Microsoft’s Unified Communications software: latest bid to own the enterprise

In a online presentation this morning, Microsoft Corp. introduced its “Unified Communications” software offering that the company said would tie together all current means of business communication based on the concepts of “identity” and “presence”-a promise that has echoed for at least a decade through the industry.
Whether Microsoft’s UC offering truly delivers the ease-of-use and ubiquity promised naturally remains to be seen. But the concept is easy to grasp.
Microsoft’s business division president, Jeff Raikes, said that UC would tie together voice, e-mail, instant messaging, video conferencing and documents, the latter embedded with one-click communications options.
Eric Swift, a senior director of the company’s UC Group, gave a demo that showed a user, once his or her identity has been established, can be reached by whatever means reflects their schedule. Open a document, click on a colleague’s identity icon, and the UC product will determine whether a Webcam, voice call, e-mail or instant message is appropriate. Or, use voice command to check all modes of incoming messages as you depart a plane. To add a participant to a video conference, one can drag and drop a name from a contact list and, if available, that person appears onscreen.
While Raikes spoke via a webcast from a Microsoft event in San Francisco, a banner below his image flashed buzz words near and dear to the hearts of IT managers everywhere: “security,” “infrastructure,” “administration,” “performance.”
Microsoft’s message: All business communications will be software-based in the future and UC delivers an array of advantages for productivity and, therefore, profit.
Raikes said that research revealed that information workers receive, on average, 100 communications per day by seven different means. “Voicemail jail” alone costs each employee 30 hours of wasted time per year, he said.
Using Microsoft’s UC product would also cut the cost of corporate communications, Raikes said.
Today’s announcement may have set the stage for further announcements by Microsoft and its partners, expected in the form of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer’s keynote address next Tuesday at CTIA IT & Entertainment 2007 show in San Francisco.