About two years ago, my wife started having problems with her home Windows XP PC on what seemed like a weekly basis. I would often have to spend a few hours in the evening after a long day at work trying to load updates and patches to fix the issues she was encountering. Her PC was her lifeline to the outside world as well as allowing her to administer her home-based small business.

Being the “technology” guy in the house (and I use that term loosely) everyone looked to me for tech support when, for example, their email stopped working or when my daughter was unable to IM with her friends.

With all of the problems I was experiencing, I decided it was time for a change. So, I marched down to our local electronics shop and purchased our first Mac.

This marked a new era in my world of home computing. After the initial “culture shock” of living in a new virtual world, the idea that this machine literally required no maintenance from me made me very happy. I could now spend those precious few hours a week, which I was previously spending in a troubleshooting rage, relaxing on the couch playing with my other gadgets.

Before long we added two more Apple gadgets to our family. When my daughter graduated from high school we purchased for her a MacBook and she quickly followed this up by trading in her old smartphone for an iPhone.

So, my household was now stable, but not for long. While working on various projects at Mitel, I was introduced to Android!

Android was a brave new world for me, but I jumped in with both feet to finally see what all the hype was about. My first device was an HTC Android smartphone. It was a very slick device and I can really see the appeal it has with customers. It’s a much less expensive, yet equally functional device to an iPhone. The Android Market was full of great applications and I even found a running application that I have been using while training for a half marathon.

The Android phone was quickly followed up with the acquisition of a Motorola Xoom tablet (Android). This was really a life changing event because for the first time I realized the power of the tablet and how it was going to change the technology landscape that we live in. It was portable, powerful, and again ran all of the useful applications that we needed to run a productive and interesting high tech household.

Everything seemed perfect except for one small problem. None of these new devices really had any integration to my work environment. They were fun and useful, but couldn’t really support me at work. This, so far, had been reserved for my corporate-issued BlackBerry that lets me read my email anywhere and stay up-to-date with my meetings and corporate contacts.

For many companies today, this is an ongoing problem. People are in love with their devices and don’t want to be forced into any one technology over another. Many companies are adopting a BYOD (bring your own device) policy for employees. This is a great concept if you can get all of these devices to provide enterprise class applications to each individual. This can turn into an IT nightmare with trying to support multiple applications on multiple devices running multiple operating systems.

Luckily for me, I am a heavy Mitel Unified Communications Solutions user. This means that I can get rich UC integration on any of the devices that I have discussed to this point.

For example, I have a Mitel Teleworker Solution phone in my home office and through the power of hot desking and the Mitel UC Advanced Web Portal, I can use my wife’s Mac to manage all of my UC requirements. I can see my call history, listen to voice mails, and actually make calls through the OfficeLink feature to corporate contacts while getting their presence information.

On my Android smartphone, I use the UC Advanced Mobile for Android application that I downloaded for free from the Android Market. With this application I can manage my UC features from anywhere in the world over a GSM or Wi-Fi network. My favorite feature of UC Advanced Mobile for Android is the “widget” feature that allows me to create snapshot shortcuts on the main page of my call history and voice messages.

The same goes for my BlackBerry which I can use to make OfficeLink calls while I am on the road to save on long distance charges. I can search for a contact either in BlackBerry contacts or my native UC Advanced contacts and then have the PBX call me and the other party, so I am only ever receiving calls and not placing them. This is very cost effective for people who travel frequently. The other feature I really like on the UC Advanced Mobile is the Dynamic Status updates based on GPS locations, Wi-Fi locations, or Bluetooth connections. This allows me to instantly update people who need to locate me as to where I am and how best to reach me at any given moment. I can also have UC Advanced integrate with my calendar to change my status automatically to, for example, “In a meeting,” and have all of my calls forwarded to voice mail for the duration of that meeting.

I think we are on to something with these integrations. Our customers can now choose their devices according to personal preference and we will provide them with the tools they need to conduct business their way.

Whether you are a BlackBerry lover, Android convert, or a loyal Apple user, Mitel has a full and growing UC value proposition. The applications are easily accessible from their respective “stores” and configuration takes less than 20 seconds.

Even if at the end of the day all you want is Web access to your unified communications capabilities, we have that covered too. More and more, IT managers are looking for Web based UC applications because they find them extremely easy to mange and deploy. Users need only be given a URL, username, and password and they are off to the UC races.

So, when it comes to gadgets, I have seen (and used) them all. In fact, I just picked up my new iPad that arrived this morning and from what I am hearing about UC Advanced Mobile for iPad, I may never need another device again. Stay tuned…