Your Computer Network Solution
Initial impressions of Office Live Communications Server

It has been a while since we explored Microsoft’s Communications Server. Our last venture with it was more than a year ago with Live Communications Server (LCS) 2005. LCS had a lot of promise, but the core functionality primarily provided instant messaging and presence tracking. Taking it beyond those functions required a lot of work and expertise.

The new 2007 R2 product offers everything the 2005 version did plus a lot more. Sure, there is work to be done and it is not an “easy” installation/deployment, but the tools are better and much more thought has gone into this product.

Stepping back a minute, Office Communications Server starts with the concept of presence. Presence is the capability of knowing everything relating to what/when/where regarding all users in the system, from continuously monitoring your calendar for events to knowing if you are on the phone, in a meeting or on the road. With accurate knowledge of that information, you can instantly know how best to communicate with another individual. With a click of a mouse, you can decide to send a quick instant message, e-mail or video chat... or simply know that if you call, your intended party will answer.

A user's status can be any one of the following:

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These colored indicators appear in the Communicator applet (chat) as well as Outlook. So, for instance, when you receive an e-mail from a coworker, you can see right on the email itself if that user is available to take a call or video chat.

One of the compelling features that we are interested in is web conferencing. We do a lot of web demos with clients and prospects, and having the ability to host a Live Meeting web conference would be very valuable to us. We have not yet set that functionality up, but that will be a focus of future review.

Perhaps the greatest improvement with the OCS R2 release is in the area of VOIP integration. You can place telephone calls with a click of a mouse. Calls can be automatically routed to cell phones if presence data shows the user to be out of the office. There is a Windows Mobile client that integrates as well. Single number reach support provides users with a single number regardless of how they communicate. Furthermore, a user can place outbound calls with a cell phone, and caller-ID information will appear to be from the home (business) office.

We are looking forward to adding these new capabilities to our workforce and will share this with you soon.

Please contact Chris Faist, Integrated Computer Systems Support, at chrisf@ics-support.com or 425-284-5410 for further details.