KEY POINTS:
The humble phone call is set to get an overhaul as Microsoft unveils its "unified communications" strategy to have voice communication in businesses treated just like email and instant messaging.
The software giant says productivity and cost-saving gains can be made when office workers simply drag and drop
icons to start conference calls, listen to voicemail messages from within Microsoft Outlook and change calendar entries via phone, using spoken commands.
The level of integration touted by Microsoft blurs the traditional line between a company's IT and telecoms infrastructure, using software and IP networking to treat calls and messaging in the same way. As such, Microsoft has made its biggest effort in recent years to bring onboard hardware partners like HP and Nortel, to help make unified communications an industry movement.
In a video presentation, Microsoft founder Bill Gates described the move to software-based communications as profound as the switch from "typewriters to word-processing software".
"It is a huge bet for the company," said Kim Akers, Microsoft's US-based general manager for unified communications, who was in Auckland yesterday to launch the suite of software products UC will be based on.
Those products include Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, Microsoft Office Communicator 2007, Microsoft Office Live Meeting and RoundTable, an 360-degree videoconferencing phone system.
Akers said the pace of innovation in the PC and software industries hadn't been matched in the world of the desk phone, which made up 40 per cent of the cost of a typical company's telephony system.
"When you go to pick up the phone and call someone, you're still calling blind," she said.
"And the fact that we have three phone numbers is a legacy of the technology."
A major aspect of unified communications would bring the concept of "presence" to telephony allowing a caller to see whether a colleague or customer was available to receive a call before picking up the phone or sending a message.
Presence detection is already available in messaging services like Skype, GoogleTalk and Windows Live Messenger, but Microsoft wants to extend it to regular desk phones, controlled via a simple software interface that also allows for videoconferencing and documents to be shared in real-time.
"All of those become as easy as drag and drop or right-click to communicate," said Akers.
A demonstration illustrated her point - Microsoft software architect Steve Sweetman clicked on Media Player in his Outlook Inbox to listen to a voicemail message, before calling back his colleague and conferencing him in on a live internet meeting. He also used his phone and voice commands to alter his diary.
"You can say 'I'll be 10 minutes late' and it will send an [email] message to everyone who sent me an invite," said Sweetman.
Andrew Milroy of Frost and Sullivan said there were about a dozen customers using unified communications across Australia and New Zealand. Early adopters include Lion Nathan, BHP Billiton, RD1 and SunGuard.
Milroy said improving the options for electronic communication was changing how people worked.
"A lot of people are choosing before their morning run at 6.30am to clear their email. A lot of people say it's an atrocity, but it also gives individuals a lot more flexibility in how they manage their lives," he said.
Akers reeled off figures to illustrate how unified communications was already improving productivity for customers like Global Crossing and Proctor & Gamble. Microsoft had also put it to good use internally.
"In Redmond alone we move about 20,000 people a year at a cost of US$500 - US$700 ($650-$920) to change their phone. Simply by moving to Unified Communications we remove that cost. Now it's just a couple of clicks in active directory," she said.
Akers was keen to stress that unified communications does not require a "rip and replace" overhaul of a company's existing phone exchange infrastructure, though Nortel was on hand to unveil a line-up of new devices tailored to unified communications.
Michael Przytula, a senior solutions architect at HP, said his company has been positioning itself as a hardware provider and consultant in the unified messaging space, which despite its focus on software, still has a major IT infrastructure component.
"It still needs great hardware to run on and great devices for users."
ON MESSAGE
* Presence lists show what contacts are at their desk and available to take a call.
* Voice calls are routed over the internet, treated just as email and instant messages are.
* Voicemail and conference calls can be accessed using drag and drop icons rather than by pressing buttons on a desk phone.
* Calls can be re-routed so an employee only ever needs one phone number.
