Microsoft flexes its OCS muscles

Channel players have claimed the release of Microsoft's Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007 R2 earlier this year could herald the software giant's arrival as a major player in the comms space.

Microsoft first leapt into the voice market with the initial launch of unified communications (UC) suite OCS in October 2007. Industry debate has since raged about whether the software can do the same things as a traditional PBX.

In May Berkshire-based VAR Proximity Communications became one of only a select few UK channel firms to net Microsoft's Voice Ready Partner status. Technical director Roberto Casula was impressed by the software vendor's ambition to play in the upper echelons of the communications market adding: "It certainly could do it, but it is not there yet.

"It has an awfully long way to go in terms of being able to rival the feature sets of the legacy PBX vendors. OCS on top of a traditional PBX is the solution we would deploy."

Gathering momentum

Research house Forrester's 2009 Outlook for UC in Europe report painted an optimistic picture of the market, predicting UC spending across the continent would grow 64 per cent this year to $1.3bn (£771.5m).

The report also claimed Microsoft has "changed the UC game" with the release of OCS 2007 R2. In the report, author Phil Sayer wrote: "With the first release of OCS 2007, Microsoft gave notice to the traditional voice switching vendors that it planned to compete with them for the entire UC market, not just for the desktop user client."

He added that Microsoft's claim, made at the R2 launch, that the next version of the software could render the traditional PBX obsolete, already carried some weight. He claimed he knew of one mid-market firm that had opted for a full OCS deployment.

"For small organisations with fairly basic requirements, OCS may be all you need," said the report. "But for larger organisations with more complex requirements, OCS alone is not yet the answer."

Proximity's director Darren Boyce claimed most enterprises were still unprepared to take a leap of faith and go for a full OCS deployment. But he added that it would not be long before the technology began to gather momentum.

"Five years ago IP telephony was unheard of and people did not want to risk it but today it is the norm," he added.

Last month business ISP Lumison launched OCS as a managed service, with support from BT. The ISP will be hosting the service from its datacentres in the UK and will be selling direct and through a reseller base.

Lumison chief executive Aydin Kurt-Elli said: "We knew UC was going to be a sweet spot for us and that is where OCS came to play. We already have a voice product and did not want another one that was close to the same thing. The integrated, seamless experience of OCS was exactly what we were looking for."

Kurt-Elli claimed he was targeting businesses with between 25 and 150 seats and highlighted the professional services vertical as a potentially fruitful one. He added that the cost of deploying OCS has limited its appeal thus far but that a hosted version could drive SME uptake.

"It has not really taken off for one practical reason: it is quite costly to deploy," he said. "You need six physical servers to deploy OCS fully, but we have slimmed that down to four virtual servers, reducing both the carbon and the cash cost."

Remote working

Analyst Infonetics is another market watcher to recently assert the UC market is in rude health. The firm's UC and IP Contact Centre Market Share and Forecasts report last month claimed the market for unified messaging platforms and communicator software clients grew 16 per cent last year to $523.4m.

The research house predicted the increased prevalence of remote working practices would continue to drive UC growth. It also stated traditional PBX manufacturers would adopt "aggressive bundling" sales strategies to try and keep the threat from Microsoft at bay.

But many channel players report businesses are leery of jettisoning their traditional systems just yet. Proximity's Casula claimed UK firms had a peculiar attachment to their hardware PBXs.

"In the UK we have a very different view of what we expect from a phone system than in North America," he added. "There is still a perception that OCS is less reliable than a hardware platform."

Lumison's Kurt-Elli revealed he was in talks with several systems integrators on investing in managed OCS. Systems integrator involvement could increase enterprise take-up, he added.

"OCS is going to take time to hit the mass market but there is already a significant minority of businesses that can benefit from it," he said. "But businesses are not going to rip out their traditional PBXs yet; if their old systems are robust and scalable, it is difficult to compete with a telephone system that works."