Sonu Aggarwal

Interoperability Scenarios with Voice Partners

2007-12-14T00:28:00Z

In my previous post, I talked about our long term goals for partnering with PBX vendors etc. on Voice – Hardware solutions, Vertical solutions, service providers for key scenarios, and Services. A key near-term need is interoperability with existing PBX infrastructure, and that is where much of our Voice Partner execution has recently focused. Under the umbrella “ Open Interoperability Program ”, this spans 3 key interop scenarios Partners are currently delivering – Media Gateways, Remote Call Control,...(read more)

Microsoft’s Voice Partner Landscape – the “what” and “why”

2007-12-07T03:32:00Z

A common question I get from customers, and those following the MSFT UC space, is: what are MSFT’s goals in partnering with PBX vendors on Voice? (E.g. Om Malik , Blair Pleasant , Jim Burton , and Eileen Brown …) With OCS 2007 and subsequent releases going forward, Microsoft aspires to be able to provide the main voice backbone, as well as the main voice user experience, for its enterprise customers. As hinted by Jeff Raikes’ prediction of 100 million end-users accessing VoIP through Office applications...(read more)

Unified Communications & I

2007-11-30T02:29:00Z

Hi, I’m Sonu Aggarwal, and this is my first post, where I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce myself and the space I’m going to be covering here.

I am currently the Director of Technical Strategy and Partnerships for Unified Communications at Microsoft. I have been involved with the Real-Time Communications space for a long time… I co-invented the first-ever enterprise IM technology in 1996 with classmates from MIT at my first startup Flash Communications, which was acquired by Microsoft to seed its efforts in Real-Time Collaboration; I have been involved with the RTC space almost continuously since. Most recently, as Group Program Manager for the Office Communications Server group, I was responsible for coordinating the roadmap, feature set, and execution for all Server aspects of Office Communications Server 2007. (Further details about my professional background are here.)

In my current role, I lead a team that drives our Partner technical engagement with Microsoft’s Unified Communications Partners, such as Nortel, Cisco, and a large set of other Partners. My blog here will focus on clarifying some common and rather fundamental questions I get from customers and Partners about our Partner direction in this exciting space. Depending on reader interest, we may also broaden into Office Communications Server product line in general.

Meanwhile, keep the discussion coming! I can’t promise an answer to every query right away, but it’ll help identify topics that I ought to shed light on sooner rather than later…

Technorati tags: Unified Communications , Microsoft UC Partners