Microsoft to present new unified communications phones
At the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference in Los Angeles the week of May 14, Microsoft announced 15 new phones and devices from nine of its partners.
At this time Microsoft is going to entertain its consumers with devices that connect their workplace phones to e-mail, instant messaging, real-time presence information, conferencing, VOIP (voice over IP) and mobile communications.
The new phones and devices include IP phones, USB phones, wired and wireless headsets, Bluetooth devices, conferencing phones, portable speakerphones, LCD monitors and laptops.
Microsoft has provided the device manufacturers, which include LG-Nortel, NEC, Plantronics, Polycom and Samsung, with design specifications to ensure that they work easily with Microsoft's unified communication software: Office Communications Server 2007 and Office Communicator 2007, Cullen said.
All of the products are nearing the end of Microsoft's qualification cycle and will be available for use in the public beta program of Office Communications Server 2007 and Office Communicator 2007 starting May 14, he said.
"Today's enterprise voice workplace is about vertically integrated solution sets, and our approach to this is to focus on the software, through open standards and published APIs, and using that to enable multiple partners to offer a wide range of phones and devices, resulting in more choice for the end-user at a range of price points," Chris Cullen said, director of product management for Microsoft's unified communications group.
Microsoft is saying that over the next three years, 100 million people will be making calls from within the Office suite of products, which would be some 20 percent of the total current Office user base and larger than the IP phone market that exists today, he said.
"We also expect that VOIP deployments will rise by 50 percent in the enterprise over the next three years, while the average VoIP solution for business will cost half what it does today, as VoIP systems move from hardware to software over the nex three years," Cullen said.
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