Entries tagged with office communications server 2007 - TechNet Edge

The Power of Software-based Communication

Alan Le Marquand — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:49:00 GMT

Today, the means for communicating with one another anytime, anywhere, and from a variety of devices has become limitless with the use of Instant Messaging, VoIP, webcams, text, and email. Could an Enterprise provide these communication tools to its employees and benefit from this culture change?

Unified Communications (UC) provides the capabilities that enable employees to communicate quickly and effectively using software they are familiar with. UC integrates e-mail, telephony, instant messaging, voice mail, calendaring, and audio/video/Web conferencing, and delivers them to different clients securely. For example, employees located across offices in Europe, Asia, and the United States can communicate with one another instantly using Instant Message, video conference, or by initiating a VoIP call.

The Microsoft UC solution is cornered around Exchange Server and Office Communications Server 2007 R2 at the backend; and Office Communicator 2007 R2, Office Live Meeting, and Outlook on the front-end client. So what do these products provide?

Office Communications Server 2007 R2 provides a number of communication services for the clients, such as:

Software-based Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)
Audio, Video, and Web Conferencing functionality
IM and Presence
Group Chat
Public IM Connectivity
Mobility

These services can be accessed using Office Communicator 2007 R2, which can be installed on a PC and a Windows Mobile Device. Office Communicator provides a web client for use in places like airports and internet cafes, as well as an IP phone version for those who prefer the traditional handset form factor. On the PC, phone or web client, Office Communicator allows you to send an instant message within your own organization or over the public IM network; whereas, the PC client allows you to communicate in-person with VoIP calls and video conference. Communicator supports a wide range of devices for making audio and video calls, either as a one-to-one connection or as group meetings.

This communication goes beyond voice and video. With unified conferencing you can share and collaborate with people located in the next office, on a different floor, in another building, or even in other countries. By using unified conferencing, colleagues can meet and share information such as files and presentations quickly and regularly, regardless of their location.

UC integration goes beyond Communicator with integration into Microsoft Outlook. With Exchange 2010 at the backend, you can integrate e-mail, fax, and voice mail into a single inbox. This integration goes beyond voice mail as it allows you to initiate communication from an e-mail and view presence information about the intended receiver.

Mobility is a key requirement of a truly unified communication solution. Both desktop clients, Office Communicator 2007 R2 and Outlook 2007, are completely mobile and only require an Internet connection to access the backend and thus provide the full capabilities mentioned above while away from the office. With Office Communicator Mobile 2007 R2 you get the familiar Communicator interface on your mobile device, and while not the rich experience of its desktop equivalent, you are still able access to your contact lists, see presence information and Instant Message contact over both public and private IM networks.

By implementing this simplified communications solution, an organization can realize both cost savings and environmental benefits. These resources provide additional details on these benefits:

Communication technology has advanced greatly over recent years and the organizations who have embraced these advances are now finding that they have a number of different systems to manage and maintain, and often from different interfaces. A Unified Communication solution based on OCS 2007 R2 and Exchange Server can integrate with or replace existing systems, providing a single point of management and reducing the communication complexity in your organization.

Voice and Video Interoperability and third-party device programs

Erin Briney — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:45:00 GMT

In this TechEd EMEA session, Francois Doremieux and Jingyu Qui review the latest updates on the UC Open Interoperability Program - including ongoing interoperability efforts with the major Gateway, IP-PBX, Sip Trunking and Video Conference vendors.

What's New in Conferencing with Office Communications Server 2007 R2

Erin Briney — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:20:00 GMT

In this TechEd EMEA session, Renee Lo presents improvements in audio, video and web conferencing with Office Communications Server 2007 R2. See how the new on-premise audio conferencing functionality will help your organization save money.

Interview with Dwight Jesseman (University of Florida) on OCS 2007R2

Harold Wong — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 04:42:00 GMT

Harold chats with Dwight Jesseman, University of Florida, on what they are trying to do with Office Communications Server 2007 R2 - especially around video conferencing and integration with their existing Polycom system.

Chat with Rui Maximo at Tech Ed 2009 on OCS 2007R2 and Virtualization

Harold Wong — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 04:42:00 GMT

Harold chats with Rui Maximo (Technical Writer for OCS) on OCS 2007 R2 and what he does as a Technical Writer. Rui also discusses Virtualization support for OCS.

MVP Interview with Russ Kirk at Tech Ed 2009

Harold Wong — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 06:12:00 GMT

Short interview with Russ Kirk, MVP and Consultant with Grey Convergence out of the UK. Russ shares some of his thoughts on OCS - especially around Voice. He also shares a few suggestions that he believes would make OCS even better.

MVP Interview with Robert Ross at Tech Ed 2009

Harold Wong — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 06:12:00 GMT

Short interview with Robert Ross, MVP and Solution Architect with EMC out of San Francisco, California. Robert shares some of his thoughts on OCS and what features customers are deploying. He also shares a few suggestions that he believes would make OCS even better.

Unified Communications Under the Hood for Developers

Erin Briney — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 09:46:00 GMT

Using Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007 R2 and Exchange Server 2007, Microsoft is providing the infrastructure for enterprise communications including email, voice, video, IM, conferencing and unified messaging. Building on this infrastructure, the UC Platform APIs provide a platform you can leverage to build communications into your solutions - providing incredible value for your users. In this video session from TechEd EMEA, you will be provided with everything you need to know to be successful with this new platform. A quick overview of the server infrastructure of OCS 2007 R2 and Exchange 2007 is provided followed by information on how you can integrate those servers into your overall developer platform. Take an under the hood look at UC and get everything you need to start creating killer applications with communication!

What is New in Administration and Management with Office Communications Server 2007 R2

Adam Bomb — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 07:01:00 GMT

Episode 6 in a series

I wrapped up my interviews with the OCS team with Anand Lakshminarayanan, who showed me some of the IT Admin specific features in OCS R2.

Color me impressed.

Need to plan an OCS architecture? How about a wizard that you provide with your locations, users, and feature requirements and it spits out a detailed Visio style architecture for you, including recommendations for number of servers and locations. Bandwidth requirements too!

Need to expose your OCS environment to the internet? No problem. Here's a wizard that will list out all the ports, IPs, etc. that you need to open. Just print it out and hand it off to your firewall guy.

Reports? Lots of reports added in R2. breakdowns of voice and video activity. Performance reports, including types of devices and how they're performing.

He also talks about virtualizing, scaling and managing OCS R2.

If you’re interested in learning more about Office Communications Server 2007 R2, go ahead and sign-up for their FREE virtual event and evaluation bits here: www.microsoft.com/communicationsserver

What's New in Mobility and Anywhere Access with Office Communications Server 2007 R2

Adam Bomb — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 07:01:00 GMT

Avi Sagiv is a Product Manager in OCS, and I met with him to talk about the new OCS features coming for mobile phone users. When OCS talks about mobility, they aren't just talking about Windows Mobile devices - they have a java client for phones that Avi showed me as well.

There have been some significant enhancements to performance and functionality of OCS on mobile devices, and OCS has some great features that make mobile computing really viable - like the ability to start a conference call with one press - the OCS server actually calls you back, as well as your other conference attendees, so you don't pay any outgoing minutes.

If you’re interested in learning more about Office Communications Server 2007 R2, go ahead and sign-up for their FREE virtual event and evaluation bits here: www.microsoft.com/communicationsserver

What's New in Group Chat with Office Communications Server 2007 R2

Adam Bomb — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 07:01:00 GMT

Part 4 in a series

Who? Ashima Singhal and Bob Serr.

What? Group Chat - new functionality coming in OCS 2007 R2. Once I saw it, I got it. Group Chat gives you the ability to set up multiple chat rooms, and subscribe to those rooms. You can set up key word notifiers to let you know when certain topics come up. All chat transcripts are archived and indexed, so you can go back and search for previous discussions. All this, plus a lot more. Bob and Ashima give a great demo of all the things you can do with Group Chat.

If you’re interested in learning more about Office Communications Server 2007 R2, go ahead and sign-up for their FREE virtual event and evaluation bits here: www.microsoft.com/communicationsserver

What's New in Office Communicator, Communicator Web Access, and Devices with OCS 2007 R2

Adam Bomb — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 07:01:00 GMT

Part 3 in a Series

This time, my visit to the OCS team lead me to Huat Chye Lim and Ashima Singhal. Huat shows us some device integration with an IP phone, showing how presence and OCS contact details can be leveraged on devices other than a PC. Ashima shows off some of the functionality available in Communicator Web Access - the browser based Office Communicator client - the look and functionality is almost identical to that of the desktop client.

They also show us some of the new features in the client, like one click desktop sharing and video conferencing - more cool stuff coming in R2!

If you haven't already, go ahead and sign up for the FREE virtual event and evaluation bits here: http://www.microsoft.com/communicationsserver

What's New in Conferencing with Office Communications Server 2007 R2

Adam Bomb — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 17:24:00 GMT

Part 2 of 6 on new OCS features!

Renee Lo is definitely the gadget girl of the OCS Product Managers that I met with - a quick look around her office showed the latest slick HTC Smartphone, a Roundtable and big video conferencing TV. Why does she need all that stuff? She's looks after the conferencing features in OCS, and in this interview she gave me a tour of some of the new features. Like the ability to start a conference on your cell phone, then seamlessly move it to your office phone when you get in. She showed the new video conferencing performance, and the ability to change resolutions on the fly during a video conference.

She also spent some time at the whiteboard drawing out the OCS architecture, showing how your connection, via corp LAN, pots, internet/etc., works, and the workflow of a con call initiated in OCS. Cool stuff!
To learn more about Office Communications Server 2007 R2, go ahead and sign-up for their FREE virtual event and evaluation bits here: http://www.microsoft.com/communicationsserver

OCS and the new Attendant

Adam Bomb — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 07:01:00 GMT

I've recently been spending a lot of time with the Office Communications Server (OCS) team, and they've shown off some of the new features coming in their next release, OCS R2.
In this interview, I met Jamie Stark, a Technical Product Manager that looks after VoIP in OCS. In this interview, we talked a little about integrating OCS into existing telecoms, and Jamie walked me through the new Attendant Console in OCS R2. If you've got a busy receptionist that spends a lot of time taking and routing calls, the Attendant Console was built with that job in mind.
*This is the first in a series of visits I made to the OCS team, so keep checking back as we unveil more cool new features*
Check it out!
The OCS team also wanted me to remind you that to learn more about Office Communications Server 2007 R2, go ahead and sign-up for their FREE virtual event and evaluation bits here: http://www.microsoft.com/communicationsserver

World Cup Demo Winner

Joey Snow — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 15:57:00 GMT

Every year there is an internal competition where Microsoft employees around the world compete to see who has the best demos to showcase various products and solutions. In this video we bring you the winners of the business category Victoria Yates and Rachna Patel (there are also entries submitted for the consumer category). Take a look at this highlight of Unified Communications technologies including Exchange Server 2007 and Office Communicator 2007.

How OCS 2007 solved environmental challenges and created new customer experiences.

Damien Caro — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 06:34:00 GMT

Brepols Publishers, a small Belgium company of 30 employees has deployed Office Communications Server 2007. Wim Borgers explains in this video how OCS 2007 helped them overcome the following challenges :

- Be environmentally friendly and implement a modern phone solution that is compatible with buildings from the 16th century, protected by the UNESCO.

- Create exceptional user experience routing incoming calls to different Exchange 2007 auto-attendant based on source number identification.

- Have a robust solution ready for the future of enterprise communications.

Tech Ed 2008 Interview with Sean Smith (Customer using OCS)

Harold Wong — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:35:00 GMT

Sean Smith, Sr. Network Engineer with CorVel, shares a little bit of his experience on deploying Office Communications Server 2007 at his company.

Tech Ed 2008 Interview with Joe Schurman (MVP)

Harold Wong — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 21:33:00 GMT

In this short interview, Joe talks about some of the testing he has been doing with Office Communications Server 2007 in a Virtualized environment.

Tech Ed 2008 Interview with Ken Ewert (OCS)

Harold Wong — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:45:00 GMT

Ken Ewert talks about Sustained Engineering for Office Communications Server (among other things).

Tech Ed 2008 Interview with Peter Schmatz (OCS)

Harold Wong — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 21:42:00 GMT

Interview with Peter Schmatz (Office Communications Server team). Peter discusses things like the Best Practice Analyzer for OCS and other integration items.

A Conversation About An OCS Deployment

Kevin Remde — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:59:00 GMT

Jacob Thornberry of Brooks Stevens took a few minutes out of his busy day as their lone IT Pro to talk to me about his recent rollout of Office Communications Server 2007. I thought this conversation would benefit anyone who is considering rolling out OCS, and so with Jacob's permission, we recorded our conversation for your benefit.

I recently gave some talks at the Office Connections conference in Orlando, and created a resource document for the attendees, full of OCS-related resources. You can find those resources here.

And here is the book that Jacob mentions in the interview: