Cisco 'Unified Communications' announcement

Cisco today announced 'integration' between Live Communication Server and their Cisco Call Manager.  More information here https://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/14028250.htm

Although this looks like Cisco is enabling you to use with Call Manager with LCS you might want to take a deeper look at the integration. What it appears Cisco have done is actually create a similar presence engine and client to LCS and Communicator which then connects into our system.  This means that if you go down the 'Call Manager with LCS' route then you actually get two presence engines and possibly even two presence clients.  My personal feeling is that this is not a situation we should be putting any user in,  what users need is one place to go to for presence information,  and that should be their day to day business tool whether thats Communicator or Outlook.

My recommendation is to wait and see what happens over the next 12 months.  Anyone thinking of going down the Call Manager/Cisco route needs to have a really good look at where they see the PBX,  voice-over-ip and presence going within their company.