RoundTable to become Polycom CX5000 Unified Conference Station

jkruse — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 01:21:53 GMT

PLEASANTON, Calif., REDMOND, Wash., and VoiceCon Orlando 2009, Booth No. 309 ― March 30, 2009 ― Polycom, Inc. [Nasdaq: PLCM], and Microsoft Corp. [Nasdaq: MSFT] today announced that the two companies are deepening their strategic relationship to deliver one of the broadest and most powerful sets of voice and video solutions for unified communications and collaboration. As part of Microsoft’s vision to broaden the availability of Microsoft RoundTable, Polycom has licensed the right to distribute RoundTable, effective April 13, 2009. The product, renamed the Polycom CX5000 Unified Conference Station, will be available through Polycom and its extensive channel network.

Read the full press release at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/mar09/03-30MSPolycomPR.mspx?rss_fdn=Press%20Releases, and see Polycom’s CX5000 page at http://www.polycom.com/products/voice/conferencing_solutions/microsoft_optimized_conferencing/cx5000.html

Roundtable stars in CSI:NY

jkruse — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 02:23:12 GMT

From Stuff-O-Rama...

Two RoundTables were in CSI: New York recently, but as pointed out in the original blog post " maybe someone should tell the CSI chaps they only need to have one in the room " :)

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Vodcast: RoundTable

jkruse — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:01:00 GMT

See me demo RoundTable in a Vodcast which Deeps has put up at The TechNet Australia Blog.

Update: for those who have asked about the flickering during the RT screencast - that actually wasn't a problem with RoundTable, LiveMeeting or OCS - it was my laptop CPU struggling to keep up with Windows Media Encoder encoding my screen to WMV. I was running on battery power at the time (see my system tray power icon) and therefore my PC wasn't at its best :(

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See you at TechEd Australia

jkruse — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 02:48:23 GMT

The Showcase is built, and we're preparing for tonight's opening party. That's right - TechEd 2007 is about to kick off!

I'm currently sitting in the exhibition hall (partially because the broadband in my hotel is not very broad at all) watching the builders do the finishing touches.

The Showcase - finished!

The HP blades we are running the Showcase off - 8-core, 24Gb RAM, RAID10 SAS arrays. I challenge you to prove to me that this is not SEEEEXXXXYYY!

A Communicator Phone Experience next to a RoundTable.

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OCS goes gold!

jkruse — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 09:38:32 GMT

This is huge - in case you haven't heard the news yet - Office Communications Server 2007 has been Released To Manufacturing (RTM)!!!!

I have been using Communicator 2007 as my primary phone for several months now, along with Exchange 2007 for voicemail, and I'm personally excited that the product is now finished.

So what can you expect with OCS, and what is included in this release?

Software powered VoIP: by using a smart end-point (aka a PC), OCS and Communicator 2007 allow a much richer experience than traditional VoIP systems.
Software economics: OCS works with a broad range of devices, phones, applications from a wide range of partners.
Voice quality: The listening and call quality offered by a pre-release version of Office Communications Server 2007 was “considerably better than that provided by [a leading provider’s] IP phones,” according to an independent benchmark study conducted by Psytechnics, a firm specialising in voice-quality research.
Easy transition: Companies can get more value from their existing PBX systems, networks and desk phones by using Office Communications Server to add VoIP and unified communications capabilities without ripping and replacing existing investments.
Streamlined communications: click-to-call from Outlook, Word, Sharepoint and other apps - including the ability to simply add presence and telephony/video to LOB or custom applications/websites.
Tools that travel: It doesn't matter if you're in the office sitting at your desk, working from home, or sitting at a coffee shop - you still have all of your communications tools available. In fact right now I am writing this from a hotel in Seattle. My girlfriend in Sydney can dial my local 02 phone number and I take the call over here on my PC. All of this without a VPN!! As long as I have web access, then I can make and receive calls - and due to our adaptive codecs (more info below) it doesn't matter that I am running across an unreliable unmanaged network (aka the Internet).

So how about the voice quality?

One of the huge improvements we're making in Office Communications Server 2007 is in the area of speech quality and Quality of Experience in VoIP phonecalls.

We have a document available for download with an overview of our RTAudio advanced VoIP codec, which has the ability to dynamically adjust to network conditions such as latency, packet loss, jitter, etc; and because it is a variable-bitrate codec, calls will not drop out if the network is not "perfect". This is a huge change from traditional Enterprise VoIP technologies, which require end-to-end management of the network. Rather than adjusting the network to fit the call, we can adjust the call to fit the network.

So what does this mean? Think better voice quality with less bandwidth, and the ability for remote/mobile users to connect to OCS and make voice/video calls across the Internet and from mobile networks, wireless hotspots, etc.

Download the whitepaper from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=05625af1-3444-4e67-9557-3fd5af9ae8d1&displaylang=en

So what else is being launched with OCS?

Office Communicator 2007 - rich presence, web conferencing, multi-party IP audio, multi-party IP audio, call management, integration with Office and other apps.

My real-life experience with Communicator telephony: when somebody rings me during office hours my PC will ring (including my Catalina phone - more on that below), as will my mobile - I can answer whatever is more convenient. After hours (based on what I publish in Outlook), when I don't answer, or when my presence is set to Do Not Disturb, then calls will be redirected to Exchange Unified Messaging for voicemail.

Some screenshots of Communicator's incoming call options below (these are real shots - my numbers hidden for privacy):

Setting my phone to simultaneously ring my mobile.
That little envelope icon in the top-right is MWI (Message Waiting Indicator) for my Exchange voicemail - my Catalina phone (below) also has a MWI light for Exchange.

More call options - note the Outlook working hours option.

Calling from inside Outlook.

On a call. Note the Subject line of the phonecall - that is based on the Subject of the Outlook email I called from, so people know why I'm calling before they answer!!! Also if I'm talking on my PC and need to leave the office for whatever reason, I can transfer the call to my mobile.

Office RoundTable - 360 degree panoramic IP video camera. As part of OCS's on-premise conferencing features, you have the ability to use a RoundTable camera.

This allows you to see everybody in the room, as well as a stream of the active speaker, while you present PPT, whiteboards, application sharing, polls, etc.

A recent post on RoundTable can be found at http://blogs.technet.com/itproaustralia/archive/2007/07/11/microsoft-office-roundtable.aspx, and more information can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2006/oct06/10-20officeroundtable.mspx

UC and Communicator phones - don't want to talk into your PC? Our partners are releasing phones that will integrate with Communicator. There are USB phones that require your PC as a softphone, but also the Communicator Phone Experience which is a standalone handset that has an Ethernet port to run as a pure IP endpoint.

Here are some the devices from partners that are now available:

The LG-Nortel IP Phone 8540 is an intelligent IP Phone that helps improve productivity and work performance for information workers.
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The LG-Nortel USB Phone is designed to deliver a high-quality user experience.
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The Polycom CX400 Cordless Phone helps to enable high-quality cordless calls from Communicator.
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The Jabra GN9330 USB Headset is among the first wireless office headsets to offer true wideband audio.
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The Jabra GN9350 Headset is a dual-function wireless headset for both traditional and PC-based telephony.
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The LG-Nortel Bluetooth Headset is a wireless solution helping users to make or receive calls on their PCs without speakerphones.
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The Polycom CX100 Speakerphone helps to enable hands-free calls with remarkable wideband voice quality from a PC.
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The Samsung SyncMaster 225UW is a 22-inch widescreen LCD monitor with built-in camera and microphone.
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Microsoft RoundTable, camera exposed
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The ASUS S7F notebook series has a sleek, lightweight design that lets users travel light and in style.
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The Polycom CX200 Desktop Phone helps to enable hands-free calls with remarkable wideband voice quality from a PC.
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The NEC UC USB Phone is a USB device that can be plugged directly into a PC USB port, enabling high-quality wideband sound.
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We have recently deployed the "Catalina" phone internally at Microsoft Australia - http://blogs.technet.com/itproaustralia/archive/2007/07/13/office-communicator-beta-3-and-the-catalina-device.aspx

Catalina phone.

Note the red Presence indicator (meaning presence in Communicator is currently Busy) and the Exchange 2007 UM MWI (Message Waiting Indicator) light.

So check out the announcement from Jeff Raikes at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/jeff/06-26-06UnifiedCommunications.mspx, and check out the launch site at http://www.microsoft.com/uc/default.mspx

This week I am finishing the build of a full UC experience demo for the Showcase at TechEd Australia. The Showcase is running on HP C-class blades (very nice servers!) and includes OCS, Communicator, RoundTable, LG-Nortel handsets, Exchange 2007 (w/UM), all integrated with a Nortel CS1000 IP-PBX.

I'll be posting detail on how I built the Showcase on this blog towards the end of the week, so stay tuned. And of course if you're at TechEd Oz - drop by, say Hi, and prepare to be blown away by our technologies.

Technorati Tags: ocs, uc, roundtable, tanjay, um

RoundTable photos

jkruse — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 08:57:51 GMT

At the Microsoft Australia company meeting earlier this week I demonstrated the RoundTable camera to the local team.

Some photos were taken, including a beautiful shot of Kleefy and half-a-me.

Read the post at http://blogs.technet.com/itproaustralia/archive/2007/07/11/microsoft-office-roundtable.aspx

We've also recently deployed some of our UC phone devices. Yes that's right - we are using OCS and Office Communicator as our production phones (with Exchange UM for voicemail)!!! Read more about our internal experience at http://blogs.technet.com/itproaustralia/archive/2007/07/13/office-communicator-beta-3-and-the-catalina-device.aspx

Technorati Tags: uc, ocs, roundtable, catalina, telephone

The Devil Wears Prada... and does Unified Comms!!

jkruse — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 11:10:00 GMT

Video: The Devil wears prada .. and does Unified Comms!

Johann's Unified Communications : roundtable