Art Rosenberg of The Unified View gives his perspective on Microsoft’s newest upcomin release of Office Communications Server 2007 and Office Communicator 2007. He has also produced a whitepaper on the topic …
… On July 26th, Microsoft made a big deal of its Release to Manufacturing (RTM) of its Office Communications Server 2007 (OCS) and Office Communicator 2007 client as its precursor to pushing into the unified communications market this fall. What is most interesting about Microsoft’s marketing strategy is that is not pushing to replace TDM PBX systems first, but suggests that “VoIP As You Are!” and Unified Messaging (UM) are a practical and less disruptive way to migrate to UC.
With the convergence of all business communications around IP, there is bound to be hot competition from the various technology provider “silos” as to who will supply what pieces of UC. However, everyone is finally acknowledging that the real business ROIs of UC will not simply come from technology cost savings, but from individual user productivity (including enterprise personnel, business partners, and especially customers) and, more importantly, business process efficiencies that are dependent upon people contact. The real drivers of UC migration will therefore have to come from end user demand and line of business management priorities, not just IT implementations.
I authored a new white paper describing UC ROIs and practical approaches to enterprise migration planning that highlight Microsoft’s UC product positioning for simplifying the challenge of moving to UC. Rather than start with replacing existing wired desktop phone systems, the migration can start with adding IP softphones, mobile devices, and unified messaging. You can download a copy by going to the UC Strategies web site at:
http://www.ucstrategies.com/Migration_to_Unified_Communications.aspx …
Source: Microsoft’s Enterprise UC Migration Strategy
Originally published on Sun, 05 Aug 2007 19:31:00 GMT by Unified-View
