Canadian Colleges Update – Dec 2009 Session 7 Unified Communications Overview

Session 7 Raj Gopalakrishnan, Enterprise Technology Strategist, Voice, Compete, Incubation

Currently – silos of communication with multiple inbox, phone numbers, etc

Future of Communications (centred around identity and presence)

• Unified Inbox & Presence
• Authentication – heavily leverage Active Directory
• Administration – uses Exchange Server
• Storage – SQLServer
• Compliance

Unified Communications decreases costs by addressing ( estimated 40 -50% savings):

• travel expenses
• telephony and audio conferencing charges
• real estate and facility costs
• messaging and voice mail costs
• cost of communication systems

Case Study – Microsoft Internal Deployment – generated 240% ROI and savings of > $212M USD annually (used Forrester’ Business Value Framework)

There is a significant Environmental Sustainability benefit with Unified Communications – significant reduction in carbon footprint and power consumption.

The core of Microsoft’s UC solution is that it is “presence powered”. Impressive demo starting with Outlook, moving to IM, audio and then a video conference.  Impressed with the ease of use and seamless integration.

Three Phases of Rolling out UC – start simple and add onto your existing investments in Exchange and SQLServer by adding Office Communication Server.

Related posts:

1. Canadian Colleges Update – Dec 2009 Session 5 Microsoft’s Virtualization Strategy and Futures
2. Canadian Colleges Update – Dec 2009 Session 3 Office System Futures
3. Canadian Colleges Update – Dec 2009 Session 2 Exchange 2010
4. Canadian Colleges Update – Dec 2009 Session 4 Windows 7 and the Optimized Desktop
5. Canadian Colleges Update – Dec 2009 Session 6 Microsoft Learning