First Meeting for 2009

Hi Everyone,

Our first meeting is scheduled for February 10th from 5:30pm to 7:30pm at the Microsoft offices in Southbank.

As we agreed at our last meeting we have arranged for TANDBERG to present their interoperability solutions for OCS.

We also agreed to set up a central repository for all group wide questions, answers, posts and documents.   We now have this available to the group at www.discussUC.com.  All you will need to do is register and start posting your questions, problems and or suggestions.

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Links:

discussUC Forum: http://www.discussuc.com/

Register: http://www.discussuc.com/index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=registers

OCS Forum: http://www.discussuc.com/index.php?f=59&jfile=viewforum.php&Itemid=87&option=com_jfusion

By using discussUC, the group will be able to:

• track issues
• subscribe to a particular thread
• upload documents
• create polls
• search the forum for specific answers

Also, this forum is accessible to the broader discussUC members which is now at 1000+ members, so our reach when looking for specific answers is to a broader audience.

Microsoft have posted some entertaining videos regarding the R2 release at Youtube.

http://au.youtube.com/profile?user=OCSR2Launch&view=videos

We look forward to seeing you alll on the 10th.

Cheers

Dean Howarth

 

Microsoft unveils deails of Office Communication Server 2007 R2

On the 14th October at VoiceCon in Amsterdam Microsoft demonstrated the new release of Office Communication Server 2007 R2 for the first time to a public audience.

Some of the key new features of R2 that were demonstrated and discussed included:

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.

 

For the full press article and further information got to http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/oct08/10-14OCSR2PR.mspx.

At the inaugural UC User group in Melbourne on the 23^rd October we will try and demonstrate some of these new capabilities.