With the introduction of OCS
2007, Microsoft has taken this to the next level, taking call quality out of the hardware and
developing Quality of Experience (QoE). We will discuss this later in the book.
NOTE
There are many ways to handle QoS, and various protocols are involved,
which can often be further complicated depending on the hardware vendor
involved. Unfortunately, an in-depth explanation of QoS is far beyond the
scope of this book. However, if you are interested in learning more about
QoS, consider picking up Administering QoS in Cisco IP Networks by Michael
Flannagan (Syngress).
Understanding Presence
For many people, the concept of presence can be a little hard to grasp at fi rst. Microsoft defi nes
presence as ???the ability of a person or device to communicate with others and to display levels
of availability.??? Quite often, when speaking with customers about presence, Microsoft assumes
that IM is ???presence.??? However, this just isn??™t true. IM is simply another way to represent presence.
Many things make up presence, but any one item alone is not presence. Before we discuss what
presence is, what it represents, and what it means in terms of business productivity, here is a list
of some of the items that are a piece of the presence ???pie??? but cannot represent presence on
their own:
Unified Communications ??? Chapter 1 11
?– IM
?– E-mail
?– Cell phone
?– Desk phone
?– Physical locale
In a face-to-face conversation, this is usually the point where people begin to look at me
as though I??™ve gone completely insane and should be rushed to the nearest medical facility.
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