Q&A: Microsoft Delivers Voice Technologies in Unified Communications Platform

 More OCS details -- read the full press release/interview for some customer scenarios

PressPass: Microsoft recently announced business availability of the 2007 Microsoft Office system client applications. How do the new Office Communications Server and Exchange Server technologies integrate with these applications?

Gupta: We have designed Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2007 to richly interoperate with the Microsoft Office client experience, such as through making availability and presence information available throughout the Outlook e-mail interface. For example, as soon as a person types someone’s name into the To: line, the sender can see whether that individual is away from his desk or out of the office. Also, when people go into a Microsoft Office SharePoint team site, they can view the availability of other team members and decide whom to contact. Similarly, these products share a single conversation history folder that tracks not only the e-mails that someone has sent but also the instant messages and telephone calls in a seamless way.

Plus, as I mentioned earlier, the voice capabilities in Microsoft Office Communications Server allow users to launch instant messaging or phone conversations directly from within an Office Outlook e-mail. We have made sure that the most common telephony capabilities that people want, such as call forwarding and conferencing, are simply and intuitively integrated into a common Microsoft unified communications user interface.

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