Microsoft announces Office Communications Server R2
Almost 12 months to the day after Microsoft launched its realtime messaging, presence and conferencing server, Office Communications Server 2007 (OCS), the company today announced the follow-up release of the product, referred to as "R2".
Currently in private beta testing (and due for public release in February 2009) , OCS R2 enhancements focus largely on telephony-based features, for example enabling individuals to dial into the audio part of a web conference without the need to be online, as well as support for SIP trunking. There is also a strong leaning towards supporting call centre and admininstrative roles within organisations. OCS R2 includes a dedicated "attendant console", which allows individuals to act as delegates so that, for example, a PA or central receptionist would be able to manage incoming calls. In a similar vein, a "response groups" feature enables a single call to be routed to multiple users in turn until it finds someone who is available. The new release also provides support for additional mobile platforms - acknowledging that perhaps some people don't use Window Mobile - and includes two-way "single number reach", which extends the existing support for the use of a single number to ring an individual at all of their locations (office, mobile, home, etc.) at once, so that calls from any of those locations appear to come from that number.
The new version also marks the introduction of the persistent chat technology that came from Microsoft's acquisition of Parlano in October 2007, and provides for more seemless integration with Office Communicator for desktop sharing, as well as support for HD video and improved call monitoring.
This new product release highlights the growing convergence between the historically separate worlds of software and telephony, with vendors on both sides extending their reach into the other market in a bid to deliver collaboration and/or unified communications. From my perspective (which you can see
here), it is becoming increasingly difficult to consider these two vendor markets as distinct, although at the business end the budgets continue to be split in the majority of organisations. What is clear is that communication is a major underpinning of any strategy for improving collaborative working practices, and as organisations' implementations of such practices mature, the technology convergence will only increase.
If you are embarking on a collaboration initiative, you need to consider the role of your telephony infrastructure as part of that initiative. Furthermore, you need to think about the integration that will be necessary to ensure that that you don’t introduce communication stovepipes and bottlenecks that will constrain the value of your collaboration investment. Finally, you should look to vendors who are able to sit on both sides of the collaboration software/telephony divide (our collaboration assessments and vendor comparison tool should help).
You can see our assessment of Microsoft's collaboration portfolio (pre-OCS R2)
here.
Labels: collaboration, Microsoft
