You’d probably have to be living under a rock not to have seen Microsoft’s VoIP As You Are campaign, pitching unified communications on MS Exchange Server. Maybe you even saw the Unified Communications Launch back in October. (You can catch a sample on YouTube.)

It’s darned impressive, and they’re touting it like it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. I guess it takes someone big like the Redmond folks to bring this to the masses, but it creates a bit of mixed emotions, knowing that Iperia’s been this space for quite a while now.

This isn’t a sour grapes thing for me - Iperia’s not the only company on the block with UC software in its product mix, and it’s not like UC was invented at Iperia’s Billerica headquarters.

In fact, it’s quite the opposite. It’s a pat on the back for a ten-year-old industry in general, and for the companies in particular that broke new technological ground.

And there’s still more to be done. As Gartner notes:

The UC market and its technologies are maturing, but, overall, the market remains at an early stage of maturity, and the adoption of converged solutions remains slow.

After ten years, and with Redmond in the arena, however, something’s gotta give. I, for one, am glad Iperia’s moved beyond just UC applications to full-blown service creation. Sure, applications that tie into the communications infrastructure will always be necessary. But being able to customize solutions on the fly will make it that much easier to stay ahead of Microsoft on the development curve.