OCS 2007 beta goes public

As I wrote earlier in the week, VoiceCon did not suffer from a lack of Microsoft presence. I'll have more about that next week, but it's important to note that Microsoft has opened its beta of its Office Communications Server 2007 and its companion desktop app, Microsoft Office Communicator. In a keynote speech, Jeff Raikes, president of the company's "business division," demonstrated the deep integration of presence technology into Microsoft Office, and pointed to data from Fierce 15 winner Psytechnics that shows sound quality from OCS is superior to that of Cisco's Call Manager. Raikes also mentioned pointedly that some 40 percent of the cost of an IP upgrade is for the phone set--and that a properly equipped computer could pretty much obviate that. Of course, computer makes have been saying that for years, and we haven't noticed too many people dumping their phones for their PCs.

For more about OCS and voice quality:
- read this report from VoIP News

Related Article:
Microsoft starts OCS2007 private beta. Report
Microsoft sniffing around VoIP. Report