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VIRTUALISATION Microsoft's unified communications blitz
VIRTUALISATION Microsoft's unified communications blitz | Microsoft's unified communications blitz |
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| by Stephen Withers | |
| Wednesday, 17 October 2007 | |
  
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According to Oscar Trimboli, director of Microsoft's unified communications business group in Australia and New Zealand, users benefit from gaining access to communications functions from the familiar Office user interface, administrators enjoy the convenience of managing a single directory rather than one for each PABX plus another for the IT systems, while accountants like the idea of gaining these benefits while sweating existing assets instead of buying new telephony gear. For example, users can set up conference calls simply by dragging their names into a window instead of messing with awkward and easily forgotten key sequences. Microsoft has done the groundwork for the introduction of the new software by qualifying staff at nearly 800 systems integrators around the world (including more than 20 in Australia), and by lining up support from Ericsson, Mitel and Nortel. "Microsoft has done an excellent job of readying the local partner community," said Audrey William, research manager at Frost and Sullivan Australia. Other companies falling in behind the software giant include Genesys and Tandberg. Genesys Enterprise Telephony Server allows users to route calls to and from any contact using both IP soft phones and traditional telephony equipment from 25 vendors. The software can (among other features) detect 'in a call' presence status from current and older PABXs, uses SmartTags to allow users to dial contacts by clicking their names in Office applications, and to highlight and call any 10-digit telephone number appearing in Internet Explorer, Outlook, Word, Excel, Communicator and Firefox. Tandberg has announced plans to make its videoconferencing systems interoperable with OCS 2007. Early adopters of the software include resources company BHP Billiton which has rolled out OCS 2007 to 11,000 of its 39,000 employees in 25 countries, and brewer Lion Nathan, which is "very happy with their RoundTable [Microsoft's new conferencing phone with a 360-degree camera] experience," according to Trimboli. For now, Mac OS X users are out in the cold, but according to Microsoft Australia technology specialist Mario D'Silva, a forthcoming version of Microsoft Messenger for Macintosh will support most OCS 2007 features. |
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