This is Part 2 of a 3-Part Series, click here for part 1 or part 3  

OCS is a Viable Product Today

I was truly surprised at Voicecon how much progress OCS has made. I’ve been an OCS user for quite some time – but not long ago – no one knew what I was talking about when I mentioned it. At VoiceCon   various levels of integration to OCS or the client Office Communicator were discussed throughout the exhibit floor. Since the release of OCS R2, Microsoft touts OCS as more than a PBX adjunct, but as a complete alternative.

During his keynote address,Microsoft’s Gurdeep Sing Pall invited four executives from major corporate users of OCS for testimonial proof that OCS is more than a theory or vision, but an actual product delivering actual results. Three of these testimonials were carriers. This seemed strange for two reasons; it showed lack of diversity (even the remaining testimonial was a railroad which is also a carrier of sorts). So if you are not in business of moving data (or cargo), perhaps OCS is not for you. And, since the carriers make the vast majority of their revenue by interconnecting PBX systems, it just seemed to be an odd bedfellow for anti-PBX messaging.

As you might expect, each of these testimonies offered similar sound bites around improved financial and productivity measures from their OCS implementations. They all talked about how they did extensive research and evaluated competing technologies before selecting OCS. Such testimonials, four no less, from Fortune 500 companies on a live stage – priceless. Only one problem that stood out in my mind – none of them represented completed successes.

• Andreas Arrigoni, Head of Collaboration Services (interesting title) of Swisscom, claimed they have 17,000 employees and 500 users on OCS R2 today. That’s not even 3% of the company.
• Gary Grissum, VP of Telecom from BNSF Railway, reported out of 40,000 employees, they now have 700 users on OCS R2; 4.5%
• Michael Browne, VP IT Client Services of Sprint reported 50,000 employees and never mentioned how many were on OCS.
• Randy Schrock, VP of BT N. America reported 30,000 users on OCS, but never suggested they replaced any PBX systems.

Despite my concerns, these are clearly impressive wins for Microsoft and made me realize that the amount of planning associated with an OCS implementation could be rather significant. From a PBX perspective, sites generally get treated independently with interconnections over IP or TIE trunks. But these guests got me wondering how OCS behaves when users move their laptops from site to site. OCS is not location aware, so it would have no way to route calls based on current location of the user.

OCS Can be a Complete PBX Replacement

There is no question in my mind that OCS is a viable solution today for presence, IM, and video collaboration. In some cases, it might even be suitable as a primary PBX alternative. But to come to a stronger conclusion, I have more questions. PBX systems are much more complex than most people realize. With OCS R2, Microsoft was pleased to announce new telephony capabilities such as hunt group support, boss/admin functions, and a new software attendant console. The fact these weren’t in the first release could indicate that a few other obvious items might be missing.

I have lots of questions, particularly around messaging and Exchange integration. How do faxes work? Can you create mailboxes for users that don’t use OCS? Is there a solution for speech recognition? How about text to speech capabilities? Are there any additional features to using Exchange for Voice Mail on an OCS solution versus directly connecting it to a PBX (some vendors support this)? What are the auto-attendant and IVR functions? How about reporting capabilities? What do SIP phones and OCS certified SIP phones differ? Why are the Microsoft Logo’d SIP phones for ResponsePoint unsupported on OCS? Are there any other voice mail options besides Exchange? How do you Integrate an OCS environment with a legacy environment (VPIM?) or a Sametime environment? How are PSTN services integrated into OCS? The evolution from IM to phone calls was pretty simple – Skype, AOL, Yahoo, and Google have all done that – but the evolution from phone calls to a PBX is a much bigger challenge. I have no doubts that it is possible, but really you just added hunt groups?

The other concern I have is the intelligence of the phones. I am not a big fan of SIP based phones as they offer so few features compared to proprietary IP phones. I believe the phone needs to be improved, Gurdeep suggests it should be eliminated and replaced with a more sophisticated UC device AKA the PC. There is a lot of value behind what Gurdeep proposes, a larger screen and a full keyboard can do wonders. The phone is not an intuitive device –we know this because we hear things like “I might lose you when I transfer you because I am new”. OCS is embracing SIP, which means when phones are needed for whatever reason, we are downgrading them.

Proprietary IP PBX phones offer a variety of services and features. ACD users can log in/out of an ACD with a feature button. ACD queue times and other metrics can be displayed on even simple phones or light a key when specific thresholds are exceeded. Keys can be easily set for BLF (busy light field) to indicate when specific users are on the phone or as a key system to indicate line usage/availability. Proprietary phones typically have lots of feature buttons that can be programmed for a variety of tasks such as changing the phone from day to night modes or even simple user-defined speed dials. Another common feature is to set buttons to indicate messages in a departmental voice mail box. The SIP phones on the market technically can do most of these things, but it is usually beyond the user or administrator to set up. 

Also, administration of the proprietary phones is relatively easy. The PBX administrator can add new features and label them on the LCD from a remote location. The changes take place immediately. Most SIP phone deployments don’t offer that – typically administrators need to change the configuration files on a server and ask you to reboot the phone. If no one is there to reboot the phone, changes can’t be implemented. There are ways around this, but common practices results with these limitations.

The benefit of a SIP solution is that it’s more open. Gurdeep points out that competition will force innovation and decrease prices. That is true – but IT and Telecom folks really try to minimize multi-vendor solutions as support costs can skyrocket. When there is one-way audio on an international call, is it the phone configuration, the OCS server, the carrier, the LAN switch, router, or the firewall? Will the Microsoft server administrator be the same person or department as the firewall administrator? IP PBX’s can be pretty complex, and does the OCS alternative represent an easier or more complex solution?

Sometimes, it is nice to have all these devices with the same logo on it (Cisco), sometimes we can optimize around a few vendors (Avaya, Mitel, Nortel), and then the other extreme with Digium or Microsoft where the software and all the hardware components could be from different vendors. There is no right answer for all situations, but end users need to carefully evaluate the trade-offs.