"With software at the center, innovation in this industry has accelerated, leading to the introduction of new capabilities that leapfrog traditional hardware-bound communications systems," Pall said.
Forrester Research estimates that the market for unified communications software will grow to $14.5 billion by 2015.*
Earlier this week, 12 Microsoft partners also announced new products and services that enhance Communications Server "14." These include low-cost Internet protocol (IP) phones, branch office survivability solutions, call accounting software, and enhanced 911 solutions that augment Microsoft's enterprise telephony offering.
These partners join a broad ecosystem of thousands of partners delivering solutions for Microsoft's unified communications software, including applications, voice services, session initiation protocol (SIP) trunking, and interoperable private branch exchanges (PBXs) and gateways.
"Customers and partners have flocked to Office Communications Server since its introduction in October 2007, because businesses are quickly seeing cost savings and productivity gains," Pall said.