Seeing The Future, or Hype?

I’ve got a chance to visit the Microsoft Informational on a Wednesday afternoon, skipped a few hours of work to attend a presentation on the Unified Communication. MS apparently has been working on integrating various voice, video and real-time messaging all in one suite over the IP network, combining that the application becomes integrated with the Office software. I believe this gives MS an extra edge over other client-side vendors like Skype or VoIP PABX makers who also offer similar services and vision. Terminal users now have the advantage of presence-awareness to produce more efficient business, working and communicating at the same time, through the same media, under one device, and sharing data all under the same applications. It is a further thinking than simply having unified communication for the sake of wanting to have one. I’ve asked a few program managers afterward on why MS decides to launch their real-time ventures based on Office and not something else like MSN but nobody was able to give me an answer, or I simply didn’t talk to the right biz head.

Having already described the upsides, however, the all-in-one package make the Office/Outlook more complicated to use than they already are. I mean, I rarely use all the prescribed features in MS Word beside “asdfg” and “File/Save as” etc, and I’ve always had to Google to remember what the difference is between POP3 and SMTP. Letting the email sender know whether his/her recipients are currently online or not can also be tricky. What if the mailing addresses simply aren’t instant-message capable (I’m sure they must have thought of that problem)? And even if they are, how much additional benefit can it give me to have that one-click feature than simply going over to open up my MSN, visually scan for the user, pop the window to say hi, and send in the attachment? During the presentation the speaker claimed that we spend 40% (or 60%?) of time tracking down a contact via voice mails on the phone when we could’ve avoided that on the actual work. Maybe I never work in those jobs where you are required to call and track down people all the time, but we can also page, email, IM, or simply run over and the tackle the guy if it must. And if all the above have failed, it simply means the person CHOOSES to be away from his desk and disappears, what else can you do, call the police for MIA? The bottom line is, it is indeed jazzinly nice to be able to work closely with people the way MS wants it, but applications connectivity under Window desktop is already in place, and I feel developers would have to squeeze much harder now to produce a few dimes of convenience, all for what not a diminishing return on the value.

Above are my critics of the event, and I shall never leave out the nice entrée that was also in treat for all the guests who attended. I have to give thanks to Jimmy and Mauli for the referral on this meeting, you guys are pretty cool! Crab cakes, honey chicken skillets, fresh fruit platter with chocolate frost on the corner of each piece, and NICE cookie dipping I can’t even tell what they are!!! I was however, too occupied to enjoy the delicacy to its fullest extent and had to pretend to be all business. Failed to strike a good impression on all the people I’ve talked to, at last God led me to a dev manager whom I actually felt comfortable to challenge the assumptions of the event. He asked me to set up an interview if I like, but so far I’m still waiting, anxiously waiting on what could be a series of changes soon happen in my life, that is, if Jesus chooses to put his piece there to reach out to love more people….