Community College Reduces Travel, Improves Collaboration With Unified Communications

Growing in size, Hinds Community College had six campuses spread across central Mississippi. This called for a high tech solution to provide its 1,100 employees with better ways to communicate and work together. The college was spending huge amount of money and time on the travel of staff, which was necessitated for proper communication. Although the college had access to other communication tools such as e-mail and phone, they offered limited interaction. What Hinds Community College required was a solution that would help employees share information and work together more efficiently. Also, the college was looking for a solution that could be managed as part of its own IT infrastructure. Their requirement called for multiple collaboration options, such as, audio, video, and Web conferencing. The search for a solution came to an end when the college's administrators attended Educause 2007 in Seattle, Washington. Here they heard about Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 through other educators. The college implemented Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 with the hope of improving its collaboration. Using Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, administrators are able to share papers and presentations with remote colleagues through Web conferencing. This saves time and also reduces costs. Now, employees can work easier from any location and use integrated communications tools to make their work easy and quick.