The world is converging on your cellphone, your laptop and in your inbox.

Convergence takes another step forward as cellphone, e-mail and voice- mail converge to become what is known as unified communications. Given that it is here to stay thanks to the proliferation - and soon to be ubiquity - of IP, the only thing to do is to decide how to tackle it with regards to your network.

Gartner, in a report entitled Determining Which UCC Approach Best Fits Your Planning Cycle, states that: "There are several fundamentally different approaches to unified communications and collaboration (UCC) in the market. Each is at a different level of maturity and focuses on different sets of issues. Enterprise planners must understand the distinctions between these approaches to effectively select the approach that best matches their needs."