Galdon Data showcases Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging at People-Ready Business event

Local IT services company Galdon Data, one of the first Microsoft partners in South Africa to achieve Microsoft Gold Partner status in the competency Information Worker Solutions, showcased Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging at the People-Ready Business event recently.

The People-Ready business is Microsoft's vision for how software can drive the modern business and is based on Microsoft's belief that people are the ultimate drivers of business success.

Together with its partners, Microsoft offers tools aimed at helping customers empower their most important asset - people - to drive business success.

Galdon Data MD Garry Ackerman says People-Ready is the Microsoft philosophy of business success. "An organisation is best able to grow and succeed when it recognises that people are its most important asset and empowers them with the right tools and technologies to drive the business forward. Microsoft software and solutions can help make your business more people-ready."

Communicating with others and accessing and working with information while away from the desk is improving the work of all types of professionals. Mobile access to information can help people be more efficient and productive and improve customer satisfaction.

"By enhancing your people's ability to find, use and share information, your workers will have more time to spend with customers, partners and suppliers - and more time to solve problems and look for new opportunities," he explains.

Ackerman says integrating voice mail and fax messages with e-mail and calendaring systems offers some valuable benefits, including reduced costs, improved productivity and greater ease of use. "Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging can help deliver these benefits by unifying voice mail and fax traffic with other data items in users' existing inboxes, then making all of these data items available to users in a variety of ways."

By allowing for centralised deployment and management of unified messaging services, Exchange Server 2007 lowers the cost of providing voice mail and fax services while simultaneously delivering services - like voice access to calendar items - that aren't available on other systems.

He says communications and collaboration are critical elements of business success. "Companies that are able to successfully integrate communication and collaboration processes in their business workflows can lower expenses, increase efficiency, and realise the value of information assets they already have."

Microsoft's introduction of unified messaging support in Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 marks the start of the third wave of unified messaging technology: robust, interoperable, server-based tools that integrate with desktop and mobile clients to give information workers access to voice, fax and e-mail data from wherever they are and allows users to use the telephone to manage their e-mail, calendar and personal contacts.

Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging offers five key benefits:

* Less wasted time - People are able to quickly send, receive and find the exact information they need, no matter what form it was delivered in and no matter where they are.
* One inbox - Exchange Server 2007 seamlessly delivers e-mail, voice mail, calendar data, and fax messages into users' inboxes. Users can sort, manage, and act on multiple message types without having to switch between applications or systems.
* Anywhere access - Exchange Unified Messaging delivers access from familiar clients like Microsoft Office Outlook, Outlook Web Access, a variety of mobile devices, and ordinary telephones.
* Reduced costs - Integrated unified messaging systems allow site and server consolidation, reducing the total number of servers required to provide voice mail and fax service. Consolidation can dramatically lower maintenance and upkeep costs, particularly for organisations with remote or branch offices.
* Foundation for unified communications - The combination of e-mail, voice mail, and fax capability can be augmented with presence, instant messaging (IM), and real-time conferencing capability to expand the ways in which users can share information and communicate.

Ackerman says part of this integration process involves integrating different communications methods and systems. "Historically, e-mail (and related data, like calendar, contact, and task data), voice mail, and fax traffic have travelled on separate paths through communications networks, and they have been accessible through separate tools: computers, telephones and fax machines. In the new world of work, employees require easier access to these communication types, leading to the integration of telephony, fax and e-mail capabilities into desktop and mobile clients."

The first set of unified messaging solutions put the emphasis on allowing individual users to originate different kinds of communications traffic, including desktop faxing and e-mail, but lacked an effective set of server-based reception, storage, management and policy control capabilities. As the market matured, unified messaging systems added fax and voice mail capabilities to existing e-mail systems, but these improved products are typically tied to specific proprietary phone systems.

Exchange Unified Messaging is implemented by the Unified Messaging server role of Exchange Server 2007 and the UM server is responsible for providing several key services. Exchange Unified Messaging helps consolidate information in one place: the user's inbox. Voice mail, faxes, e-mail, appointment data and contacts appear in one place, making it easier for users to access, find and act on them.

Furthermore, it helps save time by giving information workers access to the same set of inbox data wherever, and whenever, is most appropriate for them. Because people, workloads and workflows differ, broadening access lets each person tailor their access patterns to best match their needs. This personalisation helps increase individual information worker productivity, at the same time giving users more flexibility in how they choose to work.

He says Unified Messaging can reduce costs in two ways. "It allows consolidation of voice messaging infrastructure; and it takes advantage of existing investment in Exchange servers, training and infrastructure components."

"As part of an overall unified communications strategy, Unified Messaging can be deployed in combination with other technologies, like Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005, to provide voice over IP (VOIP) telephony, call control and instant messaging. Deploying Unified Messaging gives you an immediate way to build new business processes or improve and streamline existing processes, helping to prepare for future updates to your telephony and communications systems," concludes Ackerman.

For more information on Microsoft Unified Communications, contact Galdon on info@Galdon.co.za or call (011) 805 5608.