Palm Beach County Selects Unify to Deliver Highly Scalable Communications Infrastructure

BOCA RATON, Fla., Oct. 21, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Unify, a leading communications software and services firm, today announced Palm Beach County has selected OpenScape Voice and UC to support its more than 10,000 users across nearly 300 locations.  After a rigorous due diligence process, Palm Beach County selected OpenScape due to its integration flexibility, scalability, cost-effective solution and advanced collaboration capabilities.

With OpenScape, the County is able to consolidate more than 80 telephony platforms into one, resulting in significant cost savings by reducing the County's telecommunications costs by more than $2 million annually. Unify will deploy a single countywide platform offering communications features such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phones and desktop integration with soft phones, as well as a rich set of collaboration tools including audio, video and web conferencing, instant messaging, presence and one-number service.

"Forming a long-term strategic partnership with a solution provider who understands our business objectives was paramount in our decision-making process," said Steve Bordelon, Director of Information System Services with Palm Beach County. "We selected Unify following an extensive evaluation process to find the right solution. They have the technology capabilities and public sector experience to enable us to successfully transition to a modern communications system for our work force and constituents. The new system will also benefit our taxpayers by reducing the County's telecommunications cost."

Palm Beach County, Florida is one of the geographically largest counties east of the Mississippi River, with a population of 1.3 million as of the 2010 census. It has the largest fiber optic network of any local city or county in the state of Florida, which will serve as the backbone for the new unified communications system, with an experienced and capable staff who manages and operates the network. The county wanted to refresh its communications infrastructure in order to provide its employees and constituents with advanced communication capabilities, as well as reduce the cost and risks associated with maintaining older systems.  

Palm Beach County conducted an intense due diligence process to select a technology vendor, including a series of month-long tests in an on-site lab where each vendor was required to install and demo their production-ready system live on the County's network infrastructure. Each solution was put through extensive application, redundancy, and integration testing, as well as usability evaluations and stack rankings. At the end of the process, Unify had the highest scores in all areas.

"Our evaluation clearly indicated that Unify's OpenScape solution will allow us to take our communication capabilities to the next level," said Michael Butler, Director of Network Services with Palm Beach County. "The OpenScape portfolio provides the consistent, predictable communication capabilities our staff needs, along with more options for communication channels, and greater accessibility."

The project will be closely managed by both Unify and the County's team to assure deployment proceeds on time and according to plan. This will include an on-going communications and marketing program, detailed project budgets and monthly project status reports.

"Consolidating more than 80 different telephony platforms into one is no small task," said Tom Boyhan, Senior Vice President, North America Sales with Unify. "Palm Beach County truly did its due diligence and Unify offered the right solution. As a company with a significant employee base in Palm Beach County, we are delighted to form a committed partnership to ensure the successful deployment of OpenScape today and moving forward."

About Unify
Unify is one of the world's leading communications software and services firms, providing integrated communications solutions for approximately 75 percent of the Fortune Global 500. Our solutions unify multiple networks, devices and applications into one easy-to-use platform that allows teams to engage in rich and meaningful conversations. The result is a transformation of how the enterprise communicates and collaborates that amplifies collective effort, energizes the business, and enhances business performance. Unify has a strong heritage of product reliability, innovation, open standards and security.

Note: All trademarks mentioned herein are property of their respective owners.

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/palm-beach-county-selects-unify-to-deliver-highly-scalable-communications-infrastructure-929000808.html

SOURCE Unify

Related Links

http://www.unify.com/