VOICECON: Microsoft Pushes Software-Based Telecoms

Asserting that “change has finally come to telecom,” Microsoft corporate vice president for unified communications, Gurdeep Singh Pall, built a case for software-based communications systems in a keynote address at VoiceCon in Orlando Wednesday.

The old ways will not suffice anymore, says Singh Pall.

A regular speaker at VoiceCon, Singh Pall used his time onstage to take direct aim at hardware vendors pushing UC systems, particularly Cisco, without ever mentioning the network gear giant by name.

“If you’ve just re-named a hardware solution UC – if you took a PBX and called it Call Manager now – it hasn’t fundamentally changed,” Singh Pall stated. “I can call myself Tiger Woods, but I can’t shoot 10 under.”

Since releasing Office Communications Server in the fall of 2007, Microsoft has gradually added new features to make it a comprehensive platform for business communications encompassing voice, video, audio, IM, Web conferencing and collaboration capabilities. The February release of OCS R2 has set up a direct competition between Microsoft’s software-and-PC-based UC platform and the IP PBX systems offered by Cisco and other network gear vendors. Singh Pall tried to convince the assembled enterprise IT directors that sticking with a hardware-based approach to UC is remaining locked “in the shackles of yesterday.”

Given the depth of the current recession, “we can’t afford to do things the same way we did in the past.”

OCS will also compete directly with Avaya’s Aura UC platform, which CEO Kevin Kennedy – a former Cisco executive – unveiled on the VoiceCon stage on Tuesday.

Microsoft is demonstrating an added call-attendant console at VoiceCon that enables administrators to perform traditional receptionist functions plus IM, instant conferencing and the like, all from a PC-based interface.

“If you want to spend more money, and make a fashion statement, you also have other options,” the demonstrator, Feliz Montpellier said, flipping open a Mac PowerBook to display the Web-based OCS attendant interface and drawing a big laugh from the crowd.

Microsoft has invested billions to link traditional telecommunications functions to its Office-based environments on PCs, and Singh Pall brought out a series of customers – from companies including Swisscom, BT, BNSF Railways and Sprint Nextel – to testify to the cost savings and productivity improvements associated with OCS.

“We did a vendor trial” including Microsoft, IBM and Cisco, said Gary Grissum, VP for telecom at BNSF, “and we got overwhelming user feedback” in favor of the Microsoft system.

“The software approach is the key to business transformation in the downturn,” concluded Singh Pall. Holding up a desk phone and an inexpensive PC, he asked the crowd, “If your CIO says you have $300 to spend, which device are you going to spend it on?”

Tuesday, Microsoft said it will demonstrate its full commitment to a software-based future for enterprise telecom by off-loading its high-end RoundTable videoconferencing device to Polycom. Renamed the CX5000 Unified Conference Station, the device will be available from Polycom and its network of channel partners starting in mid-April.