4-page Case Study - Posted 10/29/2007

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webcall GmbH

IP Telephony Company Staff Each Save 30 Minutes a Day with Unified Communications

Telephony firm webcall, a Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner, offers software-based voice over IP (VoIP) telephony solutions to businesses across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. The organization is among the first to implement a true unified communications infrastructure, rolling out Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, with the goal of marketing the solution to customers. The infrastructure replaces the company’s e-phone VoIP solution and delivers advanced functionality that helps users to switch seamlessly between instant messaging, voice, and video. Direct federation with other businesses promotes active collaboration with customers and partners, and employees are using mobile integration to work more flexibly from outside the office. In addition, multiparty conference features have helped the business cut the need for face-to-face, webcall meetings by 50 percent.

Situation

We are already federated with many companies, including some of our customers. Office Communications Server 2007 makes collaboration with colleagues in different organizations very easy.  Markus P. Keller Chief Executive Officer webcall

Markus P. Keller, Chief Executive Officer, webcall, says, “We knew when we set up webcall that VoIP was the future of business process-oriented telecommunications. Low-cost communications are key for many of our customers, and VoIP is more cost-effective than traditional telephone calls because it usually uses less bandwidth. We have always focused on software-based telephony.”

The customers that webcall serves range from service companies and manufacturing firms, to traditional telecommunications companies responding to the evolving needs of their own customers. The company follows a “use what you sell and sell what you use” policy to provide the best service. From the start, it has acted as a sales partner in the delivery of services based on Microsoft e-phone technology and used the system in-house. Microsoft e-phone is a VoIP solution based on Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) standards—a click-to-call product that assists in desktop-oriented telephony, and integrates with Microsoft Office Outlook®. It runs without the need for a Private Branch Exchange (PBX), which means that calls are connected directly to the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) through a gateway. Because webcall used e-phone in conjunction Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 for instant messaging (IM) and presence awareness, the business and its customers have long been familiar with the benefits of locating and communicating with colleagues in real time.

Clearly, e-phone has streamlined the provision of VoIP services for small to medium-sized customers. But as a cutting-edge company, webcall seeks new opportunities to extend to a larger, enterprise market. webcall wanted to prove to these customers how improved collaboration can transform their business. To do this, the company needed to implement an innovative new communications infrastructure internally, which would not only help it work more closely with partners, but also to create a more flexible workplace for employees.

Solution

The opportunity to meet these goals arose when Microsoft introduced its unified communications infrastructure. In fact, webcall is among the earliest adopters of Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, which offers significant advances on the company’s existing technologies. Keller explains, “Office Communications Server 2007 delivers software-powered VoIP that integrates with organizations’ existing messaging and telephony infrastructures. It also offers multiparty conferencing (audio, video, and Web), and enhanced presence and IM.”

Microsoft unified communications technology helps enterprise users to communicate directly from the applications they use most. People can communicate through a single device, regardless of the type of message being sent—e-mail, voice call, or IM—and contact is initiated through a single address book. Meanwhile, presence alerts notify users of their colleagues’ availability for the conversation.

We’re using Office Communicator Mobile when traveling to and from the office, or visiting our customers or partners in the field. Presence information is extremely useful in these situations.  Markus P. Keller Chief Executive Officer webcall

The Microsoft infrastructure already in place at webcall helped the company to migrate its existing solutions to Office Communications Server 2007 easily. For the time being, employees are using the technology alongside e-phone. Keller says, “The e-phone system still supports some of our applications, but because the solution integrates with Office Communications Server 2007, we can transfer calls seamlessly between the two. In time, we will phase out e-phone completely and run a pure Office Communications Server 2007 environment.”

The new solution takes advantage of Office Communications Server 2007 support for the Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 client and Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile, which runs on Windows Mobile®–powered devices. With these technologies, webcall can give its employees a single, user-friendly interface through which they can communicate whether they are in or out of the office. Components of the webcall unified communications solution also include these Office Communications Server 2007 server roles:

• Quality of Experience Monitoring Server, for finely tuned monitoring of call quality on VoIP calls. With this monitoring, system administrators at webcall can capture rich, real-time information about phone calls.
• Archiving Server, which stores the communications data to the company’s Microsoft SQL Server™ 2005 database, where it can be analyzed in reports.
• Edge Server, which helps to connect the internal infrastructure to other companies through direct federation.
• Conferencing Server, which powers the on-premise Web conferencing features available in Office Communicator 2007 and Microsoft Office Live Meeting clients.
• Mediation Server, which provides interoperability with the conventional phone network, or PSTN, for Office Communications Server 2007. This server also supports communication with PBXs for companies that are deploying VoIP for the first time.

The Mediation Server links to the PSTN through a Dialogic DMG4060 Media Gateway. Dialogic gateways are cost-effective and fully supported enterprise-class media gateways that are designed to work with the Microsoft unified communications infrastructure. To operate the e-phone system and Office Communications Server 2007 simultaneously, an ISDN Access Multiplexer is used between the Dialogic Gateway and the ISDN. This directs incoming calls coming from the PSTN to either system.
 
In addition, webcall now uses Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 with Unified Messaging. The Exchange Server 2007 Unified Messaging server role ensures that voice and e-mail messages, faxes, appointments, and contacts all appear together in the user’s inbox. Keller says, “An exciting new component of Exchange Server 2007 is Outlook Voice Access. This offers a speech-based auto attendant feature, which means that users can access and listen to all their messages, including e-mail, from any telephone.” Integration of Office Communications Server 2007 with Exchange Server 2007 means that users’ address books and corporate directories in the Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 messaging and collaboration client are available in other applications, such as Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access.

Employees at webcall use LG-Nortel USB Phone 8501 handsets at their computers to communicate using VoIP. These easy-to-use devices work seamlessly with Office Communications Server 2007 to help reduce the IT administration costs often associated with managing separate voice systems. Keller says, “The LG-Nortel devices working in conjunction with Office Communications Server 2007 offer an extremely clear voice service.”

Employees can conduct team meetings and invite colleagues or business partners who can link into their meeting from other locations. Employees at webcall use Microsoft RoundTable™ conferencing and collaboration devices—plug-and-play devices that are easy to set up and configure. The RoundTable devices integrate with Office Communications Server 2007, and provide external conference attendees with a 360-degree view of the conference room. They support active speaker detection, which focuses on the current speaker so it’s easy for remote participants to follow the conversation.

Benefits

Office Communications Server 2007 is now used by all 50 webcall employees. Consultants, engineers, developers, project managers, and secretaries are all benefiting from advanced, real-time collaboration. The company can communicate securely with partners through toll-free audio or video calls, or IM. Enhanced mobile communications are helping people to collaborate from any location, while multiparty conferencing has dramatically reduced the need to travel to meetings.

The end-user acceptance is high because Office Communicator 2007 is intuitive. It’s so easy to save time by using the most effective communications method. We estimate each employee saves up to 30 minutes a day.  Markus P. Keller Chief Executive Officer webcall

Federation Supports Partner and Customer Relationships

For webcall, direct federation is one of the most important features of Office Communications Server 2007. It supports the company’s highly customer-oriented approach by making it possible for the organization to communicate in an encrypted and authenticated environment with another company using Office Communications Server 2007. Employees at webcall can develop closer, more direct relationships with federated business partners and customers locally, internationally, and across different time zones. They can communicate using voice, video, and IM, and access presence information within other businesses, which they were unable to do with e-phone. These tools can also help reduce costs because VoIP communications are low cost or free.

“We are already federated with many companies, including some of our customers,” says Keller. “Office Communications Server 2007 makes collaboration with colleagues in different organizations very easy. For example, a conversation with someone at Microsoft typically starts with an e-mail message. But the nine-hour time difference once meant we’d consistently miss each other. Now, I can look at the presence information of my Microsoft colleague contained within the e-mail message to see if they are available to speak immediately. If they are, I can send an IM—also from within the e-mail message—to alert them of my call. I then simply click to call that person.

“At any time during the conversation, I can initiate a multiparty conference. We can also enhance our conference with rich features that allow us to include diagrams and presentations by clicking and dragging them into the frame.”

Mobile Unified Communications Promotes a More Flexible Workplace

Unified communications integrates telephony with other forms of communication to streamline conversations between business users. In particular, webcall employees are taking advantage of the integration of Office Communications Server 2007 with Windows Mobile–powered devices to access all solution features from any location. The look and feel of Office Communicator Mobile is so similar to that of the desktop version that users can work just as efficiently outside the office as they do within it.

“We’re using Office Communicator Mobile when traveling to and from the office, or visiting our customers or partners in the field,” says Keller. “I am a typical webcall employee, often on the road and traveling worldwide. Presence information is extremely useful in these situations. I could be on a bus and still see which of my colleagues are available to take part in a conversation. Or I can send them an IM to warn them that I’m about to call, using functionality that’s as user friendly as if I were at my desk.”

Remote access to unified communications gives people a more flexible working environment because they can collaborate and contact one another easily from different locations. The integration of Office Communications Server 2007 with tools such as Office Communicator Mobile and Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access puts richer communications features at users’ fingertips.

“More employees are working from home or remotely,” says Keller. “With Office Communications Server 2007, they remain fully integrated in the infrastructure wherever they are, with access to voice services, conferencing, and information. Increased flexibility leads to greater productivity because employees can work in the environment they find most comfortable.”

Conferencing Cuts Travel by 20 Percent

Keller explains that the enhanced conferencing features within Office Communications Server 2007 have made a dramatic difference to the way people work. He says, “Office Communications Server 2007 is more powerful than Live Communications Server 2005 and e-phone because the integration with the Microsoft Office system is stronger.” Keller is referring to the fact that users can initiate multiparty conversations from their Office Outlook 2007 contacts list. He says, “They can turn their e-mail or IM conversations into spontaneous, multiparty audio or video conferences and add new members with a simple drag-and-drop operation.”

Office Communications Server 2007 Web conferencing helps users to set up and conduct online meetings and training with individuals or larger groups from their desks. When Office Communicator 2007 or Office Live Meeting are used with RoundTable devices, external conference attendees see all participants within a conference room, as well as rich presentation content.

“Impromptu, easy-to-set-up conferencing within Office Communications Server 2007 has made a big difference to our business,” says Keller. “Most importantly, we have already been able to halve the number of face-to-face meetings we had with our subsidiary in Germany from 24 a year to 12. Overall, we are seeing at least a 20 percent reduction in traveling for meetings with clients or colleagues—it’s far easier now to collaborate across borders through different means of communication.”

Employees Work More Efficiently and Save 125 Hours a Week

Microsoft Office SharePoint® Server 2007 has been integrated with Office Communications Server 2007 at webcall so that employees can share information and collaborate on projects more effectively. Keller says, “We can see project information in one place. And, with Office Communications Server 2007, we can click on the author of a document or the project manager shown within SharePoint Server 2007 and automatically see that person’s presence status or initiate a conversation.”

Although software-based telephony is not new to webcall employees, they are now using features that are far more advanced than those that were available in the company’s previous solution, such as multiparty conferencing and the ability to initiate conversations from within other applications. Yet all users, even newcomers to real-time communications, have adapted quickly to using the technology. “The end-user acceptance is high because Office Communicator 2007 is intuitive. It’s so easy to save time by using the most effective communications method. We estimate each employee saves up to 30 minutes a day,” Keller says. Across 50 employees, this time saving frees up around 125 hours a week to spend on more productive work. “We can escalate conversations from e-mail discussions to voice calls at the click of a mouse, or send an IM during a call to ask a colleague a question. Office Communications Server 2007 combines familiar channels of communication, so collaboration is spontaneous and dynamic.”

Feature-Rich Services to Be Passed to Customers

Around 10 webcall customers are currently running a pilot program for Office Communications Server 2007, with the aim of deploying the technology. As part of its business strategy, webcall is promoting the benefits of the solution to these businesses, supported by its own experience and expertise.

Keller says, “We have already invested in Microsoft unified communications for more than a year. We provide consulting and engineering services to our customers, so they too can achieve maximum benefit from the technology. We understand how easily the solution can fit with their existing telephony systems and can bring a lot of know-how to their implementations.”

For More Information

For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:
http://www.microsoft.com/

For more information about webcall products and services, call or visit the Web site at:
http://www.webcall.ch/

Microsoft Office System

The Microsoft Office system is the business world’s chosen environment for information work, providing the programs, servers, and services that help you succeed by transforming information into impact.

For more information about the Microsoft Office system, go to:
www.microsoft.com/office

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published October 2007