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Single point of contact: From left: The ViTELIX VX-200 helps turn a PC into a multifunctional high-quality telephone extension. The Jabra GN9330 USB headset offers true wideband audio. The LG-Nortel Bluetooth headset helps users make or receive calls on their PCs without speaker phones.

V.Rishi Kumar

A small team of about a dozen researchers started with the dream of developing software solutions that help people across geographies, using multiple devices, to connect and collaborate.

Three years later, they are about 100 of them, sitting on a clutch of products with potential for about 12 patents, five of them already in the kitty.

The team, headed by Nagesh Pabbisetty, General Manager, Communications and Entertainment, Microsoft India Development Centre, and Arun Krishnan, Group Manager, MIDC, along with other members, updated eWorld on what is brewing on the ‘Unified Communications’ front.

Using an Internet Protocol (IP) phone, a few laptops and a Blackberry, they demonstrated their innovations packed in the unified communication solution launched by Microsoft in late 2007.

The promise of UC

Typically, when an individual uses an e-mail system, he can handle just that. If he wants to call a person, he would not be able to do so in that context.

But using a unified communication solution such as Microsoft’s, he can directly dial into a mobile phone or even a landline.

Likewise, when using an IP phone, not only can a user dial up but he can also communicate by using his visual presence.

What is interesting about these solutions is that a user does not have to juggle with multiple gadgets.

By using just one of them, he can find necessary number coordinates and also contacts, making it easier to communicate using either just text, or text and audio or text, audio and video features.

When corporate entities deploy these solutions, these help improve productivity as the time to communicate is cut short.

As businesses expand their geographical footprint, unified communication technologies will become an integral tool to ensure connectivity that enhances overall organisational productivity, explains Pabbisetty.

The MIDC team worked on areas such as Communicator Mobile v2.0 which works on all WinMobile cell-phones, as well as Office Communicator Phone Edition v1.0, the latter is useful for unifying call logs and visual voicemail and thereby helps in easy conferencing. These were independently and collectively developed in collaboration with partners such as LG-Nortel and Polycom. The group in Hyderabad created some key aspects of new videoconferencing solution Live Meeting 2007.

One of the important elements of these products was to help the strong partner network design new products and services on the Microsoft Unified Communication platform.

This initiative includes systems integrators with unified communication specialisation as well as global telephony providers such as Nortel.

The partnership includes independent software vendors (ISVs) such as SAP and Phone and Device manufacturers. Microsoft and SAP plan to integrate Office Communication Server with Duet, the jointly developed product that provides SAP processes and data through Microsoft Office applications.

Communication as productivity tool

According to the team, Microsoft customers using unified communication solutions are reporting savings on time and efficiencies. Users such as Marico and NIIT have quantified advantages, they said.

The applications and usage are in various verticals, particularly in remote learning and Web-based healthcare applications.

The innovation is driven by the premise that communication is central to an enterprise and is a key productivity enhancing tool.

A generation is growing up without actually using a landline and the day is not far off when one may ask, ‘what is a landline’, says Pabbisetty.

One of the tasks on hand for developers is to make communication simple and easy wherein an average user does not have to learn a variety of tools to connect and communicate. The effort is aimed at simplification.

Currently, most people face silos of communication, be it telephony, video and audio, e-mail and instant messaging.

“We have turned it on its head by making it a software-powered communication,” says the team.

The world of unified communication is estimated at about $40 billion.

vrishi@thehindu.co.in

More Stories on : Convergence | Research & Development | Telecommunications

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