Wednesday, 4 April 2007

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Enters Public Beta

Microsoft has shipped the first public beta of its Office Communications Server 2007 and Officer Communicator client. The launch of the Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007 public beta, allows users to test the software. The move is to compete with other rivals in the voice market...

Microsoft has shipped the first public beta of its Office Communications Server 2007 and Officer Communicator client. The launch of the Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007 public beta, allows users to test the software. The move is to compete with other rivals in the voice market like Cisco and IBM.

The acquisition of Tellme was an initiative directed in the voice market

In a keynote address at VoiceCon Spring 2007, Jeff Raikes, president of Microsoft’s Business Division, had predicted that in three years, the average Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) solution for business will cost half what it does today, as VoIP systems move from hardware to software. Raikes also predicted that in the same time frame, 100 million people—twice the number of current business VoIP users — will have the ability to make phone calls from Microsoft Office applications.

“Software is set to transform business phone systems as profoundly as it has transformed virtually every other form of workplace communication,” Raikes said.

This acquisition could be Microsoft’s way to kick-start operations in the web-based voice-technology arena.

With Office Communications Server the device with which the user directly interacts moves from the telephone to the PC.

As part of the beta release, Microsoft also made available a public beta of Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Speech Server.

OCS is based on Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), will let users instantly launch a phone call from Office 2007 applications, such as Word, Outlook or the Office Communicator, by simply clicking on a highlighted name of another user stored in Active Directory, the company said.