I had a great experience using OCS I wanted to share. I was in a meeting with a client the other day and we got a little off topic.They asked a Cisco VoIP question I didn’t immediately know the answer to. However, I did know a few people in Microsoft’s UC group that had recently moved over from Cisco. And since my company is federated with Microsoft I could easily see who was online and available. Using Communicator mobile on my phone I pinged one of the former Cisco folks and got an instantaneous answer. That’s pretty amazing!
Sure, I could have sent an email but that would have been way less efficient. I would have had to have sent it to 5-6 people without knowing if any of them were travelling or out of the office for the day. Also, I interrupt all those people. By using an IM was I was able to see who was available and willing to talk. So, I didn’t bother anyone who was head down in an issue and I got the answer I needed in seconds.
This is a great real life example of reducing human latency through unified communications. It also improved the sales business process. Did you cringe a little at the word “sales”? Yeah, me too…
