Microsoft's telephony software gains railroad ties

From CNET News.com: Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway is hoping that Microsoft's telephony software can help it replace its aging phone system. But it also hopes the software might help it replace another asset that's getting older: its workforce.

About 40 percent of the company's workers will become eligible for retirement in the next few years. BNSF is hoping that by adding tools like unified communications, it can help attract workers who have grown up with tools like instant messaging and video conferencing.

"We've got to attract and recruit that next generation of workers," said Gary Grissum, BNSF's assistant vice president of telecom. "That's the way they communicate. They expect that same type of communication in a business environment."

In any case, it's a nice win for Microsoft, which was up against competing products from Cisco and IBM that had also been tested by BNSF. For several years now, Microsoft has been trying to expand its corporate presence from the desktop to the phone. The company took its corporate instant messaging product and transformed it into one that can handle phone calls as well.

BNSF has been piloting Microsoft's software with about 700 workers in its tech unit since December. Next month, it plans to expand to 1,000 workers, including its top executives, with plans to go to 15,000 workers by year's end.

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