Author: Joe Schurman
Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional (http://informit.com/aw)
Published: February 2009
ISBN-10: 0-321-57995-X
ISBN-13: 978-0-321-57995-9
Format: Soft cover, 288 pages
Price: $35.99 (hard copy) or $28.79 (eBook), or $47.19 (hard copy book + eBook bundle)
An In-depth Look at Microsoft’s Voice Communication Technologies
“Microsoft Voice and Unified Communications” is the book to turn to in order to keep abreast of Microsoft’s latest range of voice communication technologies. It has been written by Joe Schurman, a five time Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Award winner, who is also an internationally recognized expert in the field of voice and unified communications technologies. Schurman is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Evangelyze Communications (www.evangelyze.net), a Microsoft Certified Voice Specialized Partner (VSP).
His writing goals with “Microsoft Voice and Unified Communications” are two-fold: the first is to provide insights into current voice based communication and collaboration technology, from a Microsoft perspective; and the second goal is to give his readers a glimpse of what they can expect from the “next wave of communications innovation.” But “to understand how Microsoft’s Voice and Unified Communications vision will change the telecommunications industry,” says Schurman, “it’s first important to understand how the telecommunications industry has evolved.” And that is the subject matter of the first chapter of the book. Titled “The Communications Renaissance”, one example of the sorts of topics covered there includes Microsoft’s vision of software powered voice. Schurman explains that “Microsoft has taken the software approach to providing voice and unified communications products instead of relying on hardware devices such as PBX systems and phone devices to make these innovative end-user communication features usable.” He also believes that by “building off Microsoft-designed and industry standards-based protocols and codecs, combined with learning from the mistakes of traditional Telco manufacturers and injecting some of the industry’s top voice and unified communications product specialists, Microsoft has the opportunity to take voice services, applications, and devices to an entirely new level.” This particular chapter is available online for reading from the Web site of the book’s publisher, Addison-Wesley Professional (http://informit.com/aw).
The second chapter of the book investigates consumer voice communications with Windows Live (Windows Live is Microsoft’s technology for communicating and collaborating with others, plus exchanging information, in a number of diverse and innovative ways). If you have not yet had the opportunity to experiment with Windows Live yourself, working through the content of this particular chapter provides you with a practical demonstration of one aspect of it – Windows Live Messenger, which involves a lot more than simply chatting online! Schurman’s definition of Messenger is that of a voice enabled application that “provides features such as Instant Messaging (IM), video, audio, file sharing, desktop sharing, remote computer/desktop support, and VOIP services such as the ability to call to a wire-line phone service such as a home or business analog line, connection to a wireless provider, or direct connection to another Windows Live Messenger or non-Microsoft products such as the Yahoo! Messenger client.” In this chapter, Schurman leads you, step by step, through setting up a Windows Live Messenger account, signing up for VoIP service, adding contacts, and communicating with a contact. The last page or so of this chapter then consists of a brief overview of the Windows Live Call Voice architecture.
The next chapter focuses on small business voice communications with Microsoft Response Point. Response Point is not just one single product or technology but instead a gathering together of software, hardware, and services. It is aimed at that gap in the market between consumers and larger companies, corporations, and enterprises. Schurman explains that the Microsoft CIC (Communications Innovation Center) team “develops the Response Point phone system features and software, partner Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) develop the hardware inclusive of phone system devices, and the Internet Telephony Service Providers (ITSPs) provide the external VoIP calling services.” The fourth chapter of “Microsoft Voice and Unified Communications” is devoted to Enterprise Voice with Microsoft Unified Communications, with emphasis on the following products that are part of the Microsoft Unified Communications platform:
1. Microsoft Office Communications Server
2. Microsoft Office Communicator
3. Microsoft Office Live Meeting
4. Microsoft Exchange Server
The next chapter looks at the current state, as well as the future direction, of the integration of speech recognition with voice and unified communications. Schurman reports that “we are already seeing how speech recognition is changing the way people communicate. This is all made possible by software and solid speech recognition engines that make voice training the process of the past and the configuration of how voice commands are handled seamlessly.” Voice collaboration is the subject of chapter six of the book, and this is where Schurman launches an investigation into connecting various Microsoft Office applications with voice and unified communications products and services. He presents the following compelling argument: “combining Microsoft Office’s required functionality – Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, OneNote meeting notes, Publisher publications, and Outlook e-mail – with voice and unified communications services such as Click-to-Call, Presence, Instant Messaging, voice and videoconferencing, and desktop sharing gives users a powerful and innovative communications platform.”
The next chapter of the book is about customizing voice applications. The different customization approaches are based around the four enterprise voice technologies that were introduced in the fourth chapter of the book, namely, Microsoft Office Communications Server; Microsoft Office Communicator; Microsoft Office Live Meeting; and Microsoft Exchange Server. A short, separate section of this chapter subsequently discusses custom speech development.
Understandably, and especially from a business perspective, the security surrounding voice technology is of vital concern, and this is covered in the eighth chapter of the book. The chapter is divided into two parts, with the first part discussing voice and unified communications security threats, such as SPAM for Instant Messaging (SPIM), spoofing or vishing, and Denial of Service (DOS) attacks. The second part of the chapter deals with possible voice and unified communications security solutions. The second last chapter of “Microsoft Voice and Unified Communications” is concerned with how to sell voice and unified communications products and services, and this is particularly relevant reading for Microsoft partners or Microsoft sales representatives. Schurman warns though that selling these products and services may not be as easy as it first seems (the reasons for his arriving at that conclusion are given in the book). So his intention with this chapter is to provide “the materials necessary to not only sell but also differentiate yourself from other service providers in the market.”
The tenth, and final, chapter of the book is titled “The Virtualization of Voice”. Schurman is of the strong opinion that “the future of voice and unified communications is in virtualization and more importantly, hosted services. With the ability to create virtual PBX systems run on software platforms like Microsoft’s Unified Communications platform and extending voice services and client features through virtual and hosted environments, people, processes, devices, and applications will be connected more than ever.” However Schurman also warns his readers to not get too carried away yet technologically by prefacing the content of this part of his book with the following proviso: “The purpose of this chapter is to show you what is possible – not necessarily supported but possible – with Unified Communications and VoIP technology from Microsoft leveraging technologies such as Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V and Microsoft Virtual PC.”
The book ends with an appendix that contains Schurman’s closing comments along with a list of resources that can be accessed for additional information. Interestingly, a growing trend by some authors of technical books is the use of social networking sites to keep readers of their books informed of latest developments. Schurman is one such author, and he has set up a group for his book on Facebook (the details needed to access this group are contained in the book’s appendix). It is worth adding here too that Schurman himself also readily acknowledges that not everyone learns everything that they need to know professionally by reading books such as his. In fact, some people prefer to gather necessary information using, for example, an audio/visual medium instead. That is why he has created a Webcast, titled the “VoIP Primer”, on his company’s Web site, Evangelyze Communications (www.evangelyze.net). And for more information about the author of “Microsoft Voice and Unified Communications”, visit his own personal Web site located at www.schurman.name.
In conclusion, in the foreword to the book, Gurdeep Singh Pall, Vice President of the Microsoft Unified Communications Group, states that Schurman’s book is “an important book for those interested in connecting the dots between the present and the future in human communications and understanding why things are evolving in that way. Above all, this is a thorough and practical book, useful for those evaluating and planning the next step with Microsoft’s Unified Communications offerings.” If you do take the opportunity to read “Microsoft Voice and Unified Communications”, I’m confident, that like me, you’ll agree that Pall’s words do indeed capture the essence of Schurman’s book. One final point – it is also worth putting aside some time to check out the contents of the Microsoft Unified Communications Web site (www.microsoft.com/uc). When you do, you will find references and links to industry solutions, news and reviews, product trials, technical resources, and much more. This particular Web site also has the potential to save your company or organization significant amounts of money. It is claimed there that by visiting the site you can “see how organizations like yours are reducing travel costs up to 40% and cutting costs of telephony, voice mail, and audio-conferencing by 10% to 40%.”