Bill Gates: An Impatient Optimist AND the Unified Messaging Server

I want to discuss two topics today. The first is the new direction for Microsoft founder Bill Gates. The second is an overview of the Unified Messaging Server.

First off, Bill Gates is one of the richest men in the world — and one of the most generous. Nobody is obligated (other than by their own consciences, which many no longer have) to give a dime to others. True, it seems to be human nature to help a person in need — but obligation comes from within, and Bill and Melinda Gates have that inner quality in spades. On Friday, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland he announced the pledge of $306 million in grants to countries that need assistance to develop better farming. Gates said, “If we are serious about ending extreme hunger and poverty around the world, we must be serious about transforming agriculture for small farmers, most of whom are women.”

Bill will be leaving Microsoft in July of this year to focus full time on his efforts to change the world. He says he is an optimist, but an impatient one and he plans on making a difference through more than just technology but through system innovation and “Creative Capitalism: an approach where governments, businesses, and nonprofits work together to stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or gain recognition, doing work that eases the world’s inequities.”

Some may wonder: What is the payoff for Bill? Where does he benefit from all of this? He responds with a quote from Adam Smith, the father of capitalism, “How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortunes of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it, except the pleasure of seeing it.”

I’d say, regardless of my view of Microsoft, its products, its domination over the market, I wish Bill well on his life adjustment to pursue further this vision of optimism.

You can read the transcript here or watch the Webcast here.

The Unified Messaging Server Role

The Unified Messaging Server Role is new functionality introduced in Exchange Server 2007 offering the concept of a Universal Inbox, which brings together your e-mail, voicemail and fax into a single inbox. This means you may access your voicemail, fax, and e-mail from one location, using multiple access interfaces (your phone with e-mail-to-voice thanks to Outlook Voice Access; e-mail through your Outlook client and/or Web browser through Outlook Web access).

For this to work properly you are going to need an IP-PBX or VoIP gateway (if you have a legacy PBX). If you plan on using Unified Messaging with Exchange 2007, it is recommended that you seek out the assistance of a UM specialist. It requires a significant amount of telephony knowledge, in addition to the Exchange knowledge you need for configuration. Most of the settings you will be asked for may already be in place if you have a telephony admin/team and currently use a voicemail system.

The only portion that requires pure-Exchange know-how is the setup of the AutoAttendant, which is pretty much your Exchange Phone Operator. The AutoAttendant uses speech recognition to transfer callers to the appropriate extensions/people, although you can also configure it to accept non-verbal input (for example, “Press 1 for more options”).