Daniel Pearson's Blog

Well I always said that i would start a blog and here it is, my first one!

I have lots to talk about and opinions on just about everything so what to choose first. The first thing that came to mind was to talk about OCS 2007 R2 and the adoption in the Australian VoIP market place.

Lets face it OCS 2007 R2 is a PBX replacement. While it doesn’t offer everything a PBX can,  in many scenarios it goes above and beyond the desktop integration capabilities of any PBX vendor i have seen “Who best to integrate with Microsoft than Microsoft?”.

Many of my colleagues in all areas of the communication industry comment on OCS not being ready and it lacking in many areas and functions of a PBX. I challenge you this;

• If you are used to having a button on your traditional handset that allows you to listen to your music on hold source while you work then maybe you should be changing the way you listen to music… (iPod, Internet radio, Zune, media centre….)
• If you like to monitor other users extensions and answer calls on their behalf – Set them up as a team call group in OCS.
• If you need to be able to log into an ACD queue or be active in other call distribution methods – Create a response group and setup the Agent Tab in your communicator client.
• If you are after reporting and usage of OCS like Call Detail Records, Archiving etc… – Deploy a QoE server. The QoE server has some of the most detailed reporting metrics i have ever seen for a voice platform. Not only does it give you a full call history it also tells you what bit-rate your audio was being sent / received at as well as the device you used for the call and the frame rate and resolution of your video….need more detail than that?

The message i want to get across to the users and sceptics out there is that OCS 2007 R2 is ready to be adopted by 95% of the organisations out there. Yes it will make you think about doing things differently within your business, but the thing to remember is that change is a good thing.

It will also drive a positive culture shift within your organisation.  Us younger “Y gens”… are used to having things NOW… we dont like waiting and why should we when we are able to use such communication tools to increase our productivity and availability.

The major success that you will have is with the ability to control that cultural change. You are able to determine when your organisation and its users are ready to make the shift from handset to “anything”. I say anything because there are hundreds of certified OCS devices out there. You are not restricted to a headset, handset, DECT, blue-tooth, round table, web cam….the list goes on;

• If your users are used to picking up  physical device. Buy a CX200, CX700, SNOM 300 series…. 
• If they want to use a headset there are endless choices.

If anyone out there has a scenario where OCS will not fit today then please I would love to hear about it. I am more than happy to post them on my blog and keep you updated with solutions that will allow you to still deploy OCS. Maybe this can even turn into a wish list to the Microsoft Product Team…who knows.

One last thing that i will try and do with each post is provide a Poll so please take the time to complete it.