Microsoft Readies Communication Server

December 13th, 2006: Microsoft has kicked off testing for its new VoIP services, rolling out Office Communication Server 2007 to 2,500 companies.

With the official release set for April/June 2007, Microsoft Office Communication Server 2007 is promising to streamline communications and productivity with it.

The service is naturally tightly integrated with Office 2007. Previous versions of Office such as 2003 already included some superficial communication integration, with Outlook showing when MSN instant messaging contacts are online for example.

Office Communication Server will go far beyond this, however, enabling users who receive an email from a colleague to jump start a conversation or conference call from within Outlook 2007, or if a phone number appears in an excel file or word document, a simple click is all it will take launch a phone call.

With Communication Server 2007, Microsoft is certainly putting its purchase of VoIP provider Teleo to good use. These new capabilities will catapult Microsoft directly into the centre of the booming VoIP market, and into competition with the likes of Cisco and Avaya.

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