Unified messaging has arrived – MS Office Communications Server 2007 beta released

by ron on March 29, 2007

OCSMicrosoft have just released the first public beta of Office Communications Server (OCS). Documentation for the product has also been made available.

Office Communications Server 2007 will be the replacement of Live Communications Server 2005.

This product is a major step forward in terms of enabling Unified Communications within your environment. The deep level of integration between Office Communications Server, Exchange, Sharepoint, Office applications, etc, is very impressive.

OCS allows you to integrate: presence information, instant messaging, email, calendars, contacts, voice calls, web conferencing, voice conferencing, video conferencing, file transfers, sharing applications, sharing your desktop, communications with conventional (PSTN) phones, and integration with your traditional PBX phone systems.

For a video overview of the product, you can watch a 4 minute webcast from Microsoft (by Jeff Raikes) which details the vision of the product, and also a 12 minute whiteboard and demo session by the MS Group Product Manager for OCS 2007.

You can also have a look at an image gallery of the product interface. The image gallery has descriptions of the screenshots, explaining the functionality being shown.

This product is set to have a vast positive impact on the way that businesses communicate internally and externally. It has the potential to greatly increase user productivity and reduce overall costs.

The full version of Office Communications Server 2007 is set to be released in mid-2007 (end of Q2).

For more detailed information on OCS 2007, here’s a good article discussing it.


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