Office Communications Server goes public with first beta

 

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Posted on 8 Mar 2007 at 16:03

Microsoft has launched the first public beta of its Office Communications Server and Office Communicator 2007 client suite.

The prime mover for the system is to offer a unified communications platform, adapted for technologies, such as VoIP, that responds to the context of the user.

For example, presence features tell everyone on the system the availability of other users as well as the best means to contact them, and simply clicking the name of the user you want to contact will route a call to their office, mobile, voicemail, or whichever means of communication is most effective.

It also offers a range of collaboration features, from audio and video conferencing remote participants, to document sharing over the Internet.

The real benefit, however, is that a user's communications travel, keeping the same office phone numbers and other corporate communications tools with them, simplifying and lowering support costs.

It is not a walled garden, either. Microsoft is making the interoperability specifications for both server and client platforms available to partners so that they can hook PBX products into the system using Session Initiation Protocol.

The big hook for customers is cost savings. Microsoft claims the interoperability of Office Communications Server means you don't have to rip up existing telephony systems and start again. The other upside is the broad enabling of cheap VoIP calls and the prospect that all the functionality of hardware PBX systems will be offered in software before long.

In a keynote address at VoiceCon Spring 2007, Jeff Raikes, president of Microsoft's Business Division, said: 'Software is set to transform business phone systems as profoundly as it has transformed virtually every other form of workplace communication. Over time, the software-based VoIP technology built into Microsoft Office Communications Server and Microsoft Office Communicator will offer so much value and cost savings that it will make the standard telephone look like that old typewriter that's gathering dust in the stockroom.'

Raikes quoted a range of statistics to show that software is king, for getting through to the right person rather than the wrong phone. Gartner reports that as much as 45 per cent of the cost of a new VoIP installation is eaten up in the cost of branded handsets, while Harris Interactive found that two-thirds of business calls go straight to voicemail and that a quarter spend the equivalent of three days each year making calls that aren't answered.

Raikes claimed Office Communications Server is the most important communications tool since Outlook in 1997. 'We're embarking on a software transformation similar to what we saw from the mainframe to the PC,' Raikes said. 'With a shift of this magnitude, there will be tremendous opportunities for our industry partners worldwide.'

Author: Matt Whipp