Microsoft Creates Unified Communications Group

Published: February 1, 2006

by Alex Woodie

Microsoft is merging its Exchange Server unit with its Real Time Collaboration unit into a new business called Unified Communications Group, the software giant announced Monday. Microsoft says it made the move to better serve customers who want a seamless and integrated communications experience encompassing e-mail, voice mail, instant messaging, calendaring, voice over IP (VoIP), and Web conferencing. Vice president Anoop Gupta will lead the new unit.

Gupta explained the reasons behind the creation of the new unit Monday in a Microsoft-sponsored Q&A. "Unified Communications is about breaking down today's 'silo-ed' communications experiences and instead providing rich communication capabilities that allow people, teams, and organizations to communicate simply and effectively while integrating seamlessly with business applications and processes," Gupta says in the interview.

With so many methods of communications today, people need a better way to manage them, Gupta says. For example, there are times when somebody will first call somebody else's office telephone number, then follow up with a call to their cell phone, and finally end up sending them an e-mail, when it should have been clear from calendar information that the person is unreachable at an offsite location, Gupta says.

While the new UCG unit will influence product development down the road, the formation of the new unit won't affect new products already in the pipeline. Gupta says Exchange 12 remains on track to ship in late 2006 or early 2007, and Speech Server 2007 remains on track to ship later this year. The change does nothing to alter the course of the next generation of former RTC group's products, which are included as part of Office 12, which is scheduled to ship in late 2006, around the same time Windows Vista ships.

"The merger brings together key assets related to UCG in a tightly connected team, making it easier to ensure we have well-aligned priorities, an integrated R&D platform, and the best partner ecosystem," Gupta says.

The formation of the UCG as part of Microsoft's Business Division continues a reorganization at Microsoft that began last September (see "Microsoft Reorganizes Ahead of Allchin's Retirement in 2006"). One of the key goals of this reorganization effort is separating the business products from the consumer products. Microsoft Business Division, which is headed up by Jeff Raikes, is responsible for desktop applications, servers, software services, and solutions. The other two divisions created last year include the Platform Products & Services Division and the Entertainment & Devices Division.