There’s a buzz in the air in Dubai - the electricity of optimistic growth.   The airport gives an amazing first impression, blending the high tech look of the new terminal with touches for Arabia in the arches, sconces with (cloth) flames, and the ceiling painted with the deep blue, star-studded night sky.  The ride into town is more of the same: the sparkling new Metro, the smooth-flowing expressways, and the beautiful skyline, now highlighted by the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world (at 2,720 feet - over half a mile tall) since the opening at the beginning of January.  

Dubai is, most certainly, a center for business, with all the supporting services.   One of the attendees pointed out that Dubai is a central location between Europe, Asia, and Africa.  A quick visit to Bing Maps will make that clear (mouse over to see country names, with U.A.E. in the middle of the map).  The companies represented at the Road Show ranged across the business spectrum, from banks and financial firms, to real estate development, to a mercantile exchange, to Emirates Airline, to the operator of a major chain of sports clubs (have to be healthy to do business), to a major regional telecommunications company.

While the audience was very focused on the cost-savings element of the program theme, they were also looking for new ideas that could create competitive advantages.  Of course, this fit well with the Microsoft messages in the event.   In fact, the conversations at the breaks and lunch were really centered on which innovations would likely yield the most return via savings or cost avoidance.

Probably the biggest single interest was in connecting more effectively with internal teams and with external partners and customers.  Almost all the companies were multi-location businesses and were not satisfied with the amount of money they were spending for inter-site communications nor with the limited functionality they could achieve with those connections. 

There was real resonance with the idea that one of the best ways to cut telecom tolls and cellular bills is “don’t call in the first place.”    Thus, presence and instant messaging were either already deployed or were high on the list of projects for a Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) deployment.

Once that was done, the attendees expected their users would quickly pick up on the internal company PC-to-PC calling and desktop sharing.  Also, most of the firms already had both Exchange and SharePoint installed, so the integration of OCS for communications directly from those applications was a top benefit, as well. 

There was also strong interest in linkages with field personnel, whether at construction sites, in retail banking, in development projects, or similar mobile roles.  Most of the attendees were in the planning or pilot testing phases of applications for the Communicator Mobile (COMO) client for OCS.   With that tool, calls can be placed to the cell phone under OCS control, rather than calling from the cell phone, which significantly lowers the monthly charges. 

Some companies were focused on process improvement, which of course resonated with me, based on our definition of Unified Communications as “communications integrated to optimize business processes.”  The customers’ concepts were that definition and streamlining of processes is key to competitiveness, since that avoids costly delays, mistakes and rework.  Of course, including communications in that analysis is key, often leading to simpler or more effective modes (e.g. IM vs. voice calling).  

This is all within the setting of telecom rules that do not allow Voice over IP calls to connect to the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), similar to the situation in India (see blog from Mumbai).  On the one hand this is good, since it helps focus the Microsoft-based UC projects to those that did not conflict with the PSTN rules.  On the other hand, it complicates the initiatives that involve calling into the PSTN, such as requiring integration with the customers’ TDM PBXs. 

So, I’m heading home from Dubai with the same electric sense as my first impression, wishing all these customers the best of success in their UC endeavors.

Tags: Unified Communications, Unified Communications Information by Marty Parker
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Imagine a modern city where business, trade, society, architecture, religion, culture, continents, and history all come together in one place.  Got it?  OK, then Istanbul, Turkey, is very likely that place.  Istanbul (formerly Constantinople and Byzantion before that), sits astride the Bosporus, a magnificent waterway that connects the interior of eastern Europe with the civilizations surrounding the Mediterranean Sea.  One side of the Bosporus is the southeastern tip of Europe and the other side is a southwestern corner of Asia (locals chat about how they commute to work from Asia).  People and their goods have flowed up and down that waterway for over 8,000 years and have established business and culture in the very fabric of Istanbul; just visit the Grand Bazaar to be overwhelmed by what’s available and how many people there are to help you find something that you would like to have.   The Aya Sophia church and mosque was the largest known church for centuries, beginning in 537 C.E. (A.D.) and is marvelous even to this day.  Symbolically, Istanbul is celebrating its role as one of two “European Capitals of Culture” for 2010, beginning the weekend before the UC Road Show event.   

Against that backdrop, it’s no surprise that customers were out in force to find new ways to enhance business and trade.  Attendees included financial institutions, trading and distribution companies, food manufacturers, and many others. 

Most of the attendees and their firms had thought through UC and were taking action.  Most had either pilots or some level of deployment already in place, and were pleased with that progress to date.  The major themes were:

• Improving productivity: Essentially all of those I spoke with were focused on helping their people work more effectively. Having both presence indication of who is available and the ability to click-to-communicate via Instant Messaging, or voice, or desktop sharing, or even video is seen as a major step forward compared to the past where each media type was in a separate application or services. on the desktop. IM and voice got the most emphasis, but video interest was increasing for branch office communications, training, or expert services (link to an expert without the time delays or travel expense).
• Office application integration: A significant portion emphasized the value of linkage between Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) and the other applications in the Office family, especially Outlook and SharePoint. The comments indicated that each product got more valuable by virtue of linkage to the other, again due to productivity increases.
• Remote working - in branch offices, home offices, or on the road. Widespread use of the Microsoft Office Communicator client so that employees could maintain their productivity while also cutting both their telecom and travel expenses.
• Linking with clients and business partners: This application was one of the “next things” being considered by several companies. The attendees could see the value for optimizing their business processes, and were working on the policies and practices that are required for including outside people and companies in the UC operations. The sense was that the initial versions would by inviting third parties into OCS Live Meeting conferences rather than by providing those people with guest accounts on the enterprise’s OCS system or by federation (which will come later as more companies have UC systems with federation capabilities).
• Mobility: Last but not least, there is always interest in cutting the mobile phone bills. With the “caller pays” billing found in most GSM networks, OCS was being used to let the user click on their mobile to make a call, then to have the call come out to the mobile device (no fees) from the OCS server in the data center which then extends the other leg of the call to the intended party.

While there was some discussion of embedding UC into business applications such as SAP or Microsoft Dynamics CRM or customer portals, it seems that the embedding of UC into apps will be in the next set of projects, in late 2010, 2011, or beyond. 

So, Istanbul lived up to, and exceeded my expectations.  I wish all the attendees the best of success as the extend the Turkish business tradition.

Tags: Unified Communications, Unified Communications Information by Marty Parker
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Last week I accompanied a system integrator in the Midwest to meet with and help educate several of their customers about unified communications and building a UC strategy. In addition to the Midwest hospitality and better weather than I expected, I got some good insights into what these customers are thinking about regarding UC. I was gratified to see that these customers really understand and appreciate what UC can do for them in terms of saving time, making workers more efficient, increasing collaboration between work groups, etc.

One thing that came across loud and clear is that Microsoft did a heck of a job getting OCS out there for enterprise IM and presence. All of the companies I met with have OCS implemented to one degree or another, and most also have Sharepoint and Live Meeting. Several of the customers are Nortel shops, which makes me wonder if part of Microsoft’s success is based on the now-defunct ICA relationship between Nortel and Microsoft, although I tend to doubt it. Side note: Avaya stated that the ICA relationship has been terminated, although the two companies will continue to work on how they engage with each other, but Nortel (now Avaya) will no longer resell OCS. It will be interesting to see if this impacts OCS sales in any way, but it’s doubtful.

It’s clear that OCS is getting lots of traction, and vendors will have to work hard to compete with and displace Microsoft in the UC arena. A good portion of the customers I met with are Cisco shops, but none are using Cisco Unified Presence Server or Cisco Unified Presence Client – or any other presence/IM solution other than OCS. While none of the customers are using OCS for call control and don’t have any immediate plans to do so, none had gone the next step to integrate OCS with their PBX/IP PBXs. I’m glad to see more companies using IM and presence, but I wish more of them were actually integrating these capabilities with their voice capabilities to get more of the benefits that UC provides.

Some of the companies I met with clearly see the benefits of integrating OCS with their voice switches, but a variety of issues have prevented them from doing so. In some cases, the IT people are aware of the benefits of UC and acknowledge that the people in their companies could greatly benefit from it, but don’t want to deal with the integration or cost issues involved, and feel that they have enough to do without adding another layer of complexity. Others want to move to UC, but realize that in their particular environments it will be a major undertaking based on their existing technology and infrastructure.

For many customers, the will is there – they just need a good way to move to the world of UC. It needs to be simpler to implement and integrate all of the various pieces (data network, telecom environment, carrier networks, etc.). The vendors need to do a better job of working with each other to simplify integration and interoperability, and to help customers migrate. And to those vendors that would rather battle with Microsoft than accept the fact that they’ve made huge inroads into the unified communications world, I suggest you work harder to find ways to coexist in a multivendor environment, and to provide the necessary tools to your partners to help them support their customers’ mixed environments. Companies want to move to UC – let’s help make it easier for them.

Tags: Unified Communications, Unified Communications Information by Blair Pleasant
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Bangalore, India, has a unique flair.  As you may know, Bangalore is known as the “Silicon Valley of India.”  That concept is visible in many ways, with a very attractive new airport and a thriving business community that are set amidst a hospitable and diverse city with many traditional India sights, such as the fully lit wedding grounds along the main avenue on my evening ride into the city.  

For the UC Roadshow, customers packed the venue at the Oberoi Hotel, clearly interested in the possibilities of Unified Communications.  They represented a broad cross section of the Bangalore business community comprising software firms (both software producers and contract software firms), manufacturing and distribution firms, biological/pharmaceutical research labs, retail chains, systems integrators, and India offices of a major US financial services firm. 

These enterprises seemed to be well along the Unified Communications (UC) path.  Most of them already had hands-on pilot experience with Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) and Exchange were working on the more advanced issues related to broad roll-outs and deployments.  Topics of major interest included:

• Finding the best mix of capabilities for desktop deployment. Specifically, there was an interest in positioning conferencing capabilities on the desktop and in determining the extent to which desktop video conferencing should be enabled and then promoted. This was linked to the question of how much bandwidth will be consumed by a desktop video session, to understand the trade-offs, i.e. would voice and desktop sharing/web conferencing be more than sufficient for the business purpose, or would video have enough incremental value to justify the additional bandwidth over the Wide Area Network or out though an Internet Gateway. The sense of the questions on video were still exploratory, indicating that might come in a second or third wave of roll-out for most users.
• Facilitating customer interactions. Since many of the firms worked on major contracts with large enterprises (software, pharmaceuticals), there was interest in the options for links with those customers using UC. Some wanted to include their customers without any technical requirements, such as by inviting them into OCS-based Live Meetings. Others were interested in the details of federation to their customers, since those customers already had UC deployments. Either way, there was interest in more and better links with their clients.
• Enhancing team collaboration. Of course, the software firms were very interested in project speed, but that theme was echoed by the research lab, the systems integrators, and the manufacturing and retail firms. The manufacturing and retail firms were focused on collaboration primarily for supply chain management (e.g. requirements planning, order scheduling, and marketing).
• Improved conferencing at lower cost. Of course, the cost factors were important here, as several firms were looking to lower or eliminate their conferencing service provider costs, but there was also a major cost reduction focus on training retail store and branch office personnel via web or video conferencing tools. One questioner inquired as to how UC conferencing such as provided with OCS compared to high definition or special room-designed “telepresence.” That led to an interesting discussion of whether the 720p high definition mode now supported by OCS and Live Meeting were sufficient for the interpersonal applications of telepresence, at the resulting lower bandwidth, and whether desktop, home office or mobile location uses of a UC HD solution were preferable to specific telepresence room locations. The consensus was in favor of the UC approach, probably reflecting a blend of the audience’s experience with OCS and the pragmatic cost-conscious theme of the road show.
• Options for PBX integration. Several firms were moving or planned to move a portion of their users to OCS and had detailed questions on the options and methods of integrating OCS with their PBX systems to provide seamless links between the two communities of users.

As in Mumbai, the Microsoft IT (MSIT) team from India shared their experiences as part of the global Microsoft roll-out in deploying UC layers or “workloads” to 92,000 users across Microsoft, including (OCS), Microsoft Exchange, and Unified Messaging, with mobility and remote access thrown into the mix.  Also, Microsoft federates the OCS systems with their business partners, including presence, IBM and click-to-communicate.  For example, all Microsoft Partners in India are required to run their own OCS systems and to federate with Microsoft for ease of communications.   

Of course, the same regulations on non-interaction of TDM and IP networks exists in Bangalore as in Mumbai, addressed with similar creative configurations and operational solutions.

In summary, the Bangalore event just underscored the Mumbai conclusion that UC has momentum in India.  It will be very interesting to see what case studies show in 2010 as these customers roll out their UC applications.  

Tags: Unified Communications by Marty Parker
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Wow!  India!  What a happening place.  Even in the midst of a global economic slowdown, the morning Mumbai newspaper had the headline, “India GDP up 7.9%” reflecting the quarter ended September 2009 vs. the year prior.  This land of rich history is busy writing a new chapter, for sure.

The enterprise customers in Mumbai were a cross section of businesses, including retail banking, retail financial brokerage, construction, a major television network, a diamond-grading institution, and a number of software firms.  Most of the software firms were providing contract services to clients around the globe.

These businesses all had some very clear and consistent reasons for coming to a UC meeting.  Most of all, to find out more about how UC could help them save money and cut costs.  But, in every case, they added some business improvement goals, too, such as better collaboration with their customers, better employee productivity, improved branch communications, enhanced international communications, lower costs for conferencing services, and/or cutting the telecom bills.

Also, it was clear that these managers and planners were expecting to apply Unified Communications to selected parts of their businesses, in some logical sequence based on the applications mentioned.  They might be focusing on customer interfaces, or on mobile staff, or on branch operations, but clearly they were planning to proceed in phases to accelerate the benefits, to lower the risks, and to align with budgetary constraints. 

Roughly half of the firms were already running Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 in a pilot environment, anticipating production rollouts in 2010.  But whether they were in pilot mode or still in the planning stages, all of them were gathering the facts to help them justify and budget for their UC actions.  Notably, the questions about justification were very much in the mode of ‘how to’ make sure UC can be justified, rather than in the mode of not taking action until the case is ‘proven’ beyond doubt.  In other words, these businesses in India seem to be focused on how to capture the opportunities, rather than on protecting the status quo.

To add spice to the UC scene in India (beyond the spice in the wonderful food), both the customer and the System Integrator UC teams have to work with a telecom regulation in India that bans any call in the public network from crossing the boundary between traditional analog/TDM (time division multiplexing) telephony and IP (packet-based) telephony.  If there’s Internet Protocol telephony in the call, such as from a PC or an IP Phone, then the call has to stay entirely within the enterprise’s private network, or has to be entirely on the data network.  Obviously, this can create a few challenges in system design and call routing, but there seemed to be plenty of Unified Communications applications that could be deployed without crossing that regulatory line.  Hopefully, that type of regulation will be eliminated soon.  Regulatory adjustments have already been made to accommodate the booming call center industry in India, so it would seem the changes could be extended to general purpose communications, as well. 

In summary, UC has momentum in India.  Businesses are planning and pilot testing the next wave of applications.  And, with the thriving India economy, it sure seems there will be plenty of UC roll-outs around Mumbai in 2010!

Tags: Unified Communications by Marty Parker
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From time to time, UCStrategies.com experts are invited to be keynote speakers at customer events sponsored by leading vendors in Unified Communications.  In addition to our sessions at conferences such as VoiceCon and InterOp, Blair Pleasant (COMMFusion), and Don Van Doren and I (UniComm Consulting) have each enjoyed responding to those requests to provide independent industry viewpoints at these customer events.

Beginning on November 20, I will be speaking at Microsoft Unified Communications Road Show events in the US, India, Greece, Denmark, Spain, Germany, Italy, United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Russia, Mexico, and Brazil. 

The theme will reflect the white paper that Don Van Doren and I recently created with Microsoft sponsorship, “Achieving Cost and Resource Savings through Unified Communications.”   This highlights roughly a dozen areas where companies around the globe are applying UC solutions, especially Microsfot Office Communications Server 2007 R2 and Exchange Server 2007 and 2010, to produce measurable savings.  On a “per employee per year” basis and backed up with actual case studies, the potential savings are in the range of $12,000 per employee per year — a very compelling ROI and cash positive within months.

Since Unified Communications is very likely to be quite different in each country, my plan is to report the perspectives on UC as well the creative UC solutions being implements at each stop along the way.  You may share my curiousity about what will be found at each stop.  

If you have questions you would like me to explore, please post them here.   It will be a joy to share with you.

Best Regards….

Marty Parker 

Tags: Unified Communications Information by Marty Parker
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While everyone’s talking about the announcement made last week between Microsoft and Aspect Software, focusing on Microsoft’s investment in Aspect and the fact that Aspect will be integrating with and supporting Microsoft’s OCS, I think the most important piece of information is missing from the announcement. Ok, so it’s big news that Microsoft is investing a significant amount of money in Aspect, and it’s also important news that Aspect will integrate its Unified IP contact center solution with OCS to provide capabilities such as “ask-an-expert capabilities” (or what I’ve been calling Expert Agent capabilities) using OCS’s presence technology. This will certainly be useful to Aspect customers, and this helps clarify Aspect’s UC strategy. I see this announcement as being very beneficial to Aspect and its customers.
But what is missing from this announcement is information on Microsoft’s contact center strategy vis a vis UC. We still have not heard what Microsoft will offer in terms of a contact center solution as part of or in conjunction with its OCS offering. Clearly Microsoft recognizes how important it is to have some sort of contact center solution offering for customers that are looking into an enterprise UC/voice solution. But the company has not disclosed any sort of contact center strategy to date.
Microsoft has several options– clearly working with Nortel, a leader in the contact center space, to provide the needed contact center capabilities is one option (and while Microsoft made it clear that its investment in Aspect does not impact its relationship with Nortel, I’m sure the Nortel folks weren’t too excited when they heard the news).
Another option is to acquire a company in the contact center market, such as Aspect or possibly Interactive Intelligence. And of course rumors persist that Microsoft will acquire Siemens Enterprise Communications, Nortel, or any number of telephony vendors, which, if true, would provide Microsoft with the needed contact center capabilities and expertise. But these are rumors and so far no truth to any of them (yet).
The cynic in me believes that there’s a good chance that Microsoft will leverage both Nortel and Aspect’s expertise, and then offer its own contact center offering, competing with both companies (although less likely Aspect since they traditionally focus on high-end solutions).
Regardless of what route Microsoft takes, it’s important for the company to articulate its contact center strategy for those companies that are looking to OCS as an enterprise voice solution. Most of those companies also have contact centers and in many cases will be looking for a contact center solution down the road. Microsoft needs an answer for them.

Tags: Unified Communications Information by Blair Pleasant
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At Microsoft UC launch, Bill Gates made it clear that communications is changing and Microsoft plans to be both a market maker and a market leader in unified communications. I was impressed by the presence of customers at the launch, from companies large and small–e.g., L’Occitane and Gibson–describing how they use OCS to integrate communications into business processes, and how they are saving money while improving productivity and customer satisfaction.

Microsoft has accomplished a lot since it announced that it was entering the UC market in June 2006. There are over 100 customers participating in Microsoft’s Technology Adoption Program (TAP), and while only a fraction of their 5 million employees are using Microsoft OCS, the potential is clear. Microsoft has over 50 go-to-market partners, including Nortel, Mitel and Polycom, with more lined up for certification over the next few months. And perhaps most important, Microsoft has recruited 800 channel partners for its unified communications portfolio, and they’ll all be hitting the streets with OCS, Exchange 2007 and SharePoint in the coming weeks and months. 

Part of the Microsoft message and promise is its strategy for enhancing its products and providing partners with APIs, software development kits (SDKs) and other tools to enable partners to innovate–and distinguish–their products as part of a Microsoft UC solution. This didn’t get much attention at the launch, but this area will be critical going forward. Microsoft hasn’t tried to hide the fact that it has not made much progress to date in providing current and potential partners with the information they need to innovate around Microsoft’s UC offerings, but it hasn’t made it very public either. For example, the phones that carry Polycom and LG Nortel’s logos are the same exact phone device–they are both based on the Microsoft reference design–the only difference is the logo. I expect to see some serious innovations from these and the other endpoint partners over the next year.

Microsoft’s primary job now is to get the OCS product out to the market; providing partners with interface specifications naturally comes later. The big questions are how much later, and how much control will Microsoft wield on its partners. Given Microsoft’s reputation for dictating to its partners, it will be interesting to see how much leeway will be allowed.

Also noticeably missing from the OCS launch event was a roadmap. Microsoft has delivered on what it promised over a year ago, but how well the company will perform over the next 3-5 years is a key concern. There was little discussion about future plans, and Microsoft stayed focused on the message of the day: The availability of Office Communications Server 2007, Office Communicator 2007, Office Live Meeting, Microsoft Roundtable and Exchange Server 2007 SP1. Hopefully Microsoft will address its future plans and roadmap over the next few weeks.

There will be a lot of news around the Microsoft UC launch in the coming days and weeks, which is one of the reasons UCStrategies.com is adding a UC News Service. On a weekly or daily basis (depending on individual preferences), we will be sending out links to the important news from all the major news sources in our industry, along with our team’s views on these news items. Stay tuned for news on Microsoft, as well as IBM, Cisco and the other UC players, as the market unfolds.

What do you think? Drop me a note at jburton@ucstrategies.com

Jim Burton

CT-Link and UCStrategies.com

Tags: Unified Communications Information by Jim Burton
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