Microsoft has codified a marketplace that has existed for more than 10 years. For us this isn’t surprising because for many people Voice equals old phone systems moving to the IP network. However UC is really about collaboration as driven by Sales Managers and Customer Service needs relative to communicating with and managing customers. And collaboration includes voice, web conferencing, video conferencing, “presence,” instant messaging and of course email. Why are there so many things rolling into this category? Because these technologies combined into new human processes will change the way businesses do business.
Sales wants to work seamlessly no matter where they are and have instant access to support resources to get their deals done. Operational teams need to communicate via web, email, phone, video or any other way and any time the customer demands to be served. In other words the UC market has found the use case that will get executive buy in…if you collaborate your company will be competitive and grow. If not, you're incommunicado!
Microsoft’s play is powerful since this elevated use of all communications technologies can be combined and done as software that overlays existing infrastructure. Microsoft instantly achieves mindshare leadership in that if UC starts with email, (such as click to talk, or click to conference) then everyone will have it and they won’t actually “buy” UC as much as use some aspect of it by default.
So Microsoft's offer of productivity will be difficult to resist for mid-tier companies. We know our enterprise customers will be more cautious. And the caution is appropriate, because organizations are having trouble coping with one VoIP infrastructure. Microsoft is essentially asking them to support a second more ambitious and complex one.
The most important thing to note is that the impact of VoIP has been dramatic on IT. Mobile users have unrealistic expectations of quality and instantantly know when the infrastructure fails, putting IT on the back-foot. Yet VoIP is just the first enterprise, real-time, person-to-person application. Add Video, Instant Messaging, and Conferencing to the equation, merge that with Email and you get the sense that UC management will be the catalyst for the next 5 years of IT workload and infrastructure build-out. -- Kerry Shih
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