New UC ISV Solution Evidence Now Available

Source: Voice Specialized Partner News: February 2009

Use the new UC ISV customer reference materials in your presentations and customer calls to illustrate the value of Microsoft’s UC platform in reducing costs, improving collaboration and solving business needs.

Speech-based password-reset application: Gold Systems, a Gold Certified Partner, has developed an application that boosts security and saves time and money for company’s IT departments. The case study is available here.

Manufacturing SW integration: Dassault’s integration of Microsoft Office Communicator into their (PLM) product lifecycle application has improved team collaboration and reduced the time to make decisions. The video is available here.

Call recording application: POSTcti, a Gold Certified Partner, developed a new software+services application to records OCS voice calls for compliance and other business purposes. This new Web-based call recording and storage application, which integrates with customers’ Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 environments, also helps to improve regulatory compliance and security and to boost efficiency. The case study is available here.

Web-chat application: Evangelize Communications, a Gold Certified Partner developed SmartChat, a Web-chat technology that integrates with Microsoft Office Communication Server 2007 environments. SmartChat streamlines sales processes, improves customer relationships, and expands the sales tools available to customers. The case study is available here.

Oil and Gas SW integration: Schlumberger’s integration of Microsoft Office Communicator into their software, Petrel, a seismic to simulation application. Users establish UC sessions that feature Presence, IM, audio/video conferencing, and application sharing, with a few mouse clicks, within the context of a common project repository has improved collaboration and saves time and money. The video is posted here.

Case Study on Microsoft’s Internal Deployment of UC Published

Source: Voice Specialized Partner News: February 2009

We’re pleased to announce the availability of the new case study assessing the business impact of Microsoft’s internal deployment of UC. The first business case study done by Microsoft IT, it uses the Forrester “Total Economic Impact” framework and the UC business value tools to quantify the cost savings, the productivity improvements and the reduction in carbon emissions. Because the case study is being published by the MSIT Showcase program, it will be distributed to IT Pros through Tech Net. 

Key Findings: The UC solution is generating an ROI of 240%, enabling Microsoft to save more than $212 million annually. 

Qualified Gateways for Office Communications Server 2007 R2

Source: Voice Specialized Partner News: February 2009

The Microsoft Unified Communications engineering team is working with our hardware partners to qualify PSTN gateways for use in enterprise voice deployments of Office Communications Server 2007 R2 (OCS R2). The following gateways have been qualified so far:

• AudioCodes Mediant 1000 and Mediant 2000
• Dialogic 2000 (including the DMG2130 shipped with the Voice Pilot kit)
• NET VX1200
• Quintum Tenor DX

You can see a complete list of gateways and qualification status here.

OCS CHAT offline

Sorry for any inconvenience while having an unplanned outage on the Online Chat functionality on this UC Weblog. Our support department is working on this issue. Hope to get it back online very soon.

-Joachim Farla, Office Communications Server [MVP]

MVP Summit 2009 – Day 1

Well, we arrived in downtown Seattle WA. The flight was going very well and the flight dinners were ok! Today is the first official day of the MVP Summit 2009.

Day 1, Sunday 1 March at Washington State Convention & Trade Center (WSCTC)

• Registration (opening at 07:00)
• Optional Side Sessions (12:00 – 15:30)
• Welcome and Rich Kaplan Keynote, CVP – Customer and Partner Advocacy  (16:00)
• Welcome Reception (17:15 - 20:00) 

Sorry, for not giving you any detailed information about the in depth technical sessions (restrictions in the NDA).

More information about the MVP Summit 2009 please visit http://www.mvpsummit2009.com/public/agenda.aspx for more additional event information.

Here some pictures I've taken tomorrow morning while walking through Seattle.

Our hotel room nr 1519 together with my colleague Ton Stegeman – Microsoft Office SharePoint Server [MVP]. 

Out street directly connected to the Sheraton Hotel.

Large amount of street musicians. They are all over the place. And I really need to say why are these guys sitting on the street. There is a lot of talent over there!

And the steamy underground ;-)

Hope to get back to you very soon.