Global Crossing
This article was recently brought to my attention
It is really a good read, but quite an odd title, I far as I am aware OCS is not a PBX. Anyway the title aside, the article is about a company called Global Crossing that is using the public beta.
While the article does mentions some glitches (hey isn't that what betas are all about) but these three paragraphs sum it up for me
"The fact that OCS’s VoIP capability can be embedded in applications. So someone working within the Global Crossing order-management/provisioning application will be able to make phone calls to other workers directly from the .application.
OCS displays presence information within Eon about who is attached to the network, so workers know who else is available to answer questions when someone needs help, he says. Getting OCS integrated with Eon will take some work by internal programmers at Global Crossing, according to Fuqua, but he expects it to work readily as did the instant-messaging capabilities he embedded in EON from LCS.
Initiating communications directly from within an application keeps workers focused on the task at hand, Fuqua says. Presence also can improve efficiency by reducing the number of unsuccessful attempts to reach others. With presence, people will attempt to reach only those who they know are available."
I have been playing with the beta for sometime now and think it is great, plus articles like this really start to hit home the business benefit.
If you have not got the beta yet it is available from www.microsoft.com/uc