Microsoft Office Communication Server 2007
As part of VEN's initiative on Unified Messaging and Converged Networking, we Beta-tested Microsoft Office Communication Server 2007. Our initial interest was in Microsoft VoIP and the abilities of the Office Communication Server VoIP system, although it's ability to sit in between different systems and provide the user a single inteface was what caused more fascination.
Using Office Communicator, the Office Communication Server 2007 provides users the ability to instant message internal users listed on the Active Directory or via Exchange. External Organisations can be brought in to this feature through linking in their Office Communications Server 2007. However, users don't rely on Office Communicator 2007, now the Instant Messaging feature can be started within any Office 2007 application. So when a users is within Powerpoint, she or he can start a chat without opening communicator or any other client.
The presence management on Office Communications Server 2007 alerts other users of when you come online. It also helps in Attendee Invites to Meeting Requests by interrogating Exchange 2007.
To the VoIP. Microsoft Office Communication Server 2007 provides users a softphone. So there is no hardware integration - for the moment. At present, an additional gateway module would be required to breakout a call, and users would not be able to plug in an IP telephone - not without some serious work.
As Sharepoint consultants, we were very pleased to see how the Office Communication Server 2007 allowed users to integrate some of it's functions into the Sharepoint workflow - therefore providing companies additional methods to collaborate through their existing extranet applications.
Together with Live Meeting, Conferencing, tablet support, a complete web-client and other features, this really provides a mid-sized company a central application for all users to collaborate through. All-in-all, this is big step in the right direction from where 2005 left off.
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