Unified Communications Guru Joe Schurman

Joe Schurman has been working in unified communications somehow or other for a dozen years. A Microsoft MVP, Schurman started Evangelyze Communications, a UC ISV and consultancy. We caught up with Schurman, author of the book "Microsoft Voice and Unified Communications" to get the skinny on where Redmond is and where it's going.

"Bottom line, deploying a UC platform is an up-front cost that results taking everything into account-term and long-term savings." Joe Schurman, Microsoft MVP, Founder and CEO of Evangelyze Communications

Fast forward eight years with experience in integrating audio/video, enterprise voice, and collaboration, and working with clients and providers just as Microsoft, IBM and Avaya, including a two-year stint at prestigious Microsoft Innovation, I've experienced the massive shift in innovation and the future of UC capabilities.

These server platforms combined at the same time forming the Microsoft Unified Communications Platform. Through this platform, users leverage each server's client application, just as Microsoft Office Outlook for Exchange for enterprise e-mail, unified messaging, contacts and calendaring; the Microsoft Lync Client for enterprise instant messaging, enterprise voice, and audio/video communication, and a browser for Microsoft SharePoint external and internal sites.

In working with clients, what is the most common app or tool first adopted? Do you see clients starting small and at the time adding more functions, and if so, what is a normal trajectory? From an enterprise e-mail standpoint, Microsoft Exchange Server is typically already deployed and in use, so as a matter of fact the main tool first adopted is enterprise instant messaging. Above all, it's a much easier project to engage in and does not affect the global communication of an organization's personnel. Moving to Microsoft Lync for enterprise voice—as with any other new enterprise voice solution—requires a company to either rip and replace or start with an augmented solution and then and there migrating over time. It's a much bigger bullet to bite especially when you consider integrated solutions just as IVR, hunt group and other voice-specific configurations that have been in place for decades that will need to be migrated to a new platform.

What I've seen

Based on what I've seen, unless the project is co-funded, a customer will wait until the contract terms are up for renewal with their existing telephony provider earlier even considering a switch. If a customer decides to deploy, the timeframe can be as short as six months and as long as one year for most enterprise organizations. This in effect has nothing to do with the innovation; this has to do with process, testing, migration and release.

I've worked with many large enterprise financial institutions over the past 11 years and at times just updating Active Directory takes several months due to changing control policies. You as well have to realize what an enterprise voice deployment entails. In order to deploy any enterprise voice solution, you have to account for communication line configuration, IVR configuration, dial plans, branch services, scalability, security and permissions, Group Policy rules [in short on]. It's a massive undertaking, especially for a global organization, so these projects are not completed after all order. Most commonly I see clients establishing a foundation knowing that all UC platforms now and hereafter are software-based. Establishing a beach head with Microsoft Lync for enterprise instant messaging enables an organization with Microsoft's core UC focus, Presence. Allowing users to start leveraging the Lync client will enable the ability for easier integration of future modalities that the Microsoft Lync Server offers.