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Welcome to the latest edition of TMCnet’s Unified Communications Software Week in Review – where you’ll find a brief rundown of all the top stories related to UC this past week.

Unified Communications (News - Alert) software provider Fidelus Technologies announced this week that it will participate in Cisco’s (News - Alert) new “Jabber for Everyone” program to make presence and IM more available to users.

The programs will be delivered at no extra cost, offering a simple and cost-effective way for users to deploy IM and presence across operation systems.

A new Osterman Research report out this week found that a multi-vendor approach to UC is the best way for companies to reduce costs and more effectively communicate.

The report, “Taking a Strategic Approach to Unified Communications,” notes that a multi-vendor solution can save enterprises hundreds of thousands of dollars per year compared to using a single-vendor solution as savings come from the reduction in both IT and telephony costs.

“An open, multi-vendor approach allows enterprises to re-use their existing PBXs and other systems, and provides the necessary flexibility to allow organizations to adopt a wide variety of less expensive, on-premise and cloud-based applications,” said Michael Osterman, president of Osterman. “Open approaches are typically less expensive than single vendor solutions and offer much lower total cost of ownership initially and over the long term.”

Also this week, Glowpoint (News - Alert) announced it is providing its cloud video services to enable the NFL to host live NFL Draft interviews.

With the company’s cloud-managed broadcast video services ESPN (News - Alert) will be able to conduct interviews between hosts at Radio City Music Hall, analysts at the broadcast studio and team players and officials throughout the United States.

Video conferencing is also making a splash in the healthcare industry. Royal Phillips and Vidyo (News - Alert) announced a partnership this week that provides flexible and scalable video technology, compatible with a number of platforms, and makes it possible for quality of patient care to be improved via telepresence.

Be sure to check back with TMCnet throughout the week for the latest in Unified Communications Software news as it happens. Until next week….