified communications in their business there appears to be a common lack of understanding of what really is UC in general. This book captures the essense of a concept that is broken down for anyone who wants to understand what UC is all about. Sizeable book that doesnt go to deep to lose people but deep enough to get your feet wet and to understand lots of industry buzz words and put some missing pieces together. This is a good book and recommend it for people are in the industry or who want to catch up to speed quickly.
Great job Satish.

Thank goodness for the For Dummies series and this book! As someone who knows nothing about technology, I appreciated the conversational and easy to understand language. I was surprised to see another reviewer comment negatively about that - it's why UC for Dummies is a great start and foundation to build upon in learning about this technology. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to quickly comprehend a complicated but very contemporary subject. You'll learn a lot, I know I did.