Tin Cups and String: The Convergent Microsoft UC Blog

I’ve noticed a somewhat disturbing trend in corporate IT over the last few years, which I’ve taken to calling “freeze syndrome”.  All too many organizations large and small seem to be freezing what I consider to be critical/core parts of their IT infrastructure, putting off upgrades for long periods of time.  Are you a frozen organization?  Ask yourself a few questions like these:

• Still running Windows XP with no plans for Windows 7? 
• Still on Office 2000/2003 with no plans to upgrade?
• Still on Exchange 2000/2003? 
• Have you spun up SharePoint (even the free Team sites) in any form?

Please, don’t give me all the justifications for staying in place as comments.  I’ve been doing this for 15 years, and I’ve heard them all.  I get it, there are always reasons NOT to upgrade.  Most come in some form of the following “Big 4″:

1. Application compatibility - the old “it doesn’t work with X” excuse. 
2. We tried it and our users didn’t like it.
3. We don’t have time to train, and it is too different from our current systems.
4. Upgrading is too expensive.

While I can respect and appreciate the validity of these points, continuing to use outdated tools has a cost as well.  In the next year, Microsoft will ship many key products updates, with the user flagship change clearly the release of Office 2010.  While convergent is mostly a UC-focused company, I have been completely amazed by the innovation and feature improvements in the Office 2010 Technical Preview.  Please, take a few minutes to glance over the site http://www.microsoft.com/office/2010/ and review the feature videos.  All the Office products have new and exciting Internet-facing and user-friendly (yes, it is ALL about the end users, people!) features.  They make it easy for teams to collaborate from wherever they are, which is something Convergent, as a growing and largely virtual national organization, can really leverage.

My personal favorite is the new Groove, now called SharePoint workspace 2010, which allows you to have all your SharePoint content sync’d constantly to your laptop.  A close second is the easy web-based sharing of PowerPoint slideshows.  I haven’t even mentioned the Outlook 2010 Conversation view showing an entire thread as one item, or how appointments now have a mini view of your calendar embedded in them so you can see what is happening around the invite time, or how in OneNote you can…ah well, you get the point.

But in order to take advantage of all this stuff, you have to get your infrastructure ready, and get your users and application partners to stay current and embrace change.  So, ramp up.  Think about how these new MS Products can add value to your organization.  Get excited.  Get your teams excited.  Get your users excited.  Start pushing your 3rd-party vendors NOW to get and stay current with MS product releases.  And be ready to go live with Office 2010 when it ships. 

 - Doug