| Microsoft launches suite of unified communication
products
16 October, 2007
By Vanessa Ho
Microsoft has announced four new products that are
part of the company's unified communications vision
to integrate phone, e-mail, instant messaging and
video into one through software.
"We are bringing voice to forefront and incorporating
that into our vision of unified communications,"
said Jordan Chrysafidis, vice president of business
with Microsoft Canada. "We are not using the
phone more than we could [today] because it is not
integrated with desktop systems and applications that
we use every day."
For example, Chrysafidis cited that many people are
more likely to go into their e-mail inbox to look
for high priority e-mails that need to get solve before
they check their voice messages.
Based on their unified communication vision, Microsoft
has announced four new products. The first is the
Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007.
Office Communications Server 2007 is a software solution
that delivers real-time VoIP, video, instant messaging,
conferencing and presence (i.e. determines if a person
is available, busy, in a meeting, etc...) within the
applications people already know and use such as Microsoft
Office. "When people are familiar with the interface
and products, they are much more likely to adopt it.
Learning a net new solution decreases end users adoption,"
noted Chrysafidis.
As well, companies can take advantage of OCS regardless
of what their infrastructure is. "It doesn't
matter if they have analog or IP telephony. [OCS]
is respectful of the investments enterprises have
already made and is in line with annual IT budgets,"
Chrysafidis said.
OCS 2007 is available as a standard server, priced
at $500, which can support up to 500 users and can
run all the various roles like Web conferencing, telephony,
instant messaging and presence on a single server.
The enterprise edition, priced at $2,000, can scale
up to 50,000 users and organizations can dedicate
a server each for things like telephony, presence
and instant messaging.
Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 is the client
software for phone, instant messaging and video communications
that works across PC, mobile phone and Web-browser
that helps people determine the best method to reach
another person based on their presence in OCS 2007.
Exchange Server 2007 SP1 is an asynchronous complement
to OCS 2007 that provides an e-mail in a person's
Outlook box if that person misses a call via OCS.
Microsoft also launched under its unified communications
umbrella Microsoft Live Meeting, which offers advanced
conferencing services that enables workers to conduct
meetings, share documents, utilize video and record
discussions from any computer. Live Meeting is available
as a service from Microsoft's telecom providers such
as Bell, Telus, AT&T and Allstream on a per user
basis.
To aid with better video conferencing, Microsoft
has introduced Microsoft RoundTable, a conferencing
phone that gives a 360-degree camera that captures
a panoramic view of meeting participants, tracks the
speaker and can record meetings. RoundTable can support
up to 250 users for on-premise meetings and up 1,250
users for off-premise meetings. The cost of RoundTable
is $3,000 (U.S.) and is available through Microsoft
partners.
For partners, Bryan Rushe, unified communications
and collaboration product manager with Microsoft Canada,
said that Microsoft is working with 50 different partners
to develop solutions directly related to OCS such
as telephony integration on the back-end and the development
of telephony end point devices like IP phones. He
added that Microsoft is partnering with ISVs like
SAP to build click-to-call abilities. As well, Microsoft
has added a unified communications specialization
within the Microsoft partner model that already has
800 partners worldwide, 26 of them in Canada.
Michelle Warren, senior analyst with Info-Tech Research
Group, said that the launch of Microsoft's unified
communication products was a right move for the company,
as that is where the industry is heading.
"It is too fragmented right now," said
Warren. "It is a lot of work to communicate with
people ... that is why we shifted away from phones,
it is too much work to try and reach people properly.
With unified communications, it really simplifies
it and I think that is why it is going to become popular."
She added that unified communications allows people
to work more effectively and efficiently and after
an initial cost expenditure to set-up everything,
there will be some cost reductions. As well, as data
transfer rates decrease, companies will start to see
a greater ROI.
But Warren doesn't expect to see widespread adoption
of unified communication until sometime next year
or 2009. The barriers to adoption right now, she said,
is cost and getting used to the idea of combining
voice, e-mail, messaging and video into one solution.
"Once they see others using it and see how easy
it is and how it makes life easier then there will
be greater uptake in the adoption curve."
For more information on Microsoft's unified communications
software visit: http://www.microsoft.com/uc/default.mspx.
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