imageAt WPC Houston last week I learned that there is a worldwide $45.4 Billion market for communications tools. depending on which analyst you believe, this is between 10 and 15% of the global spend on ICT services.

Clearly the bulk is spent on POTS - Plain Old Telephone Systems, with the remainder spent on a combination of Email and conferencing. What became clear to me and 8,500 of my closest friends in the Toyota Arena last week, was that the time is right for Microsoft Partners to take a bigger slice of this cake.

What's more there are signs that the your average punter is ready for the converged communications which has been threatened for several years, but is only just starting to change working styles. As an example, my Edinburgh based team in Microsoft moved off a traditional PBX last year as early adopters of OCS 2007 and Tanjay Office Communicator devices.

Some 6 months later we are

  • easily scheduling audio/video conf calls with Outlook
  • the availability of Free/Busy/In a Meeting/In a Call status info has subtly changed how we communicate inside Microsoft and reduced "Voicemail Tag" time-wasting
  • We dial by name not number...
  • I would estimate it saves my 6 person team about 2 flights to Heathrow per month (which corresponds to about about £5k T&E pa, I will track this and report back on the period between July and Dec)

The Microsoft Scotland move to the Waverley Gate will make Edinburgh an all-UC office, replacing our dependancy on the PBX, and driving further travel avoidance as more meeting rooms are equipped with Roundtable devices.

Several Scottish partners, notably Digital IP and Quorum, have invested in building strong Unified Communications skills over the past years. Today most implementations seem to be based around readying the infrastructure adding IM/presence to co-exist with a customer's telephone system, and in some cases implementing the Exchange 2007 Unified messaging for voicemail to your inbox and Outlook Voice Access.

But its the more "converged" aspects of the UC platform which are most valuable to customers, and potentially most lucrative for partners.

Evolving from Exchange UM and OCS IM implementations into conferencing and voice scenarios have most potential to generate higher services revenues according to Chris Casopella at the WPC last week. In the coming 12 months it seems likely that more customers, particularly "greenfield" sites like our new office, will choose to eliminate the nasty legacy phone and forget all their phone numbers.

voice

The newly announced Unified Communications Competency with its Messaging, IM/Presence and Voice specialisations reflect this evolution.

With the move to higher value voice services in mind, David Croston of Dialogic will run the excellent 1 day Media gateways training course, which covers the important practicalities of connecting PBX to Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007. This is scheduled for 18th September in the shiny new Waverley Gate Edinburgh HQ, so if you wish to attend then drop me an email. Full details of the course below:

Dialogic Media Gateways for Microsoft Unified Communications

(Technical Training - Microsoft Unified Communications PBX Interoperability)

As the leading vendor of Media Gateways for Microsoft’s Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging & Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 solutions, Dialogic will be providing technical training on our Microsoft Unified Communications PBX gateway interoperability solutions. We invite you to this one day training course that will be hosted at Microsoft, Edinburgh

This is an instructor lead course, aimed at technical personnel, with live demonstrations of Dialogic IP-PSTN Media Gateways enabling interoperability between a PBX and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging and Office Communications Server 2007. The course is suitable for those wishing to understand the telephony requirements and features of Microsoft Unified Communications and to be able to specify the correct VoIP Gateway and advise on PBX suitability. Full training will be given on how to install and configure the main features of the Dialogic Media Gateways and how to configure Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 to connect to telephony infrastructures. Basic training will also be given on PBX terminology and architecture.

The number of course participants is limited, therefore please respond as soon as possible to reserve your place (restrictions may apply).  As a strategic partner to both Microsoft and Dialogic, we are pleased to offer you this training free of charge.

This is an excellent opportunity to build your knowledge of PBX interoperability for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 solutions and we look forward to meeting you.