What a great way to start the year! A recent article published in No Jitter (the online rendition of what used to be Business Communications Review) highlights an evaluation of Office Communications Server 2007 by Miercom (a privately held network consultancy, specializing in networking and communications-related product testing and analysis). Miercom is a respected telephony outfit known for its rigor in testing. They set up a basic implementation of OCS for 15,000 users and put a high volume of calls through it and still got availability of 5 9s!  This is one area I get questions all the time, but it is a validation of the great strides Microsoft is making in the way it architects server topologies for availability and scalability. The article is a good short read and gives an excellent overview of the main pieces of the product.

Lab Test: Microsoft OCS 2007--Voice Communication for the Next Generation?

2007 seems so far away now, but I wanted to end the year by flagging two great reviews that are an endorsement to Microsoft's approach to voice over IP. The first is a top ranking by VOIP-News in their review of VOIP innovations for 2007.

Top 25 VOIP Innovations of 2007

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007: Though far from surprising, the official October launch of Microsoft's Office Communications Server 2007 was a huge step forward simply because it made real the possibility that voice will someday become just another application running on corporate networks. As such, the announcement forced enterprises and vendors alike to get serious about their responses to a game-changing question: whether stand-alone PBXes will even be necessary in the future.

...The second is a review by CMP (part of CRN) that calls out the simple but powerful affect of presence in voice communications.

With the introduction of a single point of communication and unified messaging, Microsoft Office Communication Server (OCS), along with Exchange integration, is revolutionizing the communication space. OCS is able to achieve a high level of transparency as to a person's presence at work and method of accessibility by maintaining a single identity that drives all avenues of communication.

Kudos to Jamie Stark on my team for being able to explain the complexities of the product in a language the telephony world understands!