Online VoiceCon was a Virtual Success
It was interesting to see the questions from the “attendees” at our Virtual VoiceCon session last week, in which Sprint’s Dan Dooley, Michael Browne, and I talked about how Sprint enables Unified Communications solutions and our company’s own experiences as a UC user.
To no one’s surprise, most of the questions were directed at Mike, concerning specific aspects of Sprint’s UC deployment. When people grasp the UC concept (which Dan and I talked about), they want to know the details about how to make it work. For that, being able to talk with someone who knows the deployment experience first hand is a huge benefit.
For instance, people wanted to know about how we handle speakerphones in a soft phone environment where people’s “phone” consists of a headset plugged into their PC. Mike assured them that there are good quality, USB-enabled speakerphones available that work well for us at Sprint.
The session attendees also wanted to know how we were able to transform a network of 489 PBXs into a UC environment and how many servers we use. To support the 30,000 Sprint employees that will use UC, we have two Microsoft OCS instances running on a combined total of 40 servers in two redundant sites, one in Kansas City and the other in Dallas.
I’ve blogged about Sprint’s experiences before, and it’s an interesting story. UC has put our company on track to $6 million in savings, thanks to PBX replacement, SIP trunking to replace local circuits, and other evolutionary changes. Obviously, the Virtual VoicCon attendees found it compelling, as some of their other questions (in the limited Q&A time available) focused on our PC configurations relative to soft phones, how we integrate Microsoft OCS and Cisco Call Manager platforms, and our general level of happiness with UC as a PBX replacement. We’re very happy, by the way.
One other question focused on the eventual death of the desk phone, between UC and the maturity of wireless technologies. Dan Dooley’s insightful comment was that the way is already clear technologically for the passing of the desk phone, but now the question is cultural. Considering that an entire generation has grown up using only mobile phones, as those people move into the workplace and crowd out us old-timers, it’s only a matter of time.
Overall, between the high interest in our presentation and the many visitors to the virtual Sprint booth at Virtual VoiceCon, it’s pretty clear that these online events may be the conferences of the future. They’re easier on your feet and your blood pressure, and you can’t beat those travel costs. And of course, it’s great to present at the VoiceCon Virtual Event on UC while actually using your own UC deployment to do it!
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SubscribeTags: mobile integration, SIP trunking, Virtual VoiceCon, VoiceCon
