Cloudy with a chance of Licensing
Latest news and updates on Microsoft licensing & cloud
Microsoft OCS 2007 R2 has officially been Released to Manufacturing (RTM’d) as of 19/12/08 so in plenty of time for the Virtual Launch on 13/02/09.
It’s still on course to add a whole host of new features to the OCS platform which will make it even more of a contender in the UC arena.
I really feel that MS OCS 2007 coupled with the Roundtable is a winning combo when it comes to Unified Communications.
I was talking to our account manager at Jabra today about their latest range of headsets and they’re really impressive.
Jabra were the first, and I believe still the only, company to have their headsets certified by Microsoft as “Optimized for Microsoft Office Communicator” which is a nice badge to have 🙂
I’ve got the M5390at work and it’s a great bit of kit, especially now I’ve worked out how to use it properly! I’ve always held out against headsets, always said I “need to have a phone in my hand”, always thought headsets were a little bit “Posey” but not any more.
I’ve had the M5390 for about 4 months and find it to be great…the best thing is being able to type properly whilst on the phone, particularly during webcasts, conference calls etc. As the headset is wireless with up to 70M range, I can wander off from my desk to pick up a fax, make a brew, buy a Wispa and all sorts of things, that extra bit of freedom really does help increase productivity.
Also, I’ve got it paired to both my desk phone and my PC “softPhone” so it can hook into Microsoft Office Communicator really well. It also means that you can use it to listen to internet radio, Youtube etc during your lunch hour (of course!) and then webcasts and the like during work hours without bothering any of your colleagues.
Sorry the text is a bit small, I’ll try and rectify that ASAP 🙂
Microsoft OCS 2007 R2, the new version, was recently (14/10/08)Â announced at VoiceCon. My other posts talk about the features that were expected to be included and can be found here.
BrettJo has got some links with extra info over at his blog, and some of the info from those is below.
The “Communicator Attendant” is a PC Client that adds a whole host of traditional operator features to OCS 2007; it’s advanced features allow you to transfer IM’s (Instant Messages) and/or typed notes along with a phone call <–that’s pretty cool 🙂
Also, ACD Response Group includes a set of workflow and routing rules, IVR and queuing, agent presence, Music on Hold (MOH), and inbound call context.
NoJitter.com also says:
“Other new telephony features include Delegation (assistant/executive support capabilities), Call Monitoring (call records, call voice quality, usage reporting, and ROI analysis), and SIP trunking direct from the OCS 2007 Mediation Server to the ITSP (PSTN and Cellular networks) without need for a premises SBC.”
Video Conferencing sees a number of improvements including VGA as standard with an HD option and one click screen sharing from Office Communicator, with Polycom & Tandberg endpoints being supported.
Dial-in Conferencing (scheduled or ad-hoc bridging) with VOIP or PSTN access is do-able and the Conferencing Attendant enables you to see the call roster, drop callers from the conference and more.
Another new feature that could lead to some really cool things is the ability for developers to add presence information to other MS AND 3rd party applications such as CRM. So if you’re in Finance and you’ve got a question about the latest order on the Jenkins account, you could see the presence of the customer account manager and contact them via chat…still within that application!
The guys over at TechWorld.nlhave got a video which includes an interview with Senior MS Director Eric Swift and a great demo of the new OCS 2007 R2 features:
If anyone can translate the Dutch article over at Techworld that’d be cool 🙂
The Microsoft Roundtable is a truly innovative, modern take on video conferencing and as I think my blog shows, one of my favourite gadgets!
To make it even easier, I’ve collected a number of documents and downloads to help you out with the setup, installation and use of the Microsoft Roundtable.
(It’s a good idea to have the firmware around, as you’ll need it in the event of a factory reset.)
My Microsoft Roundtable arrived today-yey! It made what was turning out to be a pretty boring, not so brilliant morning into a pretty awesome morning!
I took a load of pics of the Unboxing (on my HTC Diamond) a few of which are below, and the rest can be found here..
Typically, we’re just about to embark on installing a new PBX at work so I’m not going to be able to hook this bad boy up for probably a couple of weeks! It’s just going to be sitting next to me mocking me 🙂
Cloudy with a chance of Licensing 