Maybe it’s time to throw out your PBX

I’m a huge fan of unified messaging, which is built into Exchange Server 2007 and 2010. This feature takes your inbox and transforms it so that it can receive not only email, but incoming faxes and voicemail. The voicemail aspect is intriguing; with so many incredible features — especially built into Exchange 2010 and coming with Outlook 2010 — it’s worth considering, even if it means purchasing additional telephony hardware.

However, going to the next level beyond unified messaging and into unified communications involves deploying Microsoft Communications Server, for which there were some exciting predictions that came out of VoiceCon Orlando 2010 last week.

[ Fine-tune your network in two weeks — for free! InfoWorld’s Networking Boot Camp will help you double-check the fundamentals and show you how to optimize your infrastructure. The email classes start Monday, April 12, 2010. Sign up now! ]

At VoiceCon, Gurdeep Singh Pall, corporate vice president of Microsoft’s Unified Communications Group, demonstrated the next version of Microsoft’s unified communications software, code-named Communications Server “14,” and made some predictions about the future of communications software: “In the next three years, we predict that [unified communications] will become the norm in business communications, more than half of VoIP calls at work will include more than just voice, and your communications client will enable [unified communications] with more than 1 billion people.” (The new Communication Server is due by 2011.)

It’s hard for folks to break with traditional hardware-based phone systems that include desktop phones and legacy PBXes. Plus, many IT administrators are leery of implementing new communication technologies when they aren’t comfortable with the telephony side. I always encourage Exchange administrators to seek out their telephony guru or team of gurus before implementing unified messaging, and the same holds true for Office Communications server. Still, I believe we need to move forward on these new communication tools and drop the past. I agree with Gurdeep, who says “many of today’s PBXes belong in a museum; they are already artifacts of the past.”

When you think about the purpose of Communications Server (and Microsoft Communicator, for that matter), perhaps you are stuck in the past a bit. You see, Exchange 2000 included an instant messaging app that was dropped in 2003 and moved into a separate product called Live Communications Server. Thus, you might think of Communicator and Communications Server as an IM-only tool with presence functionality. You might even regard it as an in-house Skype solution. However, its feature set is evolving to include full enterprise telephony.

Communicator is a “soft” phone that’s becoming sleeker with each release, but it isn’t the only way to work with Communications Server. There are a ton of great IP-based phones that bring you into the 21st century; at VoiceCon, a variety of vendors announced some reasonably priced options.

Presence awareness is a big topic with IM-oriented products. Being able to locate a colleague and see her availability status is an important part of collaboration. To support that, the new features in Communications Server include a new skill search where you can find colleagues based on a certain level of expertise. There is also a new location-awareness feature where a user’s whereabouts can be automatically detected from the subnet to which the user is connected or from the nearest wireless access point. (Users can establish customized locations and control the publishing of this information, so there is a modicum of privacy.)

[ Also on InfoWorld: Read J. Peter Bruzzese’s “Deploying unified messaging without going insane” and “Outlook 2010: The client features you’ll want to use.” ]

VoiceCon also saw the announcement of several telephony products and services that you may want to explore if you pursue a Microsoft-based unified messaging strategy:

• Common-area, desktop, and conference room IP phones optimized for Microsoft Communicator “14” from Aastra and Polycom
• Call accounting and recording software from Nice Systems and Quest
• Contact center software from Aspect
• Survivable branch appliances that provide local telephony services in the event of a wide area network failure, from AudioCodes, Dialogic, Ferrari Electronic, Hewlett-Packard, and Net
• Enhanced 911 call-routing services from 911 Enable and Intrado

Gurdeep predicts the rise of more connected communications, saying that in three years, 75 percent of new business applications will include natively embedded communications. Obviously, decision makers and IT personnel need to keep that in mind. Three years ago, Microsoft shared its vision for the future of business communications with desire to establish a unified-communication-, software-centric solution. Given how that future is shaping up, I have no doubt that Gurdeep’s prediction will come true.

What do you think? Are you ready to donate your PBX to a local museum? Or do you believe that too much connectivity will hurt, rather than enhance, collaboration within your environment?

This article, “Maybe it’s time to throw out your PBX,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of J. Peter Bruzzese’s Enterprise Windows blog and follow the latest developments in Windows at InfoWorld.com.