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Technology Lifestyle Microsoft’s about to start calling you over IP
Technology Lifestyle Microsoft’s about to start calling you over IP | Microsoft’s about to start calling you over IP |
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| by Alex Zaharov-Reutt | |
| Tuesday, 15 May 2007 | |
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The program has just started in beta mode, with a total of 15 phones and ‘devices’ to be made available to businesses wanting to test out Microsoft’s IP-enabled communications infrastructure. Microsoft says that they are using an “open approach and published software interfaces”, and are enabling companies to “innovate new workplace phones and devices that make business communications more effective and productive” – the holy grail of management wanting more quality productivity from their myriad workers. Working in conjunction with ASUSTek, GN (makers of Jabra headsets), LG-Nortel, NEC, Platronics, Polycom, Samsung, Tatung and ViTELiX, Microsoft says that the devices on offer will not only be ‘next-generation’, but will ‘connect the workplace phone’ to a unified communications environment offering e-mail, instant messaging, real-time presence information, conferencing, voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and mobile communications. The devices themselves aren’t just phones, but comprise of advanced Internet protocol (IP) phones, Universal Serial Bus (USB) phones, wired and wireless headsets, conferencing phones, LCD monitors and even laptops. As you’d expect of Microsoft as they usually do when it comes to partners that actually create the hardware, Microsoft is “providing the device manufacturers with design specifications, helping to assure customers that the new phones and devices work easily with Office Communications Server and Office Communicator”. Jeff Raikes, the president of Microsoft’s Business Division, said that “Today’s office phone is marooned on an island, separate from the rest of the communications tools that information workers rely on to do their jobs. By weaving the business phone together with e-mail, instant messaging, presence, conferencing and the productivity software people use most, we are putting voice communications back into business.” Microsoft is promising that the whole thing will “Just Work”, which is surely a line photocopied from their friends in Cupertino. Nevertheless, Microsoft says that “qualified phones and devices [will] work out of the box with Microsoft unified communications software” and that “it’s as simple as plug-and-play”, although surely we’ve heard that promise before? One thing that Microsoft has been able to deliver through hardware and software partners, is “greater choice and innovation” as a number of hardware partners will build the phones, giving “customers more choices when it comes to designs, cost and feature innovations”. Microsoft also says their new comms system will deliver “improved economics”, although that’s also a claim that just about every company makes, except for companies like Bang and Olufsen and their customers, for whom price is no object. Microsoft quotes Gartner Inc. as saying that “handsets typically cost around 40 percent to 45 percent of the total telephony installation.” So, Microsoft is getting serious about the unified communications experience that the Internet, and Internet Protocol, offers. Could a future Microsoft Zune mp3 player/phone be part of the IP Phone mix? Could the Apple iPhone be tweaked to connect to Microsoft’s system? And what of other phones, such as the Nokia N95, which have VoIP capabilities inbuilt as well? Answers to those questions will no doubt come – as will a phone call from Microsoft, if you’re a big business that should be using unified communications and IP telephony to save money, keep more information to hand and squeeze ever more productivity from your staff. {moscomment}
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