By Teresa Carlson, Vice President, Microsoft Federal
In the information age, communications and collaboration technology can be the difference between success and failure on the battlefield. Military leaders need the ability to access and share data in real-time, through a variety methods and devices, in order to make the best decisions in support of mission goals. The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) refers to “information dominance” as an essential component of keeping the United States safe, and that situational awareness comes from connected systems that enable secure, flexible communications. In its Campaign Plan 2010 vision document, DISA states that information dominance can only be achieve if, “enterprise services for command and control, collaboration, information sharing, and computing are provided over a global infrastructure that is assured, reliable, diverse, high capacity, and protected against physical and cyber attack.”
Disconnected systems lead to poor collaboration and delayed response times – costs that DoD can’t afford. About two years ago, DoD Chief Information Officer John Grimes signed a memo advocating for the military to begin testing the use of Internet for all communications. This is the central idea behind Unified Communications (UC), or the creation of connected experiences for all personnel around voice, video, text, Web conferencing, chat, and e-mail. UC integrates real-time communications and enables information to be received in the way that makes the most sense for someone at a particular time. This is obviously crucial for warfighters that are making enormously important decisions based on the best information they have at the time.
UC is something we’re extremely passionate about at Microsoft, especially when it’s impacting the safety of armed forces personnel and American citizens. Just last week we learned that our Office Communications Server 2007 had received Joint Interoperability Test Command (JITC) certification from DISA, which means we’ll be able to field our UC technology to solve DoD communications and collaboration challenges. We’ve already received so much interest from military personnel and we can’t wait to get started. Unified Communications has changed the way large organizations share data, and DISA and DoD have proven once again that they are on the cutting-edge when it comes to deploying information sharing technology in the field.