Q&A: Unified Communications Guru Joe Schurman   Joe Schurman has
been working in unified communications (UC) in one way or
another for a dozen years. A Microsoft MVP, Schurman started
Evangelyze Communications, a UC ISV and consultancy. We caught
up with Schurman, author of the book "Microsoft Voice and
Unified Communications" (Addison-Wesley Professional, 2009) to
get the skinny on where Redmond is and where it's going.  How
long have you been working in UC? I started working with unified
communications technologies in 1999 at IBM with IBM Sametime,
focusing on instant messaging and integration with e-mail for
real-time messaging. Starting in 2002, I began to work with
Microsoft in deploying a brand-new enterprise instant messaging
server that was still in early incubation stage, released as
Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2003. Beginning with
large-scale global deployments, I provided technical
architecture and configuration while understanding
organizations' strategy and direction for moving to