Microsoft announced this week (Monday, March 2, 2009), that its Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS), was available for trial in 19 countries. It disclosed Office Communications Online would be available in April 2009. I wanted to share some thoughts on the unified communications aspect of the strategy.
What this is:
- Primarily (overwhelmingly for that matter), this initial offering will be about hosted instant messaging (IM), presence and web conferencing.
- Support for Communicator Web Access (CWA).
- Support for group chat and other features outlined on the slide below.
- Support for some peer-to-peer functions (e.g., file transfer, audio, video) should be expected but there will be some constraints (refer to the footnote on the graphic below). It might be the case that audio/video is supported only from Internet locations using a VPN (e.g., remote workers).
What this is not:
- This is not about hosted unified communications or even hosted OCS. It is better to think about this initial effort as "more LCS-like than OCS-like".
- For example
- the web conferencing component within OCS is not available - instead, organizations need to use Office Live Meeting
- there is no support for IM/presence federation in the initial version (again, just hosted IM/presence for intranets)
- there is no support for integrating with existing telephony (e.g., Avaya, Cisco), or other conferencing systems
Recommendation:
- It's hard to really identify a reason for a large enterprise to be interested in the initial release of Communications Online. If you have made the decision to deploy OCS - the loss in capabilities is so massive at this point, that it seems best to wait for a future release before any full commitment.
- There may be situational use cases, so I would pay attention for "exceptions to the rule" and "opportunities to learn". For instance, an organization just looking for real-time collaboration with no immediate plan to pursue a full-fledged UC effort - or offering this to a particular worker segment while other worker segments are provisioned for OCS - might be possible scenarios, but that raises lots of integration questions.
- If you need web conferencing, you can get Live Meeting today independent of BPOS. There does not appear to be tremendous synergies with Communications Online. My guess is that Microsoft went with Live Meeting because the OCS version of web conferencing has a limit of around 250 participants, and perhaps there were technical issues. Longer term, I think Microsoft has to rationalize Live Meeting and OCS web conferencing as the collide in the cloud. And don't forget about Shared View, the Live offering for small-scale conferencing.
Questions:
- Questions to ask now
- Live meeting is managed in parallel to OCS today - using Intranet Portal - how does the management happen under Communications Online - do organizations need to manage the IM/presence system in parallel (still) with Live Meeting?
- Do users need to belong to a single SIP domain? If you have multiple SIP domains, what are your options? How are SMTP and SIP domains associated with each other?
- Is there a limit on the number of presence contacts on the buddy list? There maybe a limit of 250.
- If you are presence-enabling applications that are not hosted, how does Microsoft enable presence icons to appear in lists and Web Parts in those applications that are not hosted?
- If users elect to add email distribution lists to their buddy list, are there limits on the size of those distribution lists? There may be constraints with lists over 100.
- How does Communications Online handle mobile device scenarios (e.g., escalate from IM to phone call)?
- Double-check me on federation - Microsoft indicated that it is not supported but I would ask - how can an organization federate Communications Online with other external systems (business) and public IM providers?
- I would ask lots of questions on provisioning and directory/address book synchronization - especially if you have split environments (an on-premises OCS and Office Communications Online) or hybrid environments (Communications Online but Exchange and/or SharePoint on-premises).
- Once the web conferencing component of OCS is made available within Communications Online - it begs the question - what is the future of Office Live Meeting? At some point - what's the sense of having both Live Meeting and Communications web conferencing?
- Once the other components of OCS are moved to the cloud, then what happens to all those protocols OCS is based on? Remember, OCS was never designed to be a cloud system - it was always designed to be on-premises. I assume since group chat is supported that the IM conferencing server is now hosted but the other components (telephony conferencing server, A/V conferencing server, mediation server) will eventually be migrated as well. Microsoft right now will do HTTP/HTTPS tunneling, sending all traffic (i.e., PSOM, SIP) for Communications Online via port 443. But will that hold true when you start thinking about SRTP - will there be a performance overhead with tunneling? How will integration with other UC vendors be handled - if I have Avaya or Cisco - how will a hosted OCS interoperate with non-hosted versions of those tools? There seems to be a very rapid complexity curve when you start moving more UC capabilities to the cloud. You also need to think about global implementations - how will Microsoft handle complex enterprise pools (multiple pools perhaps in some cases)?
- There's also the perimeter design question - right now - you need to think about various edge servers in an OCS deployment - if OCS capabilities become completely cloud-based - then what happens to the services that currently are provided by the HTTP Reverse Proxy, the Access Edge Server, the Web Conferencing Edge Server, and the A/V Conferencing Edge server? Does Microsoft simply hide the perimeter issues internally or do clients still have some role to play? And, how does federation work then with a totally hosted solution?
Source: Microsoft
Announcement:
Microsoft Online Services Available Worldwide: Microsoft signs agreement with GlaxoSmithKline to deploy Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Communications Online and Office Live Meeting for employees worldwide.
Microsoft Online Services Available Worldwide
Microsoft signs agreement with GlaxoSmithKline to deploy Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Communications Online and Office Live Meeting for employees worldwide.
Related Links
Microsoft Resources:
• Microsoft Business Division Virtual Presskit
• Microsoft Online Services team blog
• Microsoft Online Services Web site
HANOVER, Germany — March 2, 2009 — Furthering its commitment to deliver communications and collaboration software as enterprise-class services, today at CeBIT 2009 Microsoft Corp. announced that the Business Productivity Online Suite, part of Microsoft Online Services, is now available for trial to businesses of all sizes in 19 countries. In addition, Microsoft will release Microsoft Office Communications Online, for instant messaging and presence, and the Business Productivity Online Deskless Worker Suite, an extremely economical e-mail, calendaring and collaboration service for the occasional user.
“These services open up new possibilities for businesses to control costs while continuing to enhance the productivity of their employees,” said Stephen Elop, president of the Microsoft Business Division. “Customers can save between 10 percent and 50 percent in IT-related expenditures as a result of deploying Microsoft Online Services.”
Software-Plus-Services Strategy Reaches Worldwide
Exchange Online and SharePoint Online are available for trial in Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Organizations worldwide will be able to trial and purchase the entire Business Productivity Online Suite, including Office Communications Online, in April.
In addition, Microsoft is committed to providing opportunity for a global ecosystem of partners that will sell, customize and provide consulting, migration and managed services for Microsoft Online Services customers around the world.
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