|
OCS 2007 R2 new features (22-Oct-08) |
Microsoft debuts OCS
2007 R2 :
Office
Communications server 2007 is already doing wonder when
it comes to IM, live meeting and AV conferencing (with
all additional concepts like communicator web access,
archiving etc…). If one thing I ever wanted to have
great improvement at, is the voice thing. It’s already
good but somewhere I thought it’s not as great as other
features are. I went through so many sources and
concluded that the next release of OCS (OCS 2007 R2) is
coming up with some real time great improvements and new
features as far as voice support in OCS goes.
Microsoft debuted
OCS 2007 R2 on 14th Oct, 2008. This is an
update to Office Communications Server 2007. I have been
playing around with OCS 2007 at its best. And it has
been the best product I have ever worked after Exchange
versions (Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2007).
It is supposed to
be released in the first quarter of 2009.
As per Stephen Elop,
president of the Microsoft Business Division at
Microsoft, “This new release puts Microsoft on a rapid
path to deliver voice software that does much more than
a network private branch exchange (PBX) and with much
less cost.”
As per Microsoft
Press Release, OCS 2007 R2 is coming up with the
following great features.
Next-Generation
Collaboration
• Dial-in
audioconferencing. Office Communications Server 2007
R2 enables businesses to eliminate costly
audioconferencing services with an on-premise
audioconferencing bridge that is managed by IT as part
of the overall communications infrastructure.
• Desktop sharing. This feature enables users to
seamlessly share their desktop, initiate audio
communications and collaborate with others outside the
organization on PC, Macintosh or Linux platforms through
a Web-based interface.
• Persistent group chat. This enables
geographically dispersed teams to collaborate with each
other by participating in topic-based discussions that
persist over time. This application provides users with
a list of all available chat rooms and topics,
periodically archives discussions in an XML file format
that meets compliance regulations, provides tools to
search the entire history of discussion on a given
topic, and offers filters and alerts to notify someone
of new posts or topics on a particular topic.
Enhanced Voice
and Mobility
• Attendant
console and delegation. This allows receptionists,
team secretaries and others to manage calls and
conferences on behalf of other users, set up workflows
to route calls, and manage higher volumes of incoming
communications through a software-based interface.
• Session Initiation Protocol trunking. This
feature enables businesses to reduce costs by setting up
a direct VoIP connection between an Internet telephony
service provider and Office Communicator 2007 without
requiring on-premise gateways.
• Response group. A workflow design application
manages incoming calls based on user-configured rules
(e.g., round-robin, longest idle, simultaneous),
providing a simple-to-use basic engine for call
treatment, routing and queuing.
• Mobility and single-number reach. This extends
Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile functionality to
Nokia S40, Motorola RAZR, Blackberry and Windows Mobile
platforms, allowing users to communicate using presence,
IM and voice as an extension of their PBX from a unified
client.*
New Developer
Tools for Business Applications
• APIs and
Visual Studio integration. This improves the
efficiency of everyday business processes by enabling
businesses to build communications-enabled applications
and embed communications into business applications.
The above information has been taken from the following
link…
http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2008/oct08/10-14OCSR2PR.mspx
Apart from voice
centric features, OCS 2007 R2 will have ability of
“Group Chat”. “Group Chat” will help geographically
disbursed team to have topic based discussions in a
smart and efficient way. Trust me, its gonna rock! So
many companies are in wait and they would be more than
happy to implement it. Its gonna give additional edge to
the already blooming OCS 2007 market. It’ll help OCS
becoming one of the most critical applications like an
Exchange Server.
Why OCS Admins
will have less chance to fight with the security guys in
any company?
Two great
improvements are expected with OCS 2007 R2.
You can configure
Private IP Address on the external edge of the AV Edge
server, and you don’t need to open media port range
50,000 – 59,999 for the internet users with OCS 2007 R2.
See Jeff’s blog for more information.
OCS 2007 R2
only on 64 bit!
Another interesting
thing is that the OCS 2007 R2 will not support 32 bit
machines. It means you cant install OCS 2007 R2 on a
machine which is 32 bit. I am pretty much sure that the
Messaging Admins would be ready for this as they have
already had experienced it with Exchange 2007. And
moreover this seems to be a good decision in order to
ensure the better performance of OCS 2007, with OCS 2007
R2 getting increased loads in form of new voice features
like dial in conferencing and group chat etc.
What are the
features I am excited about at its best!
Dial-in
conferencing: It was pretty much needed.
Conferencing without this feature was not as meaningful
as it is now. Though you might still stick with the
third party solutions for dial-in conferencing but still
you have it in OCS 2007 R2.
Group Chat:
It’s a real big thing and quite useful. I’ll come up
with a different article all together regarding Group
Chat functionality of OCS 2007 R2.
New Certificate
Wizard: It’ll help us creating certificates in much
easier way and it’s a great help for those fighting to
create certificate request for edge servers and a
communicator Web Access certificate.
New Group Policy
Settings: options to disable IM between clients and
automatic software updates would be the highlights in
new group policy settings. Though there are few more
interesting policies on its way on OCS 2007 R2.
CDR & QOE on the
same server: It’ll be possible to co-locate CDR and
QoE on the same server and these two can share the same
SQL instance with OCS 2007 R2.
Direct voice
mail: You don’t need to call any contact to leave
the voice message. You’ll get option to leave the voice
message directly to any contact without dialing any
number.
Trust me, OCS 2007
R2 is more than the above contents and it’ll be unfolded
with time.
Related Links:
Elan Shudnow on OCS 2007 R2
Jeff Scherz on OCS 2007 R2
What Microsoft Press Release
says!
