Microsoft Voice and Unified Communications [Paperback]

Joe Schurman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 25, 2009 | ISBN-10: 032157995X | ISBN-13: 978-0321579959 | Edition: 1

“Microsoft Voice and Unified Communications is essential reading for anyone using–or considering–Microsoft’s range of VoIP options, from consumers to small business owners to enterprise customers.”

-- Xuedong Huang , General Manager, Microsoft Research Communications, Innovation Center

 

“Joe Schurman has captured the essence of Microsoft’s vision and implementation in the areas of Voice and Unified Communications. This is an important book for those interested in connecting the dots between the present and the future in human communications and understanding why things are evolving in that way.”

--Gurdeep Singh Pall , Microsoft Corporate Vice President, Unified Communications Group

 

Microsoft ^® Voice and Unified Communications is a book that provides insight into Microsoft’s Voice and Unified Communications portfolio of products and services related to Microsoft Windows Live, Microsoft Response Point, and the Microsoft Unified Communications platform.

 

Here’s What You’ll Find Inside. . .

 

· Microsoft’s vision of voice products and services for consumer, small/medium businesses, and enterprise organizations including a foreword by Gurdeep Singh Pall, Microsoft Corporate Vice President, Unified Communications Group, and commentary by Xuedong Huang, General Manager of the Microsoft Research Communications Innovation Center.

· Technical guidance and information related to Microsoft Windows Live, Microsoft Response Point, and the Microsoft Unified Communications platform, including the newly released Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2.

· Sales guidance for selling Microsoft voice solutions in the SMB and Enterprise markets.

· Examples of customized Microsoft voice and unified communications applications.

· Overview of Microsoft voice and unified communications security.

· Latest Microsoft voice and unified communications research and development.

· Understanding of voice, unified communications, and telephony concepts and terms as well as the history and evolution of communications technology.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Joe Schurman is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Evangelyze Communications, a Microsoft Certified Voice Specialized Partner (VSP). Joe has provided consulting and research within the Information Technology industry and with Microsoft for the past 15 years, holding senior roles at IBM Global Services, Hewlett-Packard, and Accenture. Joe has founded several successful organizations focusing on the research and development of voice and unified communications technologies with Nortel, Cisco, Avaya, and Microsoft. Joe was involved in the early stages of Microsoft’s Unified Communications strategy in 2002 with the release of Microsoft Live Communications Server 2003 and has provided internationally recognized research, publications, and training seminars in each region of the world. In 2006, Joe began working with Microsoft Research on the initial launch of Microsoft’s Small Business voice product, Microsoft Response Point, and has travelled throughout the US and Canada providing training and readiness to Microsoft’s partners and customers. Joe is an award-winning speaker through the Microsoft TechNet program, having spoken for thousands of attendees at Microsoft events and IT industry-focused seminars and webcasts worldwide, and is a 5-time award winner of the prestigious Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Award for his community involvement and contributions to Microsoft’s voice and unified communications products and services internationally. Joe is married with three children and resides in Houston, Texas, where he began his career at Compaq Computer Corporation.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Foreword

The evolution of communications is a fascinating subject. From the primordial event where two people at the same place exchanged a single piece of semantically significant information to Gene Roddenberry’s resplendent “Transporter” vision you have to wonder what were the incremental and disruptive steps—what endured and what did not. Like historians then, we use that thesis to predict what will work in the journey into the future of communications, and what will not.

In our lifetime the world has evolved from analog phone calls and telegraphs to PC-based communications. We have watched the PC and the Internet grow to reach more than a billion people in a span of 15 years or so. We have witnessed how the union of software and the Internet has become the jet fuel for the evolution of communications—creating an amalgamated medium for innovation and adoption unprecedented in the history of communications.

What we call Unified Communications (UC) is really the Renaissance of communications, in the same way the Renaissance period was for culture from the fourteenth century to the seventeenth century. UC is transforming the fundamentals—user experience, programmability, accessibility, reuse of components, and infrastructure. Everything is being and will continue to be challenged. The only thing sacred is the principle of empowering the end user with new capabilities offered within a cognitive model that is intuitive and practical.

Joe Schurman captures the essence of Microsoft’s vision and implementation in the areas of voice and Unified Communications. This is an important book for those interested in connecting the dots between the present and the future in human communications and understanding why things are evolving in that way. Above all, this is a thorough and practical book, useful for those evaluating and planning the next step with Microsoft’s Unified Communications offerings.

Preface

The telecommunications industry is changing in ways not thought possible. We, as a human race, are seeing a complete transformation in how human communication can be used throughout applications and devices, truly connecting people and processes, regardless of geography, at a speed of innovation that is incomprehensible. The future of these successful innovations will lie within how human and machine-based communication will interact with tools that we use on a daily basis, liberating us from specific hardware and devices through the power of software. The purpose of this book is to introduce you to a company who is truly a leader in this strategy and vision and who is equipping the creative developers of tomorrow with the tools necessary to transform the world of Voice and Unified Communications forever. This company is Microsoft Corporation, and the content within this book will help you understand what Microsoft is providing today and the vision for tomorrow throughout consumer, small business, and enterprise organizations on a global scale through the power of software.

© Copyright Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional; 1 edition (February 25, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 032157995X
• ISBN-13: 978-0321579959
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 0.7 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,530,768 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Joe Schurman is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Evangelyze Communications. Joe has provided consulting and research within the Information Technology industry and with Microsoft for the past 16 years and is a 6-time Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP). Joe has been quoted, interviewed, and published in international press including Wall Street Journal, CNBC, MSN Money, and through international webcasts, industry events, and hundreds of speaking engagements in every continent. Joe has published three books, including the technology best seller, "Microsoft Voice and Unified Communications", published by Pearson / Addison Wesley in 2009 with a foreword by Gurdeep Singh Pall, Vice President of Microsoft Corporation and XD Huang, Microsoft Research Director of the Communications Innovation Center. Joe is a Microsoft TechNet Gold Presenter Award winner and is a leader in the Microsoft technical community. Joe is also a correspondent of the "World According to Garf" NBC Radio Broadcast focused on voice and unified communications technologies. Joe began his career at Compaq Computer Corporation and became the youngest Managing Consultant at Accenture in 2001 after which time, Joe became a private consultant to Microsoft for 8 years with 2 1/2 years spent with Microsoft Research. Joe resides in Houston, Texas with his wife and three children and is a member of the Holland Society and the National Sons of the American Revolution.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars No better book available on Microsoft Unified Communications March 3, 2009

By sixmonkeyjungle VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Unified Communications is one of those hot, `buzzword' technologies that everyone is talking about and many are adopting, or at least exploring. However, unified communications is also a somewhat ethereal concept with no agreed upon standard for what it actually is, and a playing field that is shifting faster than customers can understand. Unified communications is important and it will transform the way companies communicate and do business so managers need to grasp how to leverage the technologies. Joe Schurman's book provides understanding that readers need regarding unified communications today, but more importantly it provides insight into the unified communications of tomorrow so that readers can develop strategies that are effective now as well as the near future.

Joe Schurman is uniquely suited to write Microsoft Voice and Unified Communications. Schurman has been involved in voice and unified communications technologies virtually since their inception. He has been a successful consultant, speaker, and trainer, focusing on evangelizing Microsoft solutions, for the past 15 years. As the Founder and CEO of Evangelyze Communications, a Microsoft Gold Partner and Voice Premier Partner, Joe continues to be a respected authority in the field and a trusted confidant of Microsoft.

I was fortunate to be able to read the pre-publications drafts and to provide my insight and feedback on the chapter dedicated to VoIP and unified communications security.

The book opens with an excellent overview of the history of telephony and the evolution through VoIP (voice over IP) to SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) and other voice protocols, the concept of Presence, and the development of what unified communications is today. Schurman then goes on to talk about the use of VoIP by the consumer market using tools such as Windows Live Messenger, an excellent look at Microsoft's Response Point phone system for SMB's, and a discussion of enterprise-class solutions built on Microsoft Unified Communications technologies such as Office Communications Server and Exchange Server.

The book then covers additional topics like integrating collaboration and speech recognition into the unified communications / VoIP environment, and how to customize the solution to extend its capabilities. This is an area that Schurman has intimate knowledge of as his company, Evangelyze Communications, has leveraged the extensibility of Office Communications Server to develop innovative products like SmartChat, and the 2008 Internet Telephony Magazine Product of the Year, SmartVoIP.

Schurman covers more advanced topics like securing and virtualizing unified communications and voice, and a chapter for consultants to help them understand how to sell the unified communications concept to customers.

Unified communications is a quickly evolving technology (or collection of technologies) that businesses around the world are struggling to understand and embrace. Microsoft Voice and Unified Communications is just the title that these readers need to educate themselves on what unified communications can do for them today, but more importantly to position themselves for what unified communications will do for them tomorrow.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Must read for those new to Unified Communications May 21, 2009

By Don Stigliano

Format:Paperback

Microsoft Voice and Unified Communications
Very readable and informative. Joe Schurman has a keen sense for the future of multimedia communications and the fact that to be successful a seamless integration to a user's desktop applications is necessary. He is also very knowledgeable on the Microft and IBM total platforms. Since most businesses are using the Microsoft Office environment it is only logical that Microsoft will be a leader in Unified Communications as integrated multimedia becomes more prevalent in the business community. A good understanding of the Microsoft Office Communications environment and competitors' platforms is presented. Personally a little disappointed that the Microsoft / NorTel alliance partnership didn't get sufficient traction I think the book falls a little short in presenting the fact that for large enterprises with specialized telephony applications Microsoft has a way to go. Contact Center, Web Portals to Customer Service, sophisticated Interactive Voice Response, and integrations to companies' CRM systems still requires the expertise of the large players such as NorTel and Avaya as well as specialized application developers.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Too much marketing April 16, 2009

By Hilary M. Fernandes

Format:Paperback

The book is good for a beginner who does not know too much about the Unified Communications space. Having worked in this area for over 8 years I think talking so highly about Microsoft (everywhere) and saying that vendors like Cisco etc are lagging behind is plain lies. The truth is that Cisco leads this space and will continue to do so. Microsoft is just getting its act together and has a long way to go. Not to mention that they have some good ideas but now all vendors including IBM and Cisco have equivalent products.