<p>Unifiedcommunications (UC) and social collaboration have been "dating," but their friend, theenterprise, has been skeptical about whether UC and collaboration are ready to take theirrelationship to the next level.</p><p>Most industry analysts, however, have come to the notion that it is, in fact, time to make therelationship official. They are claiming that the need to combine the two has never been greater.But do these two business functions have enough in common to fully integrate into unifiedcommunications and collaboration (UCC)? One thing is certain: If these two do end up gettingtogether, it would be a winning combination -- worthy of "Brangelina" power-couple status.</p><p>On one hand you have UC, a tool-based idea that focuses on the combination of hardware, softwareand services with an end-goal of increasing the ability to communicate across various devices,applications and locations. On the other hand you have social collaboration, a software-focusednotion striving to unite groups and teams of people that are physically spread out by improving theability to share knowledge and improve business processes. Sure, there are some key differencesbetween these two functions, but they are both workingtoward the same goal: improving the ability to effectively communicate among companies andco-workers.</p><p>It sounds to me that UC and collaboration are in the type of relationship where the partnershave slightly different hobbies, but they overall have the same goals -- and that's why itworks.</p><p><a href="http://searchunifiedcommunications.techtarget.com/opinion/Should-unified-communications-and-collaboration-make-it-official">Keep reading...</a></p>