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Bulk update Outlook Contacts' phone numbers to be E.164 compliant
30 November 07 09:10 AM | Ewan | 1 Comments   

Here's a quick & dirty tool I put together for Outlook to be able to update all the phone numbers of contacts to make them E.164 compliant. It relates back to a post a while back around the challenges of formatting numbers 'correctly', particularly Read More...

Filed under: Exchange, OCS, Office, Outlook, Unified Comms

Microsoft launches "Online" hosted services
17 October 07 02:16 PM | Ewan | 0 Comments   

In an attempt to clarify the whole online software branding, with "Live" being consumer oriented and "Online" being aimed at businesses, Microsoft launched a new service recently, but that may have gone unnoticed (what with other launch events such as Read More...

Filed under: Exchange, OCS, Sharepoint

Gibson Guitars "Riffs on OCS" (boom, boom)
08 October 07 07:25 AM | Ewan | 0 Comments   

Information Week reported that Gibson, makers of the iconic Les Paul guitar (as used by just about everyone, maybe most famously Jimmy Page of Led Zep or Slash from Guns N Roses), are doing great stuff with Office Communication Server, and singing its Read More...

Filed under: OCS, Random Stuff

Custom presence states in Communicator, reprise
03 October 07 11:37 AM | Ewan | 3 Comments   

A quick follow on to my post the other day about having custom presence states in Office Communicator 2007 - the Communicator Deployment Guide has a couple of minor errors which could frustrate you, as one commenter pointed out, and I've had comments Read More...

Filed under: IM, OCS, Unified Comms

Custom presence states in Office Communicator
27 September 07 11:22 AM | Ewan | 6 Comments   

I just discovered how to modify presence states in Office Communicator 2007: it's documented in the Office Communicator Deployment Guide (page 21, if you're interested), and allows for either the managed deployment of Communicator with additional corporate-set Read More...

Filed under: IM, OCS, Unified Comms

Identity & presence: the key to anyone's Unified Communications strategy
07 September 07 10:55 AM | Ewan | 1 Comments   

I spend a lot of time talking with customers about what Microsoft is doing with various new technologies, mostly involving or revolving around the Unified Communications stuff with OCS and Exchange. It's really interesting to see how many people just Read More...

Filed under: IM, OCS, Unified Comms

The Return of Exchange Unplugged
03 September 07 10:09 AM | Ewan | 3 Comments   

In late 2005, to prepare for Exchange 5.5 going out of support (and to help customers understand what was involved in moving up to Exchange 2003), we did a really well received tour of the country arranged around the theme of " Exchange Unplugged ". We Read More...

Filed under: Exchange, OCS

Playing with Roundtable prototype
21 August 07 03:48 PM | Ewan | 1 Comments   

I've been looking forward to Roundtable coming out... it's a very interesting type of hybrid between a standard conference speakerphone and a series of web-cams, all tied together by plugging it into a PC and running the new LiveMeeting 2007 client software. Read More...

Filed under: OCS

OCS2007 trial edition now available
06 August 07 09:37 AM | Ewan | 1 Comments   

If you want to get your hands on trial software for the recently-released Office Communications Server 2007 and its client, Office Communicator 2007 , then you're in luck... OCS trial download (both Standard & Enterprise editions) Communicator trial Read More...

Filed under: IM, OCS, Unified Comms

OCS 2007 RTMs
30 July 07 10:02 AM | Ewan | 0 Comments   

The title says it all really - Office Communications Server 2007 released to manufacturing on Friday. Mark posted about it then, so I guess it's official (though there's not much hoo-haa yet on Microsoft.com). It's getting pretty exciting with the use Read More...

Filed under: OCS, Unified Comms

Living the dream with Office Communicator 2007
25 July 07 03:06 PM | Ewan | 3 Comments   

I've been a long-time fan of instant messaging and pervasive "presence", especially the cultural changes it allows organisations to make in order to communicate and collaborate better. As a result, I've been really interested to see what's been happening Read More...

Filed under: Exchange, IM, OCS, Unified Comms

The Campaign for Real Pedantry, erm, I mean numbers
27 June 07 08:00 AM | Ewan | 2 Comments   

Hats off to James O'Neill for a display of true, world-class pedantry to which I could only aspire. It drives me nuts to get emails with badly formatted phone numbers which can't be dialled on Smartphones without first editing them, and now that I've Read More...

Filed under: Mobile, OCS, Random Stuff

Communicator phones sneaking out
27 April 07 01:20 PM | Ewan | 0 Comments   

When Microsoft first announced the Unified Communications strategy & partnerships last year, one of the pictures that was shown off was of a prototype "Communicator phone" - a networked device which could be used to make phone calls through the Office Read More...

Filed under: OCS, Unified Comms