Confidence in Microsoft Unified Messaging and what people like/dislike

[Mike England]

Hi everyone.

One of the group members wanted to post this question. They are taking
a serious look at Microsoft Unified Messaging at global company with
roughly 10,000 employees. The main focus is to replace aging voice
mail systems with Microsoft voice mail. They are looking for both
plain old voice mail service as well as integration to Microsoft
Outlook to allow users to play, forward, reply to, delete message from
their email box. The phone systems are a combination of Nortel and
Cisco with some middleware (Dialogics/Audiocodes) as SIP gateways.

They have talked to several parties with small deployments (< 50
users) and just one over 500 but they would like to get a feel of the
confidence of the product as well what is most liked and disliked
about Microsoft UM.

Any insights, please do share them and I'll ensure they get passed on

Cheers

Mike

[jasonkolb]

Hi Mike,

Any chance you could share the results with the group? I think it
would be an interesting snapshot of where the solution is right now.

Jason

[Jude Gentsch]

I just left a Cisco/Microsoft Gold partner that was implementing Microsoft Unified Messaging with CUCM 6.1.  I am unsure of the client size but they are global.  To my knowledge they were very happy with it.

Jude

[Mike England]

More than happy to share the findings, I just thought that the request
was a great topic to bring up. However, for these things to be of
value we need to get some specifics if possible

[bple...@commfusion.com]

You may want to contact the folks at Enabling Technologies - they have
a lot of experience with Microsoft UM and have done quite a lot of
implementations of it - very successfully.

[Christopher Ramauthar]

Hi,
 
I do know of a company that has the experience that I think you maybe looking for. They have deployed Exchange UM for large companies with thousands of users. I also know of a part deployment for a global company that has more than  20 000 people in all regions. Strong on Cisco and Microsoft with Nortel expertise in some locations.
 
I would recommend a party that have good voice knowledge and one that is certified on Microsoft. Look at Microsoft's first 2 or 3 global UC voice partners - that will help.
 
Regards
 

---

> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 06:58:06 -0700
> Subject: Confidence in Microsoft Unified Messaging and what people like/dislike
> From: mike.e...@imago-group.com
> To: unife...@googlegroups.com

[Mike England]

Christopher. Could you pass on the question and get them to post some
thoughts/comments on their experiences. They have already gone through
what one of the members is about to so it would be great to get some
proper understanding of whats gone well/not so well for them

On Jul 23, 5:49 pm, Christopher Ramauthar

<christopherramauthar...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I do know of a company that has the experience that I think you maybe looking for. They have deployed Exchange UM for large companies with thousands of users. I also know of a part deployment for a global company that has more than  20 000 people in all regions. Strong on Cisco and Microsoft with Nortel expertise in some locations.
>
> I would recommend a party that have good voice knowledge and one that is certified on Microsoft. Look at Microsoft's first 2 or 3 global UC voice partners - that will help.
>
> Regards
>

> > Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 06:58:06 -0700> Subject: Confidence in Microsoft Unified Messaging and what people like/dislike> From: mike.engl...@imago-group.com> To: unife...@googlegroups.com> > > Hi everyone.> > One of the group members wanted to post this question. They are taking> a serious look at Microsoft Unified Messaging at global company with> roughly 10,000 employees. The main focus is to replace aging voice> mail systems with Microsoft voice mail. They are looking for both> plain old voice mail service as well as integration to Microsoft> Outlook to allow users to play, forward, reply to, delete message from> their email box. The phone systems are a combination of Nortel and> Cisco with some middleware (Dialogics/Audiocodes) as SIP gateways.> > They have talked to several parties with small deployments (< 50> users) and just one over 500 but they would like to get a feel of the> confidence of the product as well what is most liked and disliked> about Microsoft UM.> > Any insights, please do share them and I'll ensure they get passed on> > Cheers> > Mike> > > _________________________________________________________________
>
> Express yourself instantly with MSN Messenger! Download today it's FREE!http://messenger.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200471ave/direct/01/

[Blair Pleasant]

I also passed the question to Chris Slough at Enabling - they probably have
the most experience of any reseller.
--
Blair Pleasant
COMMfusion LLC & UCStrategies.com
707-538-4368 (Pacific)
707-688-0058 (mobile)
bple...@commfusion.com
Visit www.ucstrategies.com

[mike.e...@imago-group.com]

Hey Blair thanks really appreciate that.

How are you? I am currently trying to arrange a trip over to the US to one of the big shows this fall (it telephony or VoiceCon) so it would be great to meet up and say hello properly
Regards
Mike

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

---

From: "Blair Pleasant" <bple...@commfusion.com>
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:35:34 +0100
To: <unife...@googlegroups.com>

[Blair Pleasant]

I’ll definitely be at VoiceCon – I’m doing 2 sessions there – my intro/overview of UC, and a voice mail/UM session. It’ll be great to meet.

--
Blair Pleasant
COMMfusion LLC & UCStrategies.com
707-538-4368 (Pacific)
707-688-0058 (mobile)
bple...@commfusion.com
Visit www.ucstrategies.com

---

From: <mike.e...@imago-group.com>
Reply-To: <unife...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:52:02 +0000

[Christopher Ramauthar]

Mike, have a look at Dimension Data. They have some serious experts and have done large scale deployments.

---

> Date: Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:54:34 -0700
> Subject: Re: Confidence in Microsoft Unified Messaging and what people like/dislike
> From: mike.e...@imago-group.com
> To: unife...@googlegroups.com

[Don Price]

I would first try to rationalize the VoIP platforms to a single and common infrastructure if at all possible or as a part of the introduction of MSFT UC.

 

As I speak to enterprises there are many who are experimenting and while the MSFT UC approach shows a lot of promise many won’t deploy before 2010. Simply want to see MSFT get things right having learned more than once the early adoption costs of Exchange and NT Server. Instead they concentrate on small pilots and limited deployments.

 

Don

> </html

[Tim]

Hi Mike (and everyone else!),

We've got some experience in this area as well. In addition to some
smaller accounts, we've provided consulting and deployment to a couple
large companies that are evaluating or actively deploying Exchange UM
to their employees. They run the gamut as far as location and
industry but range in scale from 2000 users of Exchange UM currently
deployed and more planned, 11,000+ currently deployed with end-state
at 25,000+ and a deployed pilot with end-state of over 100k users
internationally.

The larger companies that we deal with are certainly very active in
planning now for Exchange UM and many are picking up the pace for OCS
as well, so I'd say there is certainly precedence for the 10k users
you're talking about.

I think one of the key things that has resonated with our customers
and prospects is how they can have aging, disparate PBXs yet provide a
consistent messaging platform for their users. This allows them to
phase out older call control systems over time, over years, yet have a
consistent UM solution. Saves money, time and training dollars.

Hopefully that helps.

Tim Bakke
Microsoft Practice Manager
AVTEX
http://www.avtex.com
tba...@avtex.com