With the seminars focusing on addressing problems relating to non-converged communication systems, it was clear that many business leaders empathised with the idea that current systems are often the cause of employee stress, unmanageable workloads and the inability to complete tasks due to a lack of real-time communication.
Kevin Goosman, IT Business Service Manager at leading law firm Cobbetts Solicitors, who attended the Birmingham seminar, comments: “LCS 2005 appears to create a truly virtual office environment. By creating real-time visibility of every employee’s availability - internal communications will be so much easier. With webconferencing and call conferencing at the touch of a button, it will also have a positive impact on a company’s financial and human resource management, by significantly reducing both travelling time and costs.
Rajesh Sinha, Technical Director, Bailey Teswaine explains: “Fundamentally, this fully-converged voice and data system will enable employees to work far more effectively. So much time will be saved when trying to track colleagues down. Leaving voicemails, sending texts and emails in an attempt to make contact will no longer be necessary. Working in unison, LCS 2005 and Mitel 3300 ICP will elicit specific details of their presence (ie if they are online, in a meeting or on the phone), so their availability will always be apparent.
Campbell Williams, Head of Solutions Marketing, Mitel Networks, EMEA explains: “The possibility of true voice and data convergence make the combination of LCS 2005 and Mitel 3300 ICP an attractive proposition to business leaders spanning the industrial landscape, a good indication of the potential market available to communication solutions re-sellers. We envisage a huge business opportunity with Microsoft LCS 2005 in conjunction with Mitel's 3300 ICP – given the significant impact it will have on the future of business communications.
“There is very significant demand amongst businesses of all sizes to simplify communication and enable their employees, customers and suppliers to connect to the right people easily. Microsoft and our partners are responding to this demand with products like LCS. This will create an amazing new opportunity that ICT resellers can benefit from over the next few years,’ concludes Neil Lavers, Head of Sales and Marketing, UK RTC Group, Microsoft.