What is Microsoft Communications Services?

Microsoft Communications Service is a partner-directed, managed, and hosted version of a package of the following Microsoft products: Microsoft Exchange using Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft SharePoint, and Microsoft Office Communications Server (Microsoft Lync Server).

Since November of 2010, I have been part of a year-long review program for Microsoft Communications Services, this time hosted by Alteva LLC.

(A multi-post, ongoing review of Alteva’s service will be forthcoming over the next several months.)

As an additional benefit, Alteva provisioned reviewers with their hosted PBX solution with Polycom desktop phones.

Microsoft Communications Services
For most businesses, the resources required to host Exchange, SharePoint, and Lync internally, would be prohibitive.

For them, Microsoft developed Microsoft Communications Services (MCS) as a means of bringing those products to them. My interest in MCS comes from a desire to use MCS, and indeed, all of Microsoft’s hosted services, to cost-efficiently drive our offerings down-level to smaller companies, and also as a way of getting in the door with larger enterprises.

Implementing MCS
It was a two-phase implementation process for MCS as hosted by Alteva.

1. Alteva did all the backend configuration and sent me an email detailing the steps needed to relegate my email to the hosted account, using Microsoft Office Outlook as the desktop email client. Outlook Web Access (OWA) is also available. A simple download brought me the desktop Lync client as well, though as with OWA, browser-based functionality is available.
2. I was sent a box containing the afore-mentioned Polycom VOIP phone. I unboxed it, connected the power supply to the mains and the Ethernet to a switch here at The Orbiting O’Odua. The phone went through a POST, located the Alteva SIP servers, configured itself, and that was that.

Dead easy.

In use so far
The ubiquity of the Exchange/Outlook combo means that this solution was immediately useful. Offloading management of a company’s Exchange infrastructure is a simple choice to make*.

The same goes for the SharePoint. Even in a small company, collaboration is taking on more importance daily. As a result, using SharePoint makes sense. However, the complexity and skillset required for successful SharePoint implementations almost demands that smaller firms use MSC. For larger firms, having specialized firms manage these services relieves them of the need to deploy resources to SharePoint.

Microsoft Lync is another product that needs highly skilled staff to implement and maintain.

Interim Conclusions
Having all three services delivered and managed by professionals dedicated to just that is certainly forward thinking by Microsoft.

For a lot of VARs, MCS can allow them to extend their reach in different directions either with current clients, or to reach either upwards or downwards in order to get more business.

I have requested, and I am in the midst of being provisioned with additional accounts in order to allow my close staffers the opportunity to collaborate closely with me in bringing you meaningful sue of this service.

Stay tuned.