Scoble thinks we're better than Google

Our in-house telephone switchboard is pretty nice, and Scoble compliments us by comparing it to the much more primitive one at Google. Incidentally, he doesn't point this out, but our switchboard is the same one currently shipping in Exchange 2007.  So one quick thing Google could do to improve their experience would be to install a copy of Exchange 2007 with Unified Messaging.

One other thing we did, which unfortunately you can't hear unless you're calling from an internal phone, is we had Bill Gates record the initial prompt, so it sounds like he's answering the phone. [insert joke about how maybe he'll do that more often after he retires]

Published 10 May 07 01:52 by sprague

Comments

# Microsoft has a better switchboard than Google « Scobleizer said on May 10, 2007 5:57 PM:

PingBack from http://scobleizer.com/2007/05/10/microsoft-has-a-better-switchboard-than-google/

# Adam said on May 10, 2007 11:19 PM:

What's the internal extension?  Or do we just dial the same number? I've only used the voice controlled directory when calling from outside.

# Jonathan W. said on May 11, 2007 7:46 AM:

Good to hear MS is chowing down on their own dog-food, so to speak... As for billg answering the phones, i would love to hear that! Or would I have to work there to? :)

# sprague said on May 11, 2007 12:26 PM:

Internally you just dial '0'.  You can hear Bill if you can get to an internal phone, either by working here or visiting.

btw, Scoble says I "run the speech team" which is not quite true.  Fil Alleva, my boss and long-time SR expert, runs everything.  I'm just the "Group Program Manager" -- i.e. I'm in charge of the PMs.

# The New Marketing said on May 11, 2007 5:22 PM:

Robert Scoble praised Microsoft’s telephone switchboard, comparing it with Google’s cumbersome voice...

# Kempton said on May 12, 2007 9:10 AM:

Can someone buy the switchboard as a standalone piece without Exchange?

- Kempton

# sprague said on May 12, 2007 5:11 PM:

Answer to Kempton's question: No, you can't buy just the unified messaging components that make up the switchboard (auto-attendant).  But it wouldn't make sense really anyway, since you'd want to somehow enter all your employees' names into the directory -- and the easiest way to do that is to give them all mailboxes (i.e. what Exchange does).

There are companies who can build you an autoattendant on Microsoft Speech Server.  I would start by looking at http://www.gotspeech.net

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