News
Public Beta Opens for Office Communications Server 2007
Microsoft on Monday announced the release of public beta versions of Office Communications
Server 2007, the company's Voice over IP and unified communications server, and
Office Communicator 2007,
Microsoft's unified
communications client.
The company had said early this month that it was on track to release the
betas before the end of March. It began a private beta test of the server in
December.
Office Communications Server 2007 "enables customers to integrate voice
over Internet protocol (VoIP) technology into existing telephony
infrastructure, eliminating the need for network overhauls and extending the
life of existing investments," according to company statements.
The new server will also let users launch voice calls from within Office
2007 applications, including Word 2007, Outlook 2007 and Office Communicator.
By clicking on a colleague's name to determine his or her availability, users
will be able to initiate person-to-person or multiparty calls.
Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Office Communicator both
support Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) so that they can interoperate with
products from industry partners. Users will be able to find and communicate
with colleagues from within applications such as Outlook or SharePoint,
according to an e-mail statement from a Microsoft spokesperson.
The download for these betas can be found here.
About the Author
Stuart J. Johnston has covered technology, especially Microsoft, since February 1988 for InfoWorld, Computerworld, Information Week, and PC World, as well as for Enterprise Developer, XML & Web Services, and .NET magazines.