February, 2009

Enabling and Evangelyze Forge Partnership

Enabling Technologies and Evangelyze Communications have announced a comprehensive sales, marketing, and consulting agreement. The partnership combines the strengths of each in a complementary fashion that makes the resulting union greater than the sum of its parts.

Competitors have reason for concern, and customers have reason to be excited. The partnership extends the reach of both companies, enabling them both to expand the reach of the Microsoft Unified Communications platform and provide effective collaboration, improved productivity, reduced time to market, and increased efficiency.

The combination of established leaders to deliver these unified communications solutions is formidable. The innovative pilot programs enable organizations to test out Microsoft Unified Communications at no cost (or very little cost in some cases) to them, and custom development solutions such as SmartChat, SmartVoIP, and SmartSIP extend the functionality of the Microsoft Unified Communications platform and enable organizations to maximize the value of their UC investment even farther.

For more information, check out the official press release.

Cost Savings Drives UC Adoption by SMB’s

ROI is generally at or near the top of the checklist when trying to determine if a given project should be approved. Of course, the project may make workers more efficient, it may improve logistics or increase the speed at which products or services can be delivered to customers, or it may just be really cool. But, where the rubber meets the road is translating that efficiency, speed, or productivity into dollars and comparing it against the initial investment to determine if it is really worth it.

Recent studies by Siemens and bMighty help to illustrate just how significant that ROI is and how quickly the initial investment can be recovered when implementing unified communications. Interestingly, the Siemens study also found that SMB’s have the same top 6 pain points (listed in the same order of priority) as large enterprises when it comes to unified communications.

Looking at the big picture and doing the math “the study says 70% of SMBs have dealt with the top five pain points, rendering an average of 17.5 hours per week per knowledge worker into “unproductive” work time. This costs an average of $26,041 per knowledge worker per year, or $5,246 per employee per year.”

Comparing that with an average unified communications implementation cost of $225 per worker, a company with only 50 employees could see cost savings of over $250,000 in the first year. The cost of deploying unified communications will vary largely depending on the vendor that is chosen and the current state of the organization’s communications and data infrastructures, but for a company of only 50 people it is almost certain to be significantly less than $250,000.

Say the company has 250 employees? Suddenly that $250,000 in savings becomes over $1.3 million. If an investment in unified communications can save a 250-person company $1.3 million per year I think the next questions should be ‘when can we start, and how soon can we get UC up and running?’

Defining ROI with UC-B

UC-B is apparently a term coined by Blair Pleasant (and others at UCStrategies.com), President and Principal Analyst for COMMfusion Unified Communications. In this SearchUnifiedCommunications.com article she talks about how communications-enabled business processes (CEBP) will be the driving force behind the success of unified communications.

Pleasant explains that she perceive two types of unified communications: UC-U (user-oriented unified communications) and UC-B (business-oriented unified communications). “UC-U is nice to have, but it’s UC-B where the ROI really comes in,” Pleasant said.

I couldn’t agree more. One of the primary advantages of unified communications is the extensibility of the platform and the ability to create custom communications solutions. Traditionally, businesses have had to conform their business processes to the limited capabilities provided by their communications systems. Now, organizations can design business processes that maximize their efficiency and productivity and develop custom communications solutions that fit their needs.

This article mentions some development that BT has done to customize the functionality of Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 (OCS 2007) for their customers. Evangelyze Communications is a leader in this aream having developed an entire suite of products around the extensibility of OCS 2007 and OCS 2007 R2. SmartChat, SmartVoIP, SmartSIP, and others enable organizations to expand the functionality of Microsoft Unified Communications and leverage ‘UC-B’ to maximize their ROI.

Jabra Unveils USB Plug-n-Play Handset for Office Communicator

It looks pretty cool. I guess it will all depend on the retail price- which I haven’t been able to find yet. Since I can buy an actual Polycom CX700 desk phone for $450 then I probably don’t want to spend more than $200 on this device.

But, at the right price it is cool. The Jabra DIAL 520 OC is optimized to work with Office Communicator. The integration with Communicator means that you get all of the features and benefits of OCS, but you can have an ‘old-fashioned’ phone instead of using the microphone and speakers of your computer.

For mobile workers it provides an advantage over a standard Tanjay phone in that it is slim and portable. Road warriors can carry this phone in their laptop bag and have an OCS / Communicator compatible phone wherever they go.

Based on the brochure, I like it. Now, if I could just find out how much it costs.

Building a Successful UC Strategy

I recently wrote an article about taking a step-by-step, “eat the elephant one bite at a time” approach to unified communications. Unified communications is a hot concept with almost ‘Holy Grail’ like expectations for many companies. It certainly has the ability to cut costs, improve productivity, increase efficiency and more, but it takes some upfront planning to get it right.

Jamie Ryan, Senior Vice President of IT and Chief Information Officer of Aspect, wrote this eWeek.com article about building a successful unified communications strategy which similarly stresses that “evaluating the technology necessary for a rollout and developing a timeline is key to the success of any UC strategy.”

Ryan goes on to discuss the need to assess the underlying network infrastructure to make sure it is capable of providing the bandwidth and quality necessary for unified communications and upgrading the network if need be.

The article provides an interesting and informative look at the approach that Aspect took to planning and deploying unified communications internally. The process followed by Aspect can help you to understand the sorts of questions that should be considered and pitfalls to avoid as you explore implementing unified communications for your organization.

Microsoft and Cisco Make Nice…Again

It is no secret that Microsoft holds a dominant position in the server and desktop OS market as well as the office applications market. However, Microsoft products need networking equipment in order to interconnect and communicate and Cisco has a dominant place in the networking and routing hardware market.

So, when Microsoft and Cisco both jumped into the unified communications arena it made some ripples. The two giants are competing head to head for dominance of the lucrative unified communications market with very different approaches and very different visions of what unified communications actually is.

Microsoft- being Microsoft- approaches unified communications from a software perspective and is working toward a goal of a pure software PBX solution and replacing  the traditional PBX. Cisco, on the other hand- being Cisco- has a more network and IP telephony-centric approach to unified communications. They each approach the market from their traditional strengths.

At one point, they had pledged to agree to disagree, but work together for the common good. That rhetoric lasted about until Microsoft unveiled Office Communications Server 2007 and then the gloves were off as they slammed each other’s products and solutions and went for the proverbial jugular.

In this market though, with this economy, they appear to have a renewed partnership. There is an old Arabic proverb: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”. In this case, Microsoft and Cisco have a common enemy in the economic malaise which makes them friends by association.

In order to boost customer confidence and ensure that enterprises do not delay purchasing decisions waiting for a clear winner, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Cisco CEO John Chambers have vowed to ensure that their competing systems will interoperate and work together.

OCS 2007 R2 Not Yet a PBX-Killer…Or Is It?

At least that is the verdict of this SearchVoIP article by Michael Morisy. I do agree that the recent R2 release of Microsoft Office Communications Server is not perfect. Some of the issues pointed out by those interviewed in the article are related to scalability- they claim that OCS 2007 R2 is not built to support 10,000 plus users and is limited to small deployments.

However, this article describes how OCS 2007 R2 can be used to support an environment of 100,000 endpoints, and states that one OCS 2007 R2 Enterprise Edition Front End server is capable of supporting approximately 12,500 endpoints by itself.

At the end of the article Mike Stacy, Evangelyze Communications Director of Services, is quoted as saying “R2 is viewed as complementary to the PBX. With R3, I don’t think it’s a secret that Microsoft wants to replace the PBX.”

OCS 2007 R2 may not yet be a PBX-killer, but I think it at least mortally wounded it. OCS 2007 R2 includes the ability to do direct SIP-trunking, connecting the VoIP service directly to OCS without a PBX. One handicap is that Microsoft only supports direct SIP-trunking with two providers at this time. Stacy’s Evangelyze Communications though is set to introduce a product (SmartSIP) that bridges that gap and allows OCS 2007 R2 to be used directly with any VoIP provider- effectively eliminating the PBX and enabling companies to move forward with OCS 2007 R2 while leveraging their existing desktop phone hardware investment.

Finding Tools in OCS 2007 R2

Earlier this week Microsoft launched Office Communications Server 2007 R2. OCS 2007 R2 brings a plethora of new features and capabilities to the powerful OCS 2007 unified communications platform, but also a few unwelcome changes.

First, while not necessarily ‘unwelcome’, it should be noted that OCS 2007 R2 requires a 64-bit Windows Server operating system (preferably Windows Server 2008 64-bit). This is the direction Microsoft is headed with all server roles it seems, so if you don’t use 64-bit server operating systems today you should certainly plan to make that change in the near future.

Some of the unwelcome stuff though just seems silly. Its like one of the developers couldn’t come up with a worthwhile contribution and at the last minute they decided to move some existing functions around just for the sake of appearing productive. For example, OCS 2007 previously installed the Admin Tools necessary to work with the server on the various server roles. Those are gone now. Now you have to locate the directory and install them manually yourself.

It doesn’t end there though. The tools are usually available on the Computer Management console. So, just right-click on Computer and select Manage and…..hey? Where did the Computer Management console go? In Windows Server 2008 when you right-click on Computer and select Manage it takes you to the Server Manager console instead. The Computer Management console is still there, you just have to be more resourceful in figuring out how to get to it.

Nortel Wins $300 Million VoIP Project for Social Security Administration

Nortel recently filed for bankruptcy protection, but bankruptcy does not mean that the company is going to disappear. On the contrary, if done right bankruptcy should enable to company to shed dead weight, restructure to operate more efficiently, and emerge stronger than they were before filing bankruptcy.

Nortel’s contract with the United States Social Security Administration should help keep revenue coming in for some time. The contract, worth $300 Million over 10 years, is a huge win for Nortel and possibly the largest VoIP deployment undertaking in existence.

According to the article on CNNMoney.com “The new system, expected to become one of the largest enterprise VoIP deployments in the world, is already supporting more than 125 offices and more than 33,500 calls daily. To date, the new system has handled over 1.6 million calls. With 12-16 offices added each week, approximately 500 offices will be added per year until all 1,526 offices are online. Nortel Government Solutions has engineered the system to support over 100,000 phones. Installation and maintenance teams are positioned across the country for rapid deployment, training, and support.”

Some have argued that $300 Million seems a tad exorbitant for a VoIP system, but this isn’t just any VoIP implementation as noted above. Those same ’some’ also argue that perhaps a United States government agency like the Social Security Administration should be investing their $300 Million with an American company rather than the Canadian Nortel. However, Nortel does a tremendous amount of business in the United States and employs many Americans, and Nortel Government Solutions (the entity that actually won the contract) is a wholly owned United States subsidiary of the Canadian networking giant. If they had the best solution at the best price, then the SSA made the right decision.

Eye on the Unified Communications Market

TechTarget’s SearchUnifiedCommunications site has launched a new feature called Eye on the Unified Communications Market. This monthly feature will take an in-depth look at a specific vendor to provide insight into that vendor’s approach to unified communications and the pros and cons of that approach. For this first month, the column focuses on Microsoft.

The column’s author, Blair Pleasant, points out that “There are several groups of players in the enterprise UC arena, all coming from different directions: the switch, enterprise IM and presence, messaging, mobile devices, conferencing/collaboration, applications and so on.”

Depending on the existing infrastructure and applications already in place, and the overall goal or objectives that an organization wants to accomplish by implementing UC, one approach or vendor solution may make more sense than another.

Organizations need to have an eye on the long-term future though as well. Making decisions purely based on the current architecture could paint the organization into a corner and handicap their ability to maximize their efficiency and productivity with unified communications. Consider your ultimate unified communications goal and work backards to define logical phases to get there rather than starting purely from where you are and expecting to someday get where you want to be. If you aren’t aiming at a target it is hard to predict where you will ultimately end up.