The evolution of UC systems

Unified Communications (UC) systems are centered around collaboration with the Modern Workplace and have been around for years, with the intention of merging chat, conferencing, and telephony into one easy to use system. To accomplish this previously, there was usually a heavy cost burden associated, as well as a major undertaking for the IT department with implementation and support of the system. These systems were historically only deployed in enterprise settings and only being updated every 5-10 years.

The advent of Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) promised that UC could be simplified, requiring less maintenance and automatic updates, allowing the IT department to rest easier at night. In most cases the cost factor was not addressed and the UCaaS systems broke out every piece of the system on a per user per month basis. If you wanted visual voice mail, that would be an additional fee, if you wanted a mobile client (app) that would be an additional fee, etc. These fees would stack up, and over the course of the multi-year contracts could cost as much, if not more than the traditional on-prem setup.

Previously, with Microsoft’s enterprise phone system you would have to be an existing Microsoft 365 customer and piece together a plan from separate SKUs, or upgrade your licensing to an upper tier enterprise level, this was somewhat frustrating for IT users, and the staff in the event that a SKU was left off their user in the admin center.

This year, Microsoft has solved this pain by offering a single voice SKU, Microsoft 365 Business Voice. Microsoft 365 Business Voice is a modern cloud-based telephony solution in Microsoft Teams. Together they deliver an all-in-one communication solution bringing together calling, chat, and meetings into a single application within one simple SKU, giving users a full UCaaS setup at a simple low price point.

Twenty dollars per user per month, gives each organization a cloud-based phone system with:

• Call transfer
• Multi-level auto attendants
• Call queues.

Each user gets:

• 3000 minutes (pooled) from within the United States and Canada
• Dial-in auto conferencing for up to 250 people
• Call from any device using the Teams app (mobile, desktop, or web)

FSi Strategies can help you along the path to Microsoft Business Voice, providing strategic IT Support and technical expertise. FSi Strategies provides strategic IT Support solutions that engage your employees, accelerate productivity and collaboration while optimizing your environment securely. 

Contact us today to get started.
Learn more about Microsoft 365 Business Voice