unified communications

I’ve just completed the 5 day OCS hosted trial and am pleased to report it provided an insight that I would recommend to anyone interested in OCS. The online signup process (https://r2.uctrial.com/) was followed by an email providing logon details, voicemail box numbers and a download link for the desktop Office Communicator client. The daily email outlining key features was clear and consise. Features covered by the trial include:

- Instant Messaging & Presence using the Office Communicator desktop client
- Email & Unified Messaging using Outlook Web Access including voice command access to your inbox and playback of email messages (Outlook Voice Access)
- Peer-to-Peer Voice & Video using the Office Communicator client
- Desktop Sharing
- Web-based IM, Email, Presence & Desktop Sharing using Office Communicator Web Access (this uses a web based client for access rather than a downloadable desktop client… key for workers using home or public computers)

Large enterprises considering evaluating OCS will get evaluation trials from their suppliers quite easily, however if you just want a no fuss trial to understand what OCS is about then the hosted offer will serve you nicely. If you have more time to commit you can also download 60 day trials that you host on your own hardware (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/bb684921.aspx).

If you have a Polycom High Definition video conferencing environment and Microsoft OCS environment then OCS R2 will now let you integrate the two according to a recent Polycom press release.

I’ve seen alot of demand for the ability to bring Microsoft Office Communicator users into Polycom video conference rooms - the best example being remote workers at home or in a hotel who want to join a room based video conference.

Of course Polycom have PC based web conferencing tools such as Polycom CMA Desktop… but if you are an OCS house already having one desktop video solution will only be a good thing. Shared presence and contact lists are among the features released.

Single Number Reach, single voicemail, presence and softphones… hopefully this presentation provides some stimulation when considering the feature requirements for your own organisation.

Mitel has announced desktop and mobile Unified Communications (UC) clients with some excellent features and their own flavour of telepresence which might compete with other HD solutions but wont compete with leading telepresence solutions.

The UC desktop client include some key features that immediately stand out; the ability to federate with public presence sources and integration with their mobile UC client. Better still the mobile UC client is available across Windows Mobile, Symbian and Blackberry. These feature releases are essential to providing integrated UC solutions and from an industry perspective come hot on the heals of magic quadrant provider Cisco who has also only just released desktop to mobile integrated presence and the support for a Microsoft Mobile UC client.

In addition Mitel has announced the availability of their TeleCollaboration solution for Q1 2009. Mitel claims an improved result over telepresence due to desktop sharing and recording capabilities (see below image). The video component of the solution is actually provided by a company called Magor.



While the collaboration aspects may provide an improvement I can immediately see their is no comparision to a telepresence solution such as Polycoms RPX (see below image). Telepresence is not just high definition video conferencing (which is a better description for Mitels solution), telepresence allows users to interact as if they were in the same room. Imperative components of telepresence solutions include having completely controlled room environments that look identical at all locations, with immersive lighting, with immersive audio and screens that are large enough to allow users to stand up and move around without disappearing from view - the Mitel offering does not achieve this. Ultimately price will dictate if the Mitel solution compares to existing market high definition solutions, however given current information it wont compete with true telepresence rooms.

Avaya has announced a new feature to convert voicemails to text and deliver these as email. The text conversion is powered by a company called SpinVox who joined Avaya as a development partner in April this year.

I have actually been using the SpinVox service for over a year as a VIP customer. I can vouch for the reliability and accuracy of the service. More importantly the voice to text feature is a great time saver. I can read a message faster than calling my voicemail, stepping through the menus, and then listening. I can also read a message in circumstances when I can’t easily call my voicemail (perhaps while in a meeting for example). In short, I could never go back to listening to voicemails!

Best of all is anyone can use the SpinVox voice to text service irrespective of the Avaya announcement. If you signup with SpinVox you are provided with a voicemail number and simple instructions to program your mobile and/or landline to use this number as its voicemail number.

Try the SpinVox website (www.spinvox.com) for a free trial with consumer pricing starting from 20p in the UK with commercial options available by request... and no I am not on commission ;)