Having returned recently from the Enterprise Connect conference in Orlando, it was clear that Unified Communications is a hot topic in many organizations. Microsoft, Cisco, Comcast, Avaya and other industry heavyweights were there in force, as were UC Architects from enterprises around the world. Representatives from many more companies had attended the conference through the video live stream application that Enterprise Connect had developed through a video conference script.
It is estimated that 80% of US companies with more than 500 employees are conducting or planning to conduct a Microsoft Skype for Business trial. 80%! This is huge momentum and based on the large number of Microsoft’s competitors that attended the ConnectSolutions session entitled “Making Skype for Business, Skype for YOUR Business”, Microsoft’s growth in the Enterprise Voice and Online Meeting space has their attention as well.
Given that the vast majority of companies are thinking about deploying SfB, the next question that will likely be on the minds of inquiring UC Architects is going to be How should it be deployed. The deployment options until the recent E5 announcement were fairly well defined:
- Deploy a full SfB system on-premise in the company datacenter
- Deploy a full SfB system in a colocation datacenter
- Pay a managed service provider to host a fully dedicated pool or pools it in their datacenters
- Pay a provider a lower price for a multi-tenant deployment to get Lync or SfB functionality
- Host Instant Messaging and Presence users on Office 365 and use one of the above options for the users who need external conferencing and voice capabilities
With the announcement of Microsoft’s E5 license for Office 365, there is now a full, cloud based, Enterprise Voice option direct from Microsoft. At ConnectSolutions, we have these conversations with clients on a regular basis and go through a detailed discovery conversation to help them make the right choice for their organization. Here are some of the key questions and answers that will help you decide if the new offering is right for you.
- Where is your organization on the Technology adoption life cycle bell curve? If your organization doesn’t do well when the deployment of a new technology has some growing pains, jumping into a new, voice offering in a mult-tenant cloud, will carry more risks. For the “Late Majority” and “Laggards”, it is advisable to allow a new offering like this to go through a couple of upgrade cycles before moving into production. If you fall more into the Innovator to Early Adopter zone of the life cycle, this may not be a major decision factor.
- Do you have plans to integrate Skype for Business into your call center, CRM system or other web-based environments? There are many ways that Unified Communications can help to transform your business when integrated more deeply into your systems and workflows. If past experience is any guide, it will be 18 to 36 months before there are all of the required hooks, APIs, SDKs and other cloud-based infrastructure that will be required to support customization scenarios on Office 365. We often recommend a hosted “Private Cloud” deployment for clients with these requirements.
- Do you have a significant international presence (outside of North America)? It is important to consider regulatory, performance and other factors involved in a global voice rollout. Microsoft will be adding different feature sets per country overtime and you’ll want to be sure you have a sense of the features that are not yet available in the new offering.
- Are you hoping to implement Skype for Business while still taking advantage of existing PBX, IP Phones and 3rd party hardware on premises? There are many integration scenarios that will require a dedicated implementation of Skype for Business.
These four questions are a small subset of the areas we like to delve into prior to making a recommendation on how to proceed. We believe that the new E5 offering is an exciting move for Microsoft and are one of Microsoft’s Cloud Solution Providers that can help clients plan and deploy it successfully. The success of any Skype for Business rollout is highly dependent on proper planning and design that takes these and other factors into consideration.