Microsoft's New 'Voice Server' Enters Beta

Published: December 13, 2006

by Alex Woodie

Microsoft this week announced the first round of beta testing for Office Communications Server 2007, the new "voice server" that will set the foundation for Microsoft's voice over IP (VoIP) strategy in the years to come. When Communications Server 2007 becomes available next year, it will bring some pretty cool capabilities, such as allowing users to launch a phone call from Office 2007 by clicking on a person's name, assigning a telephone call a "subject," like with e-mail, and accessing e-mail from a telephone.

One of the most exciting areas of IT is the convergence between voice and data networks. The lines between instant messaging (IMing) with a colleague, leaving a voice mail, sending an e-mail, and talking on a regular, VoIP, or mobile phone are rapidly deteriorating with the emergence of new technologies, such as Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), which allows the user to see the availability of other people using SIP-enabled gear.

Microsoft's unified communications strategy, which it shared with us six months ago, is one of the strongest in the IT world, according to Gartner, which ranked Microsoft in the leaders section of its June "Magic Quadrant" on Unified Communications (other leaders included Nortel Networks, Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco Systems, and Siemens Communications). Microsoft's unified communication story will get even stronger with Office Communications Server 2007, the follow-on to Live Communications Server 2005.

Support for SIP will be important to Office Communications Server 2007 and its client-side counterpart, Office Communicator. Support for the SIP standard will enable users to buy their VoIP gear from a wide selection of vendors, including Nortel, Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, Cisco, LG-Nortel, Mitel Networks, NEC Philips Unified Solutions, Polycom, and Siemens.

The new release will also enable users to place and receive VoIP phone calls using existing phones (either standard or IP-based), or by using the "softphone" capabilities in Office Communicator, which allows users to place and receive telephone calls from their PCs, eliminating the need to purchase expensive IP-compatible phones.

In its strongest configuration, Office Communications Server 2007 will be deployed and integrated with Exchange Server 2007 to deliver other useful communication functions, including advanced call routing, such as call holding, forwarding, and transferring, and unifying voice mail and e-mail in a single inbox.

On Monday, Microsoft announced that 2,500 people are participating in a private beta of Office Communications Server 2007. It also announced it's hosting a Technology Adoption Program (TAP) Summit this week, which is being attended by 250 people from about 100 organizations. The summit included a keynote speech by Gurdeep Singh Pall, co-corporate VP of Microsoft's Unified Communications Group, and a demo of Office Communications Server 2007 running on Nortel's Communications Server 1000 IP-PBX.

Microsoft's other co-VP of the Unified Communications Group, Anoop Gupta, also shared his thoughts on the emerging unified communications market.

"Today, many businesses and workers contend with what I call 'communications chaos' from having silos of e-mail, instant messaging, and voice-mail," Gupta said in a PressPass Q&A on Microsoft's Web site. "With the added complexity of all the different mobile solutions out there, people are getting overwhelmed. What the Microsoft unified communications products do is weave these diverse modes together in an uninterrupted, secure, and simple-to-use experience."

Microsoft says it's on track to deliver Office Communications Server 2007 by the second quarter of 2007, although it did not disclose when, if any, public betas will begin. For more information on the product, go to www.microsoft.com/uc.

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