Just one week to go to the Office Communications Server 2007 R2 virtual launch event, where we will be unveiling a lot of the great content we have been working on! We have some of the snippets of the funnier videos posted up on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=OCSR2Launch&view=videos. Take a look …. my favorite is below.

We are a little over two weeks away from the virtual launch of the next generation of Office Communications Server ("R2") and I am really excited to be driving the effort!

R2 is a great milestone for the product. It comes just 18 months after we launched Office Communications Server 2007 and started off being a minor release. But the engineering team did some stellar work to take in customer requests and develop something that takes us one step closer to our vision of unified communications .... a seamless end user and management experience across several different communications types. The top things for me are:

·         Some great additions to our VOIP capabilities that rapidly close the gap on enterprise voice requirements. These include an Attendant Console for receptionists and team admins, SIP Trunking to make it easier to consolidate carrier connections with less on premise equipment, Team Calling to provide a simple Automated Call Distribution function and Delegation for anyone who wants other people handling their calls. Some have argued these already exist in IP PBXs today, but the key is the way we have done them. Using software, the experience is much more compelling for the end user and the total cost of ownership is demonstrably lower.

·         We have gone quite far in making unified conferencing a reality. To date, customers have had disparate solutions for web, audio and video conferencing and made it available to only a subset of workers. This not only results in higher costs, but also a much poorer experience for end users who just want to collaborate without having to worry about the underlying technology. Our solution makes conferencing as simple to use as email with easy escalation from IM, to audio, to video to web conferencing. In these times of economic constraints and environmental concerns, remote collaboration is becoming much more important, and OCS unified conferencing goes a long way in helping customers save costs and still increase productivity.

·         Finally, we have made great strides in our developer platform. Avaya rightly takes credit for introducing the notion of embedding communications into business processes to reduce latency and improve service. But to make the vision a reality you need great developer tools, standard APIs and SDKs and an army of trained developers. That is one of Microsoft's core strengths. We have over 6 million developers trained on .NET who can now access and use our APIs and SDKs to build applications.

So this release will bring a ton of value to customers at just the right time. But one of the pushback’s we often get is real customer deployments as evidence of the adoption of our stack. I am happy to say that over the last year, we have made great strides in this area. Our field team and partners have been busy working with early adopter customers who not only realize the value of Microsoft's vision but have made a concerted effort to deploy now. We have referred to Shell and Global Crossing in the past, with 5000 and 3000 users using OCS VOIP capabilities today. And many customers are already at 50%, and some 100% of users on OCS VOIP. We also have customers with tens of thousands of IM users with a path to getting to VOIP capabilities. We will have several other customers to showcase at the upcoming launch. What makes this progress remarkable is that it has all happened in the last year, which is phenomenal for what can be classified as a new technology. It clearly shows the momentum we are building.

Partners have also been embracing the opportunity OCS offers. Whether they are ISVs enriching applications with OCS capabilities, peripheral partners developing devices to work with OCS, infrastructure partners building gateways or carrier connectivity, or systems integrators helping customers implement, we are seeing amazing traction. The reason .... almost because of the economic climate, the value of OCS is more paramount to customers and partners see an opportunity to build a business on this. We will be showcasing many partners at the virtual launch to show this momentum.

The virtual event is a new experience for Microsoft. We have used it as an adjunct for "real" events in the past, but this is unique in that an entire product is being launches only through this virtual channel. But it promises to be a great platform as visitors can view great content at their own leisure and download useful items in a simple way. I encourage anyone interested in unified communications to log in and check it out. You can register for the event by going to www.microsoft.com/ocs.

On the day, Stephen Elop, President of Microsoft Business Division, will be hosting the keynote presentation focusing on Microsoft's vision and momentum in enterprise communications, with customer stories and product demonstrations between 9.30-10.30am Pacific Time. Visitors will also have access to several Breakout Sessions and Product Discovery videos to help them learn more, and to download useful content. There will be a Case Study section showcasing customer evidence. We have over 130 partners with virtual booths where you can find out more about capabilities and experience and download business cards. And finally, you can download an evaluation version of OCS or sign up for a free hosted trial to get a feel for OCS capabilities yourself.

The site will be on a Silverlight platform, so users should ensure that they have the right technical set up to enjoy a smooth viewing experience. And of course, registering ahead of time at www.microsoft.com/ocs will give you access to added functionality.

Please spread the word and sign up for what will be a fun, exciting and informative virtual experience and give you the information you need to get going on Office Communications Server 2007 R2.

We look forward to seeing you online!