Aside from the normal puffery, there are some salient points from today’s eWeek article about the 1 year anniversary of the Nortel/Microsoft UC initiative:
What’s resonating for early customers is the promise of better integration between desktop applications and business communications as well as the opportunity to preserve existing knowledge and experience with Microsoft desktop applications and Nortel PBX gear, according to Mike Lucas, director of telecom infrastructure at Indiana University in Bloomington.
This means that there is some justification for existing Nortel and Microsoft customers to look at this technology however what the big question is what exactly is that benefit?. He (Mike Lucas) goes on to say:
When we looked at the functionality, using a Microsoft tool like Excel or Word and being able to access all your phone capabilities from that Microsoft tool—that’s pretty powerful, I think,” Lucas said.
I am troubled that this not be the so called “innovation alliance” but more of a marketing arrangement to move more stuff. I have discussed this at length over on other blogs but I have not been able to come up with any hard benefits but only soft benefits; click to call, directory integration, voicemails in your inbox etc etc. What I am looking for is that hard real world need, the ah-ha moment when you can clearly see why I would invest in this over numerous offerings. I am still looking….
