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.