The second instalment is what a user will get when they call a response group. Apologies for the quality of the second video as I needed to cut it all together as I need to assume two personas, that of the user calling in and that of the agent answering.

All these videos and more are on www.ucsimplified.com

I was at an event last friday where said internet access was not particularly reliable and so I had to resort to my mobile to do the demo over 3g. As I said this has happened before as highlighted out in Mark's blog.

If you don't believe it is do able check out this video,  which had Brett, I and Junners on a three way video call while Brett speed through the countryside on a train (Brett recorded this on a his mobile so apologies for the quality and Brett's dusty screen).

So I hear you ask what is the point of this rambling - well it is certainly not encouraging you to do this - the cost (depending on your data plan) could be career threatening in the current financial situation. It is more about demonstrating the ingenuity that Communicator /OCS uses to ensure calls can be completed over poor links. Ideally we would love to have great big fat pipes but in real life this is not always the case and when push comes to shove and you need to do that vital call and share info some technologies will not even try, whereas we can.

To read more on how we do this check this doc (it is from OCS 2007 and more has been done to make this even better in R2)

At heart I am a techie and if given the option I will talk about the technology far over and above trying to sell the cost benefits to Partners and customers. But while I truly believe that the technology will sell itself, there needs to be a cost justification to move.

Microsoft UK has published this document, which I had chance to read yesterday and I think any IT Pro or IT manager should read it and then make sure the people who make the IT spending decisions also read it. The following are my thoughts on the documents.

Being Strategic

Lots of IT employees will be taking the attitude of keeping there head down and weathering the storm. After all IT is still seen by a lot of companies as a necessary evil that is a drain on the bottom line.

A report was produced by Gartner that sees IT (as viewed by CEO's) as evolving to become one of the top three success factors by 2012. If you are in IT at your company today you will become a strategic asset (if you get it right) and a key differentiator for improving business agility and reducing cost.

Hence the reason I say the time is now. Any company is looking to reduce cost today, but at the same time they do not want to hindered employees from doing their jobs.

Microsoft is exactly the same - travel used to be a big part of my role and while it hasn't totally gone I am acutely aware of the cost involved. For this reason I will try to conduct any of my meetings via livemeeting. Try it free here. Once you get used to it, it really becomes the norm and not only will you not want to travel but you will no longer have to spend the dead time sitting in the car or train.

The cost savings are there to see - MSIT have written a case study outlining the savings.

As you can see $212m a year saved - $17m savings alone attributed to travel (45600 journeys)

Forrester has written an article on the Total Economic Impact of Microsoft Unified Communications. I would suggest that this is the starting point to prepare your business plan and cost justification.

Do it Now

There is a lot of reading above let alone the the question of implementation - but I am very confident that if you do this now your company will be in a lot better shape both in the near term and when the financial crisis turns the corner.

React now, be proactive there has never been a better time to implement change in behaviour of the employees as well as moving your company forward. When the CEO looks back in 12/18 months time it could be you that he remembers.

The time is now...

Hopefully these videos on edge.technet.com will provide insight into what is coming.

OCS 2007 is a great product and really does encapsulate unified communications. Even Steve is on the road to streamlining his communications.

So have a look to see what the guys in the coomunications team have achieved in just over 12 months, this next release will really take communicating with colleagues both in and outside of your company to a new level.

What’s New in Office Communicator, Communicator Web Access, and Devices with Office Communications Server 2007 R2

· Office Communications Server 2007 R2 and the new Attendant Console

· What’s New in Conferencing with Office Communications Server 2007 R2

· Group Chat and Office Communications Server 2007 R2

· What’s New in Mobility and Anywhere Access with Office Communications Server 2007 R2

· What’s New in Administration and Management with Office Communications Server 2007 R2

If you want to sign up for the FREE virtual launch and register for the evaluation software when available go here

1. I have been very busy seeing Partners and Customers (that is for the benefit of my manager:-))
2. I have been beaten by other bloggers about topics I wanted to blog about and I don't want to increase the volume of information circulating around if it has been said before.
3. Not really a lot has changed in the last few months.

However October and November have had some rather large announcements in the UC space. Namely the announcement of R2 last month and the "Online" yesterday.

Rather than regurgitate what has been announced I thought  I would give you a quick update of what I have seen in the past year since the initial launch of Office communication server 2007 in October 2007 and how the ecosystem has changed.

The launch was great and I think you could say that we had a fair share of techies that loved it and a fair share of who said it couldn't cut it in the voice world. Shortly after the launch some members of the UC team went to a Voice reseller event. It was a real eye opener for me, while understanding they way Partners do business and how Microsoft support the partners, it was quite interesting to go to a event whereby the whole model was different, and that a world of margins and shifting tin was the nature of the game. Trying to convince telephony resellers that we work to a different model was challenging to say the least and I must admit that it really hit me that these guys where not going to adopt our technology simply because of the technology and the benefits it could offer. Also while these resellers and the telephony vendors were aware of what Microsoft could do, it was early days and I think the common consensus was while a threat, Microsoft were an unknown quantity.

What a difference a year makes........

We returned this year, almost exactly twelve months later, and the whole dynamic had changed. Interestingly three of the big telephony vendors presented real life case studies of Unified Communications. Each case study included OCS. Not surprising from my point of view as I am aware of it capabilities. However the resellers sitting in the audience couldn't believe it. One reseller asked the question:-

Why are you including OCS in your solutions?.  Microsoft have plans to replace the PBX and surely this will lead to the death of your business and mine?.

The answers from the panel ranged from "There is a saying keep your friends close and your enemies closer" to "I would use the term alternative to a pbx rather than replaced"

So what am I actually trying to convey - well it boiled down to one thing in order to survive in the telephony market you have to diversify, the margin and shifting tin model is on its last legs.

This brings me nicely to the initial announcements. There are lots of telephony resellers that need to diversify and how can they do it. Well if you are not able to employ Microsoft engineers then the Microsoft Online Services will enable you to sell Exchange and Sharepoint.  Likewise there are plenty of Microsoft Partners who have these wealth of skills and probably lack some skills in the telephony arena. Share the love and cross pollenate your skills between the data and voice channels. Because if you don't with the imminent release of R2 I think it will become easier for Microsoft Partners to do the Telephony implementation on there own.

Find out more about the Microsoft Online offerings here and what is planned for R2  here

Microsoft Online Services

Office Communication Server R2

And if you would like to sign up for the Virtual launch of R2 go here

It is very useful and will give you a better understanding of what an Exchange server has to do when creating a view in a folder. It also highlights what restricted views are and how they are generated and used.

So if you are having perf issues on an Exchange server take a look at this doc and check item counts. Even if the this is not the cause it is a great read to understand some of the complexities of ESE B+ trees

Here are the links

Live Webcasts

TechNet Webcast: Disaster Recovery in Communications Server 2007 (Level 200)

Monday, June 2, 2008

9:30 A.M.–10:30 A.M. Pacific Time

TechNet Webcast: All About Communications Server 2007 Security (Level 300)

Thursday, June 5, 2008

9:30 A.M.–10:30 A.M. Pacific Time

TechNet Webcast: Configuring DNS, Certificates, Ports, and Load Balancers for Communications Server 2007 (Level 300)

Monday, June 9, 2008

8:00 A.M.–9:00 A.M. Pacific Time

TechNet Webcast: Deploying and Managing Your Unified Communications Devices (Level 300)

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

1:00 P.M.–2:00 P.M. Pacific Time

Momentum Webcast: Bringing Everyday Applications Together with the Power of Presence (Level 100)

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

11:00 A.M.–12:00 P.M. Pacific Time

TechNet Webcast: How to Do a Proof of Concept for Communications Server 2007 Interoperability with PBX Systems (Level 300)

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

9:30 A.M.–10:30 A.M. Pacific Time

TechNet Webcast: A Technical Introduction to Forefront Security for Communications Server (Level 300)

Thursday, June 19, 2008

11:30 A.M.–1:00 P.M. Pacific Time

TechNet Webcast: Communications Server 2007 Quality of Experience: Defending, Deploying, and Succeeding (Level 300)

Thursday, June 19, 2008

11:30 A.M.–12:30 P.M. Pacific Time

TechNet Webcast: Video Conferencing and Interoperability with Existing Systems (Level 300)

Monday, June 23, 2008

1:00 P.M.–2:00 P.M. Pacific Time

TechNet Webcast: Planning and Deploying Voice Routes in Communications Server 2007 Using Route Helper (Level 300)

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

9:30 A.M.–10:30 A.M. Pacific Time

This case study has now been released and outlines Royal Dutch Shell's implememtation of Office Communication Server 2007

The full cases study is here

https://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=4000001527

Some of the highlights include the following quotes

"By using Office Communicator 2007, an employee in Nigeria will know instantly if a coworker in Siberia or the Netherlands is available and the best way to contact him or her. It is a single, transparent environment for the user."

"Employees appreciate being able to use Office Communications Server 2007 to place phone calls whether they are at home or traveling—and at no cost."

They are realising the potential that OCS can bring to their business, are you download the evaluation version from here

Some of the salient points from the article

"One FTSE firm estimated that dealing with pointless e-mails cost it £39m a year. "

"On average, we spend 52 hours a year just dealing with our junk mail."

"Britons take 14 million sick days due to stress every year. He (Professor Gary Cooper) believes e-mail is a major source of employee anxiety.

E-mail inboxes are causing employees concern, because of the number of e-mails and the poorly written e-mails. They really want to find some sort of solutions for these problems," he says."

The article also states that email is now 24/7 - Blackberry and Windows Mobile is exacerbating the issue. I have been having face to face conversations with colleagues in Microsoft who will constantly check their Windows Mobile for mail. I am probably guilty of this also. Likewise I have heard horror stories of colleagues checking their devices during the evening when watching Corrie. Much to the annoyance of their partners.

I personally still rely on email - it is a great way to disseminate information and to ask questions to many people when the answer is not needed immediately.

I think most of the stress related to email is because of the volume, not the content. How do you prioritise which email in your inbox needs to be addressed first.

Most of my day to day communication is now done over IM. Because most of my co-workers do the same I know that what is in my inbox is normally not high priority. If someone needs to get hold of me in Microsoft they will normally do it over IM. Using IM in OCS then makes the escalation to voice calls much easier.

Has the volume of mail I get decreased because of this - probably not,  but overall I would like to think I am much more in control of my communications.

The world is moving to an IM culture, and no doubt in the years to come the BBC will be running an article "IM is ruining my life" but for the meantime it works for me.

It seems that I am not the only one - looking at the blogs I usually read, many have been pretty quiet -( Mark, Ewan, Brett)  probably suffering from the same overload as I am :-)

Some great posts I have come across recently are

Matt's explanation of Hyper-V

The Office Communication Team Blog - has some great information for example why we do not do SIP over UDP

Seniors blog always has great info

Steves blog is the must go place to find out all the latest technology - I am amazed how he finds the time read and collate all this info 

So hopefully the next few posts of mine will have been worth the wait :-)