OCS 2007

Microsoft Unleashes More Comprehensive IM Connectivity

Organizations using Office Communications Server 2007 (OCS 2007) have a powerful instant messaging tool with Office Communicator and Communicator Mobile. Federation allows different organizations running OCS to link up so that the users in each entity can see each other’s presence and communicate seamlessly.

As it turns out, not every organization is running OCS 2007. I know, right? There are even a vast number of small and medium businesses with no enterprise instant messaging solution. Go figure. Many organizations rely on free IM options- AIM (AOL Instant Messenger), Windows Live Messenger, Google Talk, etc.

Microsoft had two announcements this week that change the landscape for instant messaging with OCS 2007. First, it released the XMPP gateway for OCS R2.  The new gateway expands the options for IM by enabling connectivity to systems such as Google Talk and Jabber. 

The second announcement was that connectivity with AOL is now included in the licensing price, along with Windows Live, which was announced a few months ago.  That means that OCS 2007 R2 can connect with AIM and Windows Live Messenger accounts without the need to purchase Public IM Connectivity (PIC) licenses.

Organizations that want/need to connect with Yahoo IM accounts will still have to purchase the necessary PIC licenses.

OCS 2007 R2 Adds Ability to Display Caller Name

On our home phones and mobile phones we more or less take it for granted that the Caller ID will display the name of the person or organization calling in addition to the originating phone number. In fact, many people simply refuse to answer calls from “Unknown Caller” and let them go to voicemail by default. With Microsoft Unified Communications and Office Communications Server 2007 this has not been the case.

Thankfully, amid a slew of other recent updates, Microsoft also corrected this glaring error in call management. Mike Stacy, a Director with Evangelyze Communications, illustrates the difference with before and after screen shots in his blog entry on this subject. Stacy also points out some additional steps necessary to ensure the updates work with Office Communicator, and to configure Office Communications Server 2007 to also display caller information on outbound calls.

Microsoft Pulls the Plug on Response Point

A couple of years ago Microsoft created an innovative team with the goal of thinking outside of the normal corporate bureaucracy of Microsoft and coming up with a communications system for SMB’s (small and medium businesses). The result was the Response Point system.

Response Point was a powerful tool, offering SMB’s enterprise-class communications features at a cost-effective price that wouldn’t break an SMB budget. Unfortunately for Response Point they were also aggressivley developing Office Communications Server 2007 and their Unified Communications platform and the two are not compatible with each other. That lack of integration or upgrade path from one to the other is a significant part of why Microsoft has decided to kill Response Point.

SMB’s still need communications though. Joe Schurman, CEO of Evangelyze Communications and author of Microsoft Voice and Unified Communications, wrote a blog post with a sort of post mortem assessment of Response Point and some advice for Microsoft on how to proceed to capture that same SMB market and get them migrated to OCS 2007 and Microsoft UC.

Microsoft and HP Form Unified Communications Alliance

Microsoft has established itself as a leader in the unified communications market, but their focus on the software side of things means that they don’t have an end-to-end solution. The up side for customers is that Microsoft does not lock you into using specific or proprietary hardware. That is what allows Microsoft to run marketing campaigns like “VoIP As You Are”.

The down side is that Microsoft does not provide the desk phones and other related hardware so they have to make sure they are forging alliances with companies that do to ensure that there are quality hardware products that are designed for and certified compatible with Microsoft Office Communications Server and the Microsoft Unified Communications platform.

According to this article from InformationWeek, Microsoft and HP announced a partnership to merge their resources in an effort to build an end-to-end unified communications solution and continue to battle Cisco and IBM for UC market share.

Microsoft OCS 2010 Will Eliminate PBX

If you have been following unified communications and the evolution of Microsoft’s Office Communications Server, it is probably not a surprise to you to learn that Microsoft intends for the next major release of Office Communications Server to entirely eliminate the need for an enterprise to have a PBX for voice communication.

In my recent Reality Check podcast on the SearchUnifiedCommunications site, we talked about whether VoIP is a necessary piece of a unified communications deployment and one of the things that was discussed on the podcast was whether or not organizations still need to invest in a PBX with Microsoft OCS 2007 R2.

The answer right now is ‘it depends’. However, according to a quote pulled from Microsoft documentation and highlighted in a recent blog post, Microsoft is apparently moving from rumor and innuendo and on to talking openly about the strategy of Office Communications Server, the next version will apparently be dubbed ‘OCS 2010′, and the elimination of the PBX from the voice communications infrastructure.

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Defining ROI with UC-B

UC-B is apparently a term coined by Blair Pleasant (and others at UCStrategies.com), President and Principal Analyst for COMMfusion Unified Communications. In this SearchUnifiedCommunications.com article she talks about how communications-enabled business processes (CEBP) will be the driving force behind the success of unified communications.

Pleasant explains that she perceive two types of unified communications: UC-U (user-oriented unified communications) and UC-B (business-oriented unified communications). “UC-U is nice to have, but it’s UC-B where the ROI really comes in,” Pleasant said.

I couldn’t agree more. One of the primary advantages of unified communications is the extensibility of the platform and the ability to create custom communications solutions. Traditionally, businesses have had to conform their business processes to the limited capabilities provided by their communications systems. Now, organizations can design business processes that maximize their efficiency and productivity and develop custom communications solutions that fit their needs.

This article mentions some development that BT has done to customize the functionality of Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 (OCS 2007) for their customers. Evangelyze Communications is a leader in this aream having developed an entire suite of products around the extensibility of OCS 2007 and OCS 2007 R2. SmartChat, SmartVoIP, SmartSIP, and others enable organizations to expand the functionality of Microsoft Unified Communications and leverage ‘UC-B’ to maximize their ROI.

Microsoft and Cisco Make Nice…Again

It is no secret that Microsoft holds a dominant position in the server and desktop OS market as well as the office applications market. However, Microsoft products need networking equipment in order to interconnect and communicate and Cisco has a dominant place in the networking and routing hardware market.

So, when Microsoft and Cisco both jumped into the unified communications arena it made some ripples. The two giants are competing head to head for dominance of the lucrative unified communications market with very different approaches and very different visions of what unified communications actually is.

Microsoft- being Microsoft- approaches unified communications from a software perspective and is working toward a goal of a pure software PBX solution and replacing  the traditional PBX. Cisco, on the other hand- being Cisco- has a more network and IP telephony-centric approach to unified communications. They each approach the market from their traditional strengths.

At one point, they had pledged to agree to disagree, but work together for the common good. That rhetoric lasted about until Microsoft unveiled Office Communications Server 2007 and then the gloves were off as they slammed each other’s products and solutions and went for the proverbial jugular.

In this market though, with this economy, they appear to have a renewed partnership. There is an old Arabic proverb: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”. In this case, Microsoft and Cisco have a common enemy in the economic malaise which makes them friends by association.

In order to boost customer confidence and ensure that enterprises do not delay purchasing decisions waiting for a clear winner, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Cisco CEO John Chambers have vowed to ensure that their competing systems will interoperate and work together.

Driving Business Value With Unified Communications

There is an old saying in sales that customers ‘don’t buy the bacon, they buy the sizzle’. In other words, customers are less interested in the nitty gritty details of what a product is or how it works, and primarily interested in what it will do for them. It’s a sort of ’show me the money’ mentality.

Joe Schurman, Founder and CEO of Evangelyze Communications and author of Microsoft Voice and Unified Communications, talks about this philosophy as it related to unified communications in a recent ITWorld.com article. Schurman writes “The CEO of a company wants to know if he or she is saving money and will be impressed if the solution can integrate into the company’s business strategy…”

Read Driving Business Value with Unified Communications to learn more about the direction of unified communications and how to realize the value of increased efficiency and reduced operating costs rather than focusing on the technology itself.

SmartVoIP Wins 2008 Product of the Year

Microsoft’s Office Communications Server 2007 offers enterprises a cost-effective platform for voice and unified communications that also allows them to retain their existing voice hardware whether it is traditional analog or VoIP. Another advantage that it offers is that, because it is software based, it is also extensible via software. That means that it is easier for enterprises or ISV’s (Independent Software Vendors) to create custom applications that integrate and work with OCS 2007.

Evangelyze Communications has a suite of products that do just that: SmartChat, SmartSearch, and SmartVoIP. Recently SmartVoIP, which was officially launched at VoiceCon in San Francisco this past fall, was named a 2008 Product of the Year by Internet Telephony magazine.  

One of the limitations of OCS 2007 has been the inability to interconnect remote locations. Working with audio gateway vendor NET Quintum, the Evangelyze Communications SmartVoIP solution enables businesses to use a centralized OCS 2007 and connect with Microsoft Response Point systems at remote locations. SmartVoIP enables users to dial each other by extension even at remote locations, eliminates long distance charges, and makes administering the overall solution more efficient than having separate voice systems at each remote site.

OCS 2007 R2 Coming Soon

Microsoft will be rolling out the latest incarnation of Office Communications Server soon. Rather than doing a live event or multiple live events across the country, Microsoft is doing the official unveiling of OCS 2007 R2 on February 3rd via the Web. You can register to attend the virtual event by clicking here.

OCS 2007 R2 has been much anticipated in the unified communications world. With R2, Microsoft adds a significant number of new features and capabilities. New call management features enable a receptionist or executive assistant to filter and route incoming calls. The desktop sharing and collaboration features will work across Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms. Organizations will be able to set up persistent, theme-based group chat rooms for better collaboration and communication between team members. The list goes on.

You can learn more about the upcoming release by visiting the What’s New in Office Communications Server 2007 R2 site. Even better, schedule some time on your calendar for February 3rd and attend the free launch event via the Web.