Microsoft 'Unified Communications'

October 16, 2007 from PC Magazine – “On Tuesday, Microsoft officially launched its "Unified Communications" initiative, which promises to treat voice as just another data type that can be routed around an office, much like email…

“The transformation to software-based communications will be as profound as moving from typewriters to word-processing software," Gates said.”

180 View – There are other voices that question the hype. For example Information Week wrote on October 20 – “In introducing Microsoft's unified communications products last week, Bill Gates predicted a change in the way people work "as profound as the shift from typewriters to word processing." Uh-huh--in the same way tablet PCs were to replace pen and paper? We're still waiting…

The mixing of voice, video, messaging, and collaboration capabilities holds great promise for the way people work, but infrastructure upgrades are required. And Microsoft isn't the obvious choice for VoIP; if anything, it has catching up to do. A crowded market of established competitors awaits Microsoft.”

Also on October 16 from InfoWorld – “In light of all the hoopla around unified communications--especially at today's Microsoft UC event in San Francisco --and in light of the fact that the backbone of any UC platform is VoIP [Voice over IP], I just thought I'd inject a brief note of realism into the discussion of the future of UC and the current reality. In other words, when it comes to VoIP, the emperor has no clothes. Or at least let's say he is scantily clad. What do I mean? Simply this. VoIP is not half as good as my old AT&T service. I not only speak for myself here but friends and relatives who are using it as well.”

I personally love VoIP using Skype but it's true that it's not yet 100% - Give it a little more time.