Microsoft plans unified communications update
Aiming to make further inroads into business telephony, Microsoft said on Tuesday that it is working on an update to its unified communications software.
Dubbed Office Communications Server 2007 R2, the release is currently in private testing and is slated to be released in February. The product, which will add group chat and screen-sharing technologies, comes roughly a year after Microsoft introduced the first version of its business telephony product.
Microsoft said that about half of Fortune 500 companies have at least one instance of Office Communications Server installed, but the company wouldn't give any sales estimates or say how many people are using the software to handle telephony as opposed to simply for corporate instant messaging.
"Where we are at with Office Communications Server, we have incredible acceptance and penetration from an instant messaging standpoint," Microsoft Business Division President Stephen Elop said in an interview. As for telephony, though he said Microsoft is still in the "early adoption" phase.
Elop declined to offer publicly any sales or unit targets for the new release, but said the software has exceeded internal forecasts so far.
"We still have steps ahead, (but) we're well on that journey," Elop said.
While some products are tougher to launch during tough economic times, Elop said OCS is the kind of product that can sell well into a slower market. In an interview on Friday, Elop said that such tough times play to Microsoft's strengths.
"It's at times like this that some of the most difficult technology decisions can be made," Elop said. "This is a disruptive technology that has value (and) lowers cost."
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
Irony of ironies, the older Nortel rigs run on.... OS/2.
/P
For most corps, Communicator isn't much more than a glorified IM that handily plugs into Outlook/Exchange so you know who's online or busy.
Don't see how it could sell well in a tougher market, though - OCS licensing is as expensive as Hell (for what it does), requires modifying your existing Active Directory schema, and eats far more resources than it really should. It's almost as bad as SharePoint, truth be told.
/P
As for eating resources, the IM portion of OCS is extremely scalable. Hosting Audio/Video conferences are the intensive services - but that is true for any product that has to deal with audio and video.
I've been using it now for three years. It replaced the telephone entirely. All voicemails also show up in email as attachments. I can make calls from *any* computer I'm logged on to. I can control my desk phone remotely. The system integrates with Exchange wondefully. The video features work if you have the bandwidth, but that is true of any video streaming demands on a network.
Could you tell me how you were able to tell that more than 50% of all the corporations in the world met your criteria? What evidence do you have to back up your claim? I'd like to verify it, if you don't mind.
Anyone who treats the AD schema like a mere plaything is usually someone that later folks have to go in and clean up after.
@ Vegaman_Dan: I'm not surprised that you use OCS - you work at Microsoft after all. One would expect MSFT to prefer their own products in-house, no? Come out to the real world sometime though... things look a lot different out here. ;)
"@ Vegaman_Dan: I'm not surprised that you use OCS - you work at Microsoft after all. One would expect MSFT to prefer their own products in-house, no? Come out to the real world sometime though... things look a lot different out here. ;)"
Ah, so you aren't going to back up your comments and claim that more than 50% of all corporations in the world are using Communicator as a glorified IM? You haven't brought forth any of your research of all these companies? I'm somewhat surprised that you won't even back up your own claim. Don't you believe in what you are saying yourself?
Now see, this is typical of your comments and why people don't take you seriously. I asked for evidence to back up your baseless claim and you changed the subject. You had the opportunity to defend yourself and really show that you were honest about your statement- but instead you avoided the issue and derailed any credibility that might have resulted. If you aren't willing to back up your claims with real world evidence, then don't make them in the first place. You're wasting everybody's time.
I've used Communicator at many companies in the past. I am in the real world, and it doesn't take long to see that you're simply just full of it.
FAIL.
http://theucguy.wordpress.com/2008/10/12/microsoft-ocs-2007-r2-new-version/
I have gathered them from diffirent sources and some MVP friends :-)
also my blog contains updated information about Unified communications and all about OCS 2007 issues , integrations , news , know how.
http://theucguy.wordpress.com
Regards
The UC Guy
Re: "Unified Communications + Collaboration = IBM's UCē Strategy"
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/lotus/unified-communications/
See ya at the "New Year's Eve Ball" in 1998 "ISO" Party Style.
See
http://blog.tmcnet.com/the-hyperconnected-enterprise/unified-communications/nortel-embraces-ocs-2007-telephony.asp
- by TV James October 20, 2008 11:18 AM PDT
- Is that why I have to press "7,6" to delete voicemails? Ugh. Nortel's Call Pilot is awful. Too many button presses necessary to do anything.
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