History
When Microsoft Office Live Communications Server was originally launched on 29 December 2003, it replaced the Exchange Instant Messenger Service that had been included in Exchange 2000, but which was removed from the Exchange 2003 feature set. Holders of Exchange 2000 licenses which include Software Assurance are entitled to receive Live Communications Server as an upgrade, along with Exchange 2003; however, Live Communications Server Client Access Licenses must be purchased as normal for new users.
OCS R2 was announced at VoiceCon in Amsterdam in October 2008, just 364 days after releasing Office Communications Server 2007. This version has major advantages over the original solution and positioned Microsoft firmly in place to be a major player in IP telephony and video (telepresence).
New call management capabilities let receptionists and team assistants take a large volume of incoming calls and quickly route them to the intended recipients with a simple click, while delegation features allow executives to completely hand over the management of their phone calls to their assistants. New desktop-sharing capabilities allow users on Windows, Macintosh, and Linux platforms to collaborate with one another at the same time they talk to each other using enhanced audio conferencing features. The Group Chat feature lets organizations set up searchable, topic-based chat rooms that persist over time, allowing geographically distributed teams to better collaborate with one another while preserving organizational knowledge.
Interestingly, all of these features are covered under a single license per user through the Enterprise Client Access License (ECAL) from Microsoft. This is dramatically different than traditional telephony and VoIP vendors who charge for additional clients, endpoints, and interfaces into the communications system.
The improved on-premise audioconferencing capability puts enterprises in control of their audioconferencing infrastructure while saving money on audioconferencing costs over hosted bridges. The Single Number Reach feature allows IT to log business calls placed by users from cellular phones for accounting purposes while helping to ensure that the same dialing rules that apply to calls made by users from their work phone also extend to their cellular calls. The new video monitoring capabilities allow IT to surveil video calls and conferences on their network, while support for SIP-trunking does away with the need to manage expensive on-premise gateways. Video in OCS is also interoperable with third party solutions such as Tandberg and PolyCom systems as well (Polycom has not yet provided its connector with new Microsoft Lync 2010). This means that customers can keep their existing investment in these systems, but extend video to the desktop via Office Communications Server.
One of the biggest advantages of having a software-based communications infrastructure is that businesses can embed communications capabilities into existing line-of-business applications and use communications and workflow capabilities to automate business processes, which saves money, saves time, and improves customer service. Office Communications Server 2007 R2 delivers an extensible communications platform that works with an organization’s existing messaging and telephony infrastructure and can adapt to changing business needs. This extensibility is one of the major reasons that Gartner has placed Microsoft at the top of their Unified Communications Magic Quadrant for 2007, 2008 and 2009.
Read more about this topic: Microsoft Lync Server
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