All about Unified Communications : Live Communication Server

Let Santa know your last minute present requests!

markdea — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 13:20:31 GMT

I spotted this on someone's blog today and wanted to share this with you :-)

It appears that in order to communicate with a new younger generation of kids, Santa has had a meeting with the Windows Live Messenger guys at Microsoft and has signed up for Windows Live Messenger. As you can see, I had a quick word with him myself to see if I can get a Zune and an XBOX 360, lets see what comes down the chimney !

If you want to have a quick chat with Santa then add northpole@live.com to your Windows Live Messenger list and as long as you have been good then you should find he talks back to you.

Safe in the fact that I have been a 'good boy' this year, I will be tracking my imminent Zune/XBOX 360 combination on the Santa Tracker and hopefully I should find a large Zune/XBOX 360 shaped box at the end of my bed :-)

I am now off work until the 2nd of Jan during which time I will be eating mince pies, playing with the toys/gadgets that I hope to get for xmas and generally chilling and reflecting on the busy 2006 we have all had and the exciting 2007 to come.

2006 has seen a number of events including the launch of Exchange Server 2007, Unified Communications disclosure day in June, a first look at Office Roundtable, Office Communications Server 2007 beta, Nortel & Microsoft alliance, Office Communicator Phone Experience, details on PC Peripheral devices and a number of other partnerships with organisations like Motorola, Siemens and HP and finally me getting my new job (not important for most people but a really big event for me).

That said, I think 2007 is going to be even more exciting as it will see all of this years announcements become a reality as the code is finished, the CDs start to get burnt and we actually have these technologies available to everyone and not just the beta testers. For me, 2007 is going to be the year when changes started to happen in the way people communicate and possibly how the telecoms and IT industry work together, because of the products we have coming out in 2007. I don't doubt for a minute that its going to take time for things to change but I think in years to come we will look at 2007 as the year when it all started to happen.

Finally, this week will be the last week I use my deskphone at work. In order to prove a theory I have, I plan not to use my deskphone in 2007. I will rely solely on my mobile and Communicator 2007 to make calls. Will let you know how I get on :-)

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year !

Exchange RTMs ... now its the beta for OCS 2007

markdea — Tue, 12 Dec 2006 22:21:51 GMT

Working at Microsoft, I rarely find myself running a machine with RTM software on it, but with the RTM of Exchange 2007, Windows Vista and Office 2007, I have found myself running fully released code.

I am glad to say I have now managed to fix this 'problem' and got myself onto the Office Communications Server 2007 and Communicator 2007 beta at Microsoft a few weeks back. Its strangely pleasing to be running beta software again and with the recent announcement of OCS 2007 going beta it means that I should be able to start talking more about my personal experience of this software so far without giving away too much :-)

First of all, I have noticed an increase number of emails I tend to escalate from Outlook to Communicator. This has been possible in previous versions but we have made it a lot more easier and a lot more prominent, this really proves that its not just about making the technology available but its also about making it easy to use.

The second thing that I think I will find useful but don't at the minute (because not enough people are running it), is the 'IM with a subject'. This is, as my mate David Hinson would say, a 'slice of fried gold'. Basically, when someone responds to an email via IM or phone, it will put the subject of that email in the pop up. This means that when I get an IM from Darren Strange I know if its going to be something work related or something well .... not so work related :-). I have been known to screen my email via interestingness of subject and I can now do the same with phone calls and emails :-).

Last of all, Communicator 2007 solves a problem a number of the people I have spoken to in the past experience. One of the things about IM is that even when you set yourself to Busy or Do Not Disturb, there is always going to be someone who will IM you, its just a fact of life. Personally, I have the ability to ignore the flashing IM in the corner but I know that others are not so strong willed and feel they need to read the message. Since installing Communicator 2007, any IMs that get sent to me while I am in 'Do Not Disturb' go directly to my Outlook inbox as a conversation rather than appearing on my taskbar. As an addition, I have all of my conversations logged and deposited in my inbox which means if its in an email or IM then its possible for me to search for it from Outlook. Once we have voicemails and faxes configured for the UK I will truly have only 'one inbox'

One small step for Mark, one giant leap for the way I communicate!

Fancy taking Exchange 2007 for a test drive?

markdea — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 11:39:46 GMT

A lot of the time I a recommending to IT Pros that they should go ahead and download a copy of Exchange 2007 in their 'spare time'. Although this sounds like a great idea in principal, I can imagine that not everyone wants to spend their evenings and weekend a) downloading Exchange 2007 and b) installing it into a virtual machine.

Bearing that in mind, I came across a post on Steve Claytons blog that links to pre-configured virtual machines for Exchange as well as Vista and Office.

Pop along here and download the Exchange 2007 VHD which includes Office Live Communication Server 2005 .... bargain!

The Devils Does Unified Communications - Part 2

markdea — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 19:29:00 GMT

"A Tale of two meeting rooms"

Hot of the heels of the first video, I am pleased to say we have another that concentrates more on Office Roundtable.

Roundtable is a cracking device which enables people to video conference from a room of their choice rather than forcing people to go to a specific room. I look forward to being able to talk to you more about this next year!

Speechserver moves into Office Communications Server

markdea — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 18:54:00 GMT

For those of you with an interest in either Speech Server or Office Communications Server (the next version of LCS), might like to know that Speech Server is being included as part of OCS and will discontinue as its own product.

More information can be found at http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news/article.php/3625381 and my feeling is this will make the features of Speech Server available to a lot more organisations than it was before.

LCS 2005 and support for SQL 2005 (and a bit about Windows 2003 R2)

markdea — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 17:07:00 GMT

I have an email in my inbox asking if LCS 2005 SP1 and SQL 2005 SP1 will 'work together' so I thought I might share the answer with the rest of the world at the same time :-)

A number of people at Microsoft received some interesting news this week from Redmond telling us that we will now support LCS 2005 SP1 running on SQL 2005 SP1. There should be an official announcement soon but for now is well worth taking a look at James’ blog where he has already started talking about it.

Its also with noting that at the same time as 'announcing' the support for LCS 2005 SP1 running on SQL 2005 SP1, we are also announcing support for LCS 2005 SP1 running on Windows 2003 R2.

Good news all round, I will update this post with links when they become available.

LCS 2005 SP1 book available for download

markdea — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 13:06:00 GMT

For those of your that subscribe via RSS to my blog you might notice an increase in the number of postings I do this week, the reason for this is that I was away last week at a training event in Seattle and therefore my blog has got a little behind. On with the first post then!

If like me, you have a long flight somewhere and need to entertain yourself for a few hours then I highly recommend downloading the new LCS 2005 SP1 book here or getting it from your local library. I started reading this book on my flight back from Seattle but fell asleep before completing it. I would like to clarify it was the few bottles of wine, some melatonin and my new Bose QuietComfort2 that made me snooze ... not the book !

This book is a great read for anyone technical starting to get to grips with LCS and would make great revision material for anyone looking to take the exam sometime soon.