Hi Guys,

As some of you may remember I recently talked about this product in regards to its competition to Call Manager, and I had a bit of a eureka moment when I realized this: Microsoft is not out to replace the PBX.. They wish to remove it completely.

For years now I have been saying to anyone who would listen (that's not many people) that telephone numbers SUCK. _WHY_ should I have to remember a telephone number? The Inventors of the internet and WWW where smart enough to say "People cannot remember numbers, computer's can. Let's invent DNS." Why are we expected to remember telephone numbers?

Microsoft know this, OCS is not a PBX replacement, it's not even a telephony system. It's MSN for Businesses with collaboration thrown in instead of online games. I like this approach. Microsoft have basically said "Okay, we are going to ditch the telephone, circuit-based network for the packet driven internet for our telephony.. Why keep there addressing model? Telephone numbers suck, emails are pretty easy to remember. Lets adapt them along with DNS for our use."

It's the right approach long-term I think, but convincing people to adapt to it may be the difficult part. People are used to the traditional Phone and the way a Traditional Phone works which is the bet Cisco are making.

Cheers
Pete