Despite vendor assurances, you can not integrate every unified communication component with every other component.
Presence status = Busy (trying to cram a square peg into a round hole)
According to the "integration myth" espoused in the glossy marketing brochures and "product roadmaps" everything integrates with everything else:
- All room-based video conferencing endpoints integrate with all desktop videoconferencing software.
- Desktop software vendors integrate with any existing PBX.
- Mobile phones work with everything.
Unfortunately, this is only a "myth" – and I use this term in the colloquially manner to refer to a false story.
And the story is often a sad one because customers make choices without knowing how the story ends.
Customers, who adopt a "best of breed" mentality, choose individual components and then expect to combine these components in order to achieve a superset of features. Visually they expect…
Unfortunately, because not everything can be integrated with everything else, the reality is often "swiss cheese":
Instead of a superset of the combined features, they either get nothing to work or they get most of the combined features to work but several core features may fail to work (the "holes").
And these "holes" of missing functionality that appear in integrated scenarios can turn into "black holes" sucking up hours and hours of troubleshooting time and effort trying to get the integrated solution to perform as per the "integration myth", a story which often does not have a happy ending.
As a concrete example, take Microsoft OCS 2007 R2 integrated with a Nortel CS1000 (aka "Converged Office").
Here are the user-accessible call control options provided natively by OCS 2007 R2:
And now here are the call control options exposed on the same dialog box after the integration:
After integration the Nortel CS1000 can arguably still implement many of the features no longer under user control (for instance team calling-like functionality via hunt groups) however these are no longer easily controlled and manager by end users.
There is nothing wrong with integrating Microsoft OCS and a Nortel CS1000. In fact the integration (although unsupported by Microsoft with R2) provides remote call control and telephony presence. What is wrong is that the "integration myth" suggests mashing up various UC components will yield a superset of features.
As PBX vendors add more desktop features, desktop vendors add more PBX features and mobile vendors (aka RIM) suggest all you need is a mobile phone, the effort these vendors spend on integration code diminishes.
From a desktop perspective, as Microsoft Office Communication Server itself includes more and more native features, the number of supported and certified integrations shrinks. As time goes by, OCS supports less integrations with traditional telecom gear.
As frustrating as this may be, it actually does makes sense.
Because OCS 2007 R1 did not include "meet me" audio conferencing capabilities, Microsoft pursued an integration with the Nortel Multimedia Conferencing (NMC) bridge to provide this functionality. When OCS 2007 R2 was released with its included "meet me" capabilities – it no longer supported the integration with NMC.
When OCS "wave 14" is released in late 2010, its goal is to include enough of the standard pbx features so as to no longer require integration with a pbx.
Turning our attention towards RIM, while they implemented a BlackBerry Office Communicator client for OCS 2007 R1 they appear in no hurry to release a client that supports OCS 23007 R2. Why would they? RIM would prefer you adopt their Mobile Voice Server as more of a core element. And until RIM itself provides all of the pbx call control features required, they are more interested in integrating MVS with traditional pbxs then they are in enabling OC on mobile devices.
Here's the central point. The philosophy of unified communications, at its core, values integration above feature count or feature depth.
Accordingly, "best of breed" and "unified communications" are diametrically opposed approaches.
A best of breed approach drove organizations to purchase stand-alone video conferencing units, many of which still gather dust in the corner of meeting rooms. Unified communications suggests that a desktop videoconferencing system with integrated audio and tied into presence, instant messaging and calendaring may not only be "good enough" but may in fact bet better. Better because it may lead to improved simplicity, efficiency and effectiveness. In short, it might get used and actually save a company money.
The best unified communication solutions deliver key business functions using the fewest number of vendors. Adding more vendors to the mix often reduces the number of accessible or supportable end-user features.
The "integration myth" would have you believe everything can be integrated with everything else. Remember this is only a myth. Think medusa: snakes for hair, a face that turns people to stone. Reality is not always pretty.
As you plan a UC integration, figure out your key business requirements, figure out the fewest number of products that provide the key features and make sure you are working with someone who has combined the selected products before. Document, plan, pilot.
Presence status = available (Content playing with round pegs and round holes)
Have you tried to force a square UC peg into a round hole? Did perseverance or frustration win out? I'd love to hear your stories.
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