I attended two sessions on this, and the more I see, the more I like.
It encompasses most of the features that OCS 2007 Release 2 does (eg. Telephone/IM presence, Click-to-call, Click-to-conference, VC, embedded softphone, etc.) but with a few nice extras too.
Call routing is a good one. Users can add their own home, mobile, other numbers and establish rules on where calls will go. This goes way beyond call forwarding, though.
You can base which phone (if any) based on time of day, your Sametime status, physical location (as documented in Sametime via Location Awareness), and who the calling party is. It can try one phone, then divert to another on no answer, with different diversions based on these rules - almost the same level of functionality as an inbox rule.
The paradigm of having a personal number, that identifies YOU rather than a physical device is also a good one, which I can personally resonate with today. As my co-bloggers are aware, I ran out of mobile phone credit (mainly because I have to pay the inbound portion of international calls to the US). Sure, I could have purchased a pre-paid SIM, but then I'd have to tell everyone the new number.
With SUT (Sametime Unified Telephony), I could get a prepaid SIM here, and set that phone up in Sametime. A UK caller would call my same number, which would come in to ISB, hop over the WAN link as a VoIP and have a Mars USA PBX make a domestic call to me. So far, so good. UK calleds can reach me at my own number.
BUT.... If I wanted to make an outbound call to the UK, I can initiate that through Sametime too. Mars USA would initiate a call to my mobile, then it would route it over the WAN and the UK PBX initiates the other side of the call. Therefore, at each point it's a local call - even for outbound calls that (in theory) originate from my mobile.
Now, because the ST server is brokering the call, that means I can now seamlessly transfer the call between my mobile, desk phone, hotel phone, IP softphone, etc without hanging up the call, and the other party would never know.
The main strength of SUT over OCS is that the end user has full control over their personal call rules.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
1 comment:
I think this could get really powerful in reducing cost. As I blogged at MMS using the softphone was significantly saving expenses, by allowing me to call people as if from my desk in ISW (as it was then). This sounds like a great next step, certainly allows us to save Hotel phone fees and international fees. Anything that is simple for the user is going to get used naturally, one for the sandpit environment I think ;-)
Post a Comment