Documents Contributed by ECAR, Open Source, Research Studies, and Skype

It has been widely assumed that next generation "phone systems" will be based on Internet Protocol private branch exchanges (IP-PBXs). The ever-increasing ubiquity of IP networks can improve upon the current environment of disparate communications systems. To plan for an integrated real-time communications environment, IT staff will need to become well-acquainted with unified communications (UC) systems, enterprise application integration, service provider IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), fixed mobile convergence, service provider application integration, public IM systems evolution, federation between systems, and the future of Skype. This Burton document analyzes the recent developments in converged communications, and recommends next steps.