Office Communications Server 2007

This posting is a bit late, but last Monday Microsoft announced its Office Communications Server 2007, along with several other interesting components. As this Unified Communications vision is something we adamantly believe in, the announcement was very exciting to see, especially since it is a strong advance from one of our strongest partners. However, there were two things about this announcement that were particularly interesting.

First, Microsoft is entering the phone business. They have been moving in this direction for some time, but Monday's announcement was the first time they actually showed a desktop phone, and the first time they discussed several partners that will be delivering phones running Microsoft software. This highlights the fact that the telecom and enterprise software businesses are quickly converging. Microsoft already owns the desktop, and now they want to own your desktop phone as well. The biggest question is what does this mean for Cisco, Avaya, Nortel, etc.? Will these companies start running Microsoft software on their phones? Or will they all follow the path of Cisco, who recently released their own Unified Communications platform, and become competitors of Microsoft in this space? What is most curious is how will these companies, should they choose to compete with Microsoft, deliver this functionality to the end users? Through a central, desktop collaboration application? Through a browser based app? It will be interesting to see...

Second, I found this quote from Anoop Gupta, corporate vice president of Microsoft Unified Communications Group, interesting:

"“To achieve the productivity revolution we believe is possible with unified communications, we need to provide deeper integration of communications modes within the processes we use every day,” Gupta said. “Ensuring all modes of communications are people-centric and presence-based will help people find and connect to the right person the first time using the most effective communication modes. Software will be the key to delivering on this promise, resulting in a more powerful end-user experience, real productivity enhancements, and compelling business value for our customers and partners.”

While it is interesting to be people-centric and presence-based, these two components alone are not enough. Specifically, sometimes you don't even know who to contact, let along whether or not they are available. In this case, you are better-off looking for a topic. You don't need to know who you need to know ;instead you are only interested in what you need to know. This concept is only possible if you organize people naturally around groups which are are organized around the topics of your business. While presence and IM are a good start, it is topic-based, group messaging that will be the primary launch-pad for other, higher fidelity modes of communication. This launch-pad will be a major contributor in making Unified Communications successful.

Comments

[Anonymous]

Bob, excellent points about presence awareness. While presence awareness is extremely important in the unified commuications world, there are two issues with relying on it too much:

1. A huge numer of business discussions occur between groups of people that are never going to all be "present" or "available" at the same time. Relying on availability is not practical in those cases. You simply cannot and should not wait for everyone to be present. The better approach is to start the conversation in a place where people gather when they *are* available and make it easy for them to join in discussion, get up to speed, and participate.

2. Presence awareness relies on accurate presence information and we all know that people simply do not keep their presence information up to date. Sure you can tell if people are online or not, but that does not mean they are free to be interupted and participate. At my company we love Microsoft LCS because it integrates with Outlook and keeps presence information a little more accurate but even then being "in a meeting" really doesn't address a person's true availability to converse. IMO it is often best to not rely on tracking down individuals via their presence and instead carry on persistent conversations in a centrally organized location as you suggest.

Ultimately, presence and persistence work together to deliver a truly unified communications experience.