Microsoft introduces unified communications to reduce costs and improve business results

To that effect, Microsoft has appointed BEAT, a certified Gold Partner of Microsoft, as the first Voice Specialized Partner in Jordan.

Through its partnership with Microsoft, BEAT, a Jordanian technology and software development company, will offer a wide range of products and solutions to Jordanian companies built on Microsoft unified communications technologies, which provide them with the opportunity to unify communications with their business applications and processes, and streamline communications between people and organizations, bringing together e-mail, calendars, voice mail, instant messaging and presence, audio, video and web conferencing, in addition to increasing the operational efficiency of these companies and leveraging their existing investment.

Microsoft unified communications can bring nearly immediate cost savings to organizations by avoiding travel and training expenses through the use of Web and videoconferencing. Expensive communications costs, such as long distance charges can be reduced by using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and by consolidating communications infrastructure.

Additionally, using collaborative technologies, such as instant messaging and presence awareness, soft telephony client and videoconferencing can allow organizations to expand operations and geographic reach without incurring the costs of additional office infrastructure.

Zeid Shubailat, Country Manager of Microsoft Jordan stated,

"With the economic crisis affecting Jordan and the region as a whole, corporations are taking a hard look at cutting costs, while maintaining their competitive advantage, by transforming ideas into value, and delivering that value to their customers. Microsoft unified communications solutions can help these organizations reduce travel costs up to 40% and cut costs of telephony, voice mail and audio-conferencing by 10 percent to 40 percent."

He added, "As Microsoft continues to remain at the forefront of the unified communications vision, we recognize the important role BEAT plays in bringing this concept to life in Jordan to help address real-world technology issues."

Commenting on this partnership agreement, BEAT's CEO Mohab Murrar said: "I believe that 2009 is a year where technology will step up to the challenge and show how it can make organizations more efficient. Cutting costs through these challenging times revolves around doing more with less, thus depending on the "right" solutions for your business to achieve efficiency while keeping the users sane and intact in the process."

Murrar added that the 'Office Communication Server' (OCS) offered by Microsoft allows users to communicate in the utmost convenient and effective way through video, voice, texting, presence, and instant messaging. He further explained that, with a clear unified communications strategy in place, businesses that deploy Office Communications Server will be positioned to reap direct benefits of efficient "must-have" features that OCS offers such as audio and video conferencing, desktop sharing, inside the office controlled group chatting and others.

"A good example to showcase the features of OCS for users constantly on the move and outside the office is the system's ability to route an incoming internal telephone call to your laptop wherever you are around the world, and the cost would be zero through the utilization of the web and voice or video over the Internet."

In line with Microsoft's efforts to help organizations overcome the challenges of the current global economic crisis, Microsoft recently launched a campaign that helps businesses in Jordan reduce their IT expenditure and overall operating costs, whilst still being able to acquire and deploy the latest IT technologies and software products.