Is Unity Dead????????????????

I was going to write a blog post about this and maybe I will. Today we had the pleasure of playing with a exchange 2010 server with Unified messaging. It wasn't as feature rich as unity, but I wad pretty dam impressed and felt this was the beginning of the end for unity. Am I saying unity will be wiped out overnight no, but I'm saying that Unifed Messaging is up for grabs and unless Cisco does something far and beyond I can see M$ getting into this game strong.

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chmorin

Just because there is competition for voice mail does not make another unified communications solution dead. Cisco has continued to beat free voicemail solutions for quite some time now, and I find it hard to believe that people will be trading in their perfectly functional cisco equipment for a Microsoft platform anytime soon. I also don't see people looking to Microsoft as a cheap alternative to VoIP voicemail, since Astrix does that just fine and there are loads of it out there for next to nothing.

I guess what I'm saying is Unified Messaging has always been up for grabs. MS joining the game should only liven the field. Which I strongly encourage.

Besides... do I really want to manage a microsoft server in my telcom admin job? I sure don't!

Daniel333

Dead? Nah.

Think to your enteprise envionment. Many are STILL segregated into Network operation and voice even though they are VOIP envionment. PURELY political lines. Think they want to involve the messaging/server teams? Their change control meetings are already out of control.

shodown

Daniel333 wrote: »

Dead? Nah.

Think to your enteprise envionment. Many are STILL segregated into Network operation and voice even though they are VOIP envionment. PURELY political lines. Think they want to involve the messaging/server teams? Their change control meetings are already out of control.

Thanks for the comments. With a lot of network ops I know they are segregated due to the sheer size of some of them. I happen now to work at a partner, so I see quite a few networks on a day to day basis. Most companies are looking to keep cost down and I see this as a way to start. Our sales force will be pushing this hardcore to people who don't have advanced messaging needs. I wrote this post earlier, but I found out today we already have this installed in 2 500 seat sites. I think its up for grabs as I posted earlier, but combined with M$ OCS I can see this eating a chunk away. It doesn't matter I move with the technology.

RTmarc

It's probably not dead but Microsoft has upped the ante with the latest versions of Exchange with regards to UM. Dropping Unity and moving to Exchange UM is a topic of frequent discussion in my organization.

Devilsbane

We use unity where I work, I believe it's running on windows 2000 servers lol

Flyingput

True.
Also IMHO, Cisco UC core lies on CallManager. This is something Cisco must defend. Fortunately, they have been doing a great job. Avaya is far behind, hoho.

RayGMC

IMHO, Unity Connection will dominate the Unified VM market.