At VoiceCon 2008 earlier this month, the buzz around unified communications in the contact center was abundant: it seems that almost every unified communications supplier has moved beyond unified communications as a horizontal enterprise application with an eye on the contact center market. One example is Microsoft's partnership with Aspect Software to bring Microsoft’s unified communications and voice platform to contact centers.

As part of the deal, Microsoft will make an equity investment in Aspect while Aspect will design its Aspect Unified IP contact center solution to interoperate with Microsoft’s platform for software-powered voice and unified communications. Aspect will begin development immediately and it plans to release a new version of its .Net-based Aspect Unified IP product this year, delivering interoperability with Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007. Two additional releases will follow next year.

Aspect, one of the industry’s leading contact center suppliers, will bring its strengths and understanding of the contact center while Microsoft (not historically strong with contact center applications) will bring its strengths with strong sales and marketing channels along with a top-rate unified communication platforms, and we think that contact center operators who like the strengths of both will be the winners.

We should also note, however, that while the arrangement between Microsoft will be beneficial to contact centers, it isn’t the only solution available. Mitel’s Multimedia Contact Center offer already offers an integrated platform that includes Microsoft Live Communications Server 2005 support and IBM Sametime software, and has built-in skills based routing capabilities. Avaya, Cisco and Nortel are also taking a hybrid approach to address this market that integrates unified communications and contact center applications.

All-in-all, much like VoIP moved as a horizontal replacement for traditional voice connectivity first in the general enterprise and then to the contact center environment, we believe that as unified communications evolve, it will follow a similar successful path to contact centers and other vertical markets.

Next time: Larry’s VoiceCon takeaways.

Steve Taylor is president of Distributed Networking Associates and publisher/editor-in-chief of Webtorials. Larry Hettick is a principal analyst at Current Analysis.