Comments on: Microsoft Office finds its voice

Company readies public beta test of latest Office Communications Server, which will let users make phone calls from other Office applications.

[Commander_Spock]

"Click on a name, make a call"!

So, just what is new about this particular strategy by Microsoft and this article which went on to further state that "Microsoft will likely be a formidable competitor not only to the traditional telephony players, such as Avaya, but also to its longtime partner and more recent rival Cisco Systems". If there is anything the feeling is that it is Microsoft which should be minding its "sails" from the sea change that will be coming with the launch of IBM's Lotus Notes towards mid-year which also integrates VOIP Technologies from both Avaya and Cisco Systems.

[Lindy01]

Lol my Vulcan brother!!

You are just nuts with your posts! Like one of those crazy homeless people on the street talking about the end times.

I am consultant specializing in MS products mostly AD and Exchange implmentations along with Sharepoint and Live communications server.

Of all the corporations I have worked at consulting medium to large companies the trend is the same. MS backoffice products have completely replaced or mostly replaced Novell Netware and Lotus Notes products and if they have any Mac's the represent less than 1% of the computers at any particular corporation.

In a few places a Notes app or two used by a dozen or less users still exsist and only becaues the particular companies development teams have not gotten the time yet to convert that app over to something else.

I recently took an old compaq server running NT 4.0 and Lotus Notes 5?...and moved the whole server onto a VMWARE slice because the development team could not get to replacing the functionality of that app into a Java based platform for another year. There were 3 users of the Notes app....using a whole server. No one wanted to touch it, because no one at that company new Notes anymore. Now if there is a problem they just restore the virtual HD to when I migrated it.

[smilin:)]

What it means.

You click a name:
From your IM, from your mobile device, from your laptop in an airport, from the to: or from: line in an email you've seen, from a field in your corportations customer built app, from the list of names on your phone's screen.

You make a call:
Your desk phone rings, or your mobile phone, or your pc, or that other PC you're on elsewhere. The call becomes video, voice, or IM depending on the capabilities. You whiteboard, share apps, do panoramic video in a conference room, have your email read to you. The communication reaches you when, where, and how you want it. Join a concall where some participants are using video, some are walking around on a cellphone. No limits. Do it all with secured industry standard protocols.

Cisco is still drooling over remote call control, Avaya is still all excited about voicemail arriving in your email. That "new" stuff is so old it's dusty.