PBX

Adapability and Agility are Keys to UC Success

Unified communications is a rapidly changing market without a clearly defined product offering. Selling unified communications successfully requires being able to quickly understand and integrate new technologies, and the flexibility to evolve quickly as the landscape changes.

Companies that make their livelihood as resellers of telecommunications equipment spent decades essentially selling the same thing. A PBX was a PBX and it was basically built on the same PBX technology as a PBX from 30 years ago. Things have changed over the last decade though, and the pace of change seems to pick up exponentially from year to year.

A recent blog post noted “Some channel partners are still trying to figure out VoIP and now there’s unified communications, virtualization, and the cloud!” That is true, but don’t leave out virtualized unified communications in the cloud.

That same blog post went on to say “Business as usual or TWIWAD (”that’s the way it was always done”) definitely isn’t today’s formula for success.”

Success depends on three things:

1. Stay informed and educated on emerging technologies and understand how they integrate with existing technologies and the value they provide.
2. Establish a consultative relationship with customers and sell solutions- not specific products or services. The customer doesn’t care who the vendor of the software is or how the hardware is architected as long as it works and helps solve business problems.
3. Don’t forget #1 and #2- but especially don’t forget #2.

Adapt. Evolve. Succeed.

RIP TWIWAD

SmartSIP Provides Exciting Possibilities for OCS 2007 R2

When Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 (OCS 2007 R2) was unveiled in February of this year, it signaled the beginning of the end for the PBX or IP PBX. That is just my opinion I suppose, but it at least signaled proverbial dropping of the gloves as Microsoft moves forward with plans to make the PBX obsolete.

One of the features of OCS 2007 R2 which signal the first step toward killing off the PBX is the ability to do direct SIP trunking- connecting a VoIP provider directly to OCS 2007 R2 without the need for a PBX appliance between them. This is good news, but not great news. The reason it is not great news is that Microsoft only has partnerships with two VoIP providers, severely limiting the potential of the direct SIP trunking feature.

That is where SmartSIP comes in. Evangelyze Communications,  a global voice and unified communications products and professional services organization that specializes in Microsoft Unified Communications IP telephony products and services, has developed a suite of custom tools that extend the functionality of Microsoft OCS and open new possibilities for unified communications. One of those tools is SmartSIP.

According to a recent blog post from Mike Stacy, Director of Services for Evangelyze Communications, SmartSIP “will allow you to connect OCS with virtually any SIP system – TCP or UDP.  The most common use is to connect a Mediation server to a customer’s existing ITSP, but it can also connect to other IP gateways, SBCs, IP PBXs, etc.”

The product is still in Beta now with the first release scheduled for April. Stacy’s blog post thought talks about the excitement that SmartSIP is generating in the field, and some of the innovative solutions that are possible with SmartSIP like the ability to provide failover redundancy for the VoIP connection, or saving a 350-user company over $90,000 on their unified communications implementation.

Check out Mike Stacy’s blog for more details, and check out the Evangelyze Communications site for more about SmartSIP and the other tools available such as SmartChat and SmartVoIP.

Follow me on Twitter

Microsoft OCS 2010 Will Eliminate PBX

If you have been following unified communications and the evolution of Microsoft’s Office Communications Server, it is probably not a surprise to you to learn that Microsoft intends for the next major release of Office Communications Server to entirely eliminate the need for an enterprise to have a PBX for voice communication.

In my recent Reality Check podcast on the SearchUnifiedCommunications site, we talked about whether VoIP is a necessary piece of a unified communications deployment and one of the things that was discussed on the podcast was whether or not organizations still need to invest in a PBX with Microsoft OCS 2007 R2.

The answer right now is ‘it depends’. However, according to a quote pulled from Microsoft documentation and highlighted in a recent blog post, Microsoft is apparently moving from rumor and innuendo and on to talking openly about the strategy of Office Communications Server, the next version will apparently be dubbed ‘OCS 2010′, and the elimination of the PBX from the voice communications infrastructure.

Follow me on Twitter

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.

Introducing OCS 2007 R2

Microsoft is hosting an official launch event for Office Communications Server 2007 R2, but the actual RTM code is already available. After testing the OCS 2007 R2 Beta for the past few months and deploying it internally, Mike Stacy of Evangelyze Communications recently had an opportunity to do the first real-world deployment for a customer. The implementation involved replacing an existing Shoretel PBX infrastructure. You can check out Mike’s blog for details about the project and the features and benefits that OCS 2007 R2 was able to deliver for this customer. If you’re free Tuesday, be sure to participate in the Microsoft launch event to learn even more about what R2 as to offer.

Driving Business Value With Unified Communications

There is an old saying in sales that customers ‘don’t buy the bacon, they buy the sizzle’. In other words, customers are less interested in the nitty gritty details of what a product is or how it works, and primarily interested in what it will do for them. It’s a sort of ’show me the money’ mentality.

Joe Schurman, Founder and CEO of Evangelyze Communications and author of Microsoft Voice and Unified Communications, talks about this philosophy as it related to unified communications in a recent ITWorld.com article. Schurman writes “The CEO of a company wants to know if he or she is saving money and will be impressed if the solution can integrate into the company’s business strategy…”

Read Driving Business Value with Unified Communications to learn more about the direction of unified communications and how to realize the value of increased efficiency and reduced operating costs rather than focusing on the technology itself.

Enterprises Intimidated by UC Complexity?

A recent report from Gartner suggested that one of the biggest complaints from early adopters of unified communications (UC) technologies is the lack of standards and interoperability. A recent study by Infonetics Research suggests a slightly different obstacle to adopting UC technologies - they are intimidated by the complexity of UC and concerned about product integration. I don’t necessarily agree. Certainly, at this early stage, there is progress to be made on integration and interoperability. However, I think there is a general lack of education and understanding about how to approach unified communications. The beauty of most UC solutions today is that they can be implemented using a modular approach that lets enterprises leverage their existing infrastructure, and allows them to wade in to UC rather than diving into the deep end. Organizations that are concerned about having to ditch their PBX infrastructure and start over at square one should take a look at some of the training seminars being offered by Evangelyze. A small investment in training such as The Business Value of Unified Communications, or Understanding Unified Communications Telephony can help to provide a better understanding of unified communications technologies and benefits and remove the intimidation factor. 

Nortel UC 1-2-3

Unless you have been living under a rock the past year or two, you are probably aware that Unified Communications is the hot trend. VoIP is still hot as well, and is a key component of unified communications, but the trend is evolving beyond just moving the phone system from the traditional PBX to an IP data network, and into the next generation striving to bring the web of communications tools and methods into a centralized, simplified, and manageable system. It may seem daunting or overwhelming, especially for smaller businesses. That is why Nortel developed UC 1-2-3. The Nortel UC 1-2-3 site steps you through some of the basics and explains some the benefits of unified communications to help you understand what the hype is about and what it can do for you. You can find out more by visiting the Nortel UC 1-2-3 site.