SmartSIP

Evangelyze Communications Revolutionizes UC with SmartSIP

SmartSIP is officially here! In the official press release Simon Booth, Director of Research & Development for Evangelyze Communications, says “SmartSIP is designed for extending the Microsoft UC platform to industry standard SIP connectivity (UDP) while minimizing the maintenance and administration overhead by leveraging Microsoft’s Active Directory and OCS configuration.”

Check out this video overview of SmartSIP to learn why this product is so revolutionary, then visit the Evangelyze Communications site to get more details and figure out how to use SmartSIP to change communications in your organization.

SmartSIP - So Simple a Kid Can Understand It

One of  the most anticipated innovations in Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 was the introduction of the ability to connect OCS directly to a SIP trunk. One caveat to that excitement was that Microsoft only provides that connectivity with two chosen SIP trunk providers. That seriously limits the potential of direct SIP trunking.

Evangelyze Communications is coming to the rescue though with SmartSIP. SmartSIP enables organizations to connect OCS with….wait. I can’t possibly explain SmartSIP any better than this video overview. The clip is less than a minute long and well worth the time. Check it out for yourself.

Microsoft Unified Communications Virtual User Group

What exemplifies the spirit of unified communications more than a virtual user group?

The Microsoft Unified Communications Virtual User Group (UCVUG) has been established with the stated purpose ”to provide resources, education, and collaboration to professionals who are interested in Microsoft Unified Communications products.”

The group, which is not officially sanctioned by Microsoft, will meet on a quarterly basis online via Microsoft virtual meeting tools such as Live Meeting. Membership is free and you can join by filling out a simple registration form.  

The group’s first meeting is scheduled for May 21st at 7pm Eastern time and will feature a presentation from Evangelyze Communications’ Mike Stacy. Stacy will discuss Evangelyze Communications innovative SmartSIP product that extends Microsoft OCS connectivity to virtually any SIP trunk provider and any SIP phone / device.

A Recipe for Success

Remember when Cisco was a network hardware company? Cisco and networking were virtually synonymous and you knew who to call if you needed a router or a switch. Once upon a time, Avaya was a provider of enterprise communications equipment. If you needed phones or maybe an IP PBX, you could call Avaya. In days gone by Microsoft focused on server and desktop operating systems and developing software applications to help businesses be more productive. Ah, the good ole days.

To be fair, each of those companies still does what it used to. But, now the waters are muddy as they all try to be all things to all customers. As Joe Schurman, CEO of Evangelyze Communications and author of Microsoft Voice and Unified Communications, points out in his musings from Voicecon 2009, nobody was content with their piece of the pie and now they all want to be the whole pie.

The thing is, none of them really have ALL of the ingredients necessary to make the best pie. If I could only buy a pie from one company I would get my pie from Microsoft because they have the most complete list of ingredients. I might need to top it off with some additional ingredients like SmartSIP, but the Microsoft Unified Communications platform offers the most comprehensive and innovative features in the most cost effective and flexible solution of the major players.

That said, these vendors and the customers both benefit when they stop competing to be the whole pie and instead focus on how to integrate their ingredients to cooperate to make the best pie possible. A Microsoft Unified Communications platform using Avaya or Nortel communications equipment connected to a Cisco network infrastructure seems like a recipe for success.

Follow me on Twitter

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

Making a Case for VoIP

As a consumer I have used VoIP for almost 5 years. I have been with Vonage in three different houses in two different states separated by 1300 plus miles. While I didn’t take advantage of it when moving from Michigan to Texas (seemed like people might get confused by a ‘248′ area code in Houston), the fact is that I could have kept my phone number. The Internet is the Internet. As long as I have a broadband connection Vonage can route my call to me whether I am in Michigan, Texas, or New Zealand.

Cost is another factor. I was paying my local phone company for basic service, then paying additional money for long distance service (plus the per-minute calling charges), and adding nickel-and-dime costs for features like voicemail or caller ID. With VoIP I got everything for one flat fee. Again, with the Internet being  the Internet, it really doesn’t matter if I call my next door neighbor or a long-lost relative in Zurich. There isn’t any local and long distance. Some consumer VoIP providers haven’t gotten that memo though. My cable company offers ‘digital voice’ and charges per minute for long distance. No, thank you.

As it turns out, cost savings and number portability are also two of many compelling reasons for using VoIP for business telephony. The ability to develop custom tools and expand the functionality of voice communications to meet business needs is another great reason. Microsoft has made it exceptionally easy by letting organizations start with what they have and leverage their existing investment rather than replacing everything. Why isn’t every business moving to VoIP already?

Follow me on Twitter

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.

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.

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.

Making Unified Communications Work For You

According to a recent study companies continue to adopt and invest in unified communications technologies despite the crippled economy. As this ITWorld.com article points out though, companies should also understand the potential of unified communications and design a unified communications system that works for them.

The article, written by Evangelyze Communications Founder and CEO, and author of Microsoft Voice and Unified Communications, Joe Schurman, points out that software-powered voice opens up a whole new world of opportunity. Rather than letting the traditional methods and uses of voice communications dictate business processes, companies can now create communications methods that enhance and expand upon their business processes. Unified Communications enables companies to create new innovative solutions.

Evangelyze Communications, Schurman’s company, has created a suite of products that customers can use to extend their communications capabilities and leverage the power of unified communications to improve business processes. Products like SmartChat, SmartVoIP, SmartSIP, and SmartConference demonstrate some of what is capable by extending the functionality of Microsoft Office Communications Server by developing custom applications. There are also opportunities to customize these applications for specific needs, or simply develop custom solutions specifically for unique customer needs.

The ITWorld.com article, Putting Unified Communications to Work, has some more general insight that companies can benefit from as well. Schurman offers up 4 tips for unified communications success, and the following 3 Classic Mistakes for companies to avoid:

• Not choosing a partner that understands how to build a solution around your unique business processes. There are a ton of Microsoft partners out there that are Gold Certified, but there are only a handful that know how to create this kind of unique voice and unified communications solution for your organization.
• Shelling out money too soon. Don’t pay yet! This is new technology, it has to be proven. Microsoft and key partners are offering free consultation and pilots so take advantage of it. If you like what you see, you can then budget a production deployment that will pay for itself within 6 months based on the amount of hard and soft cost savings.
• Not getting business people involved. Business managers need to be involved so that you can see a clear distinction between what is just technology and what is going to support your unique business process.