Enhancing Enterprise Instant Messaging, Achieving Unified Communications
Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007 is the first Microsoft product to combine enterprise-ready IM (instant messaging), presence, conferencing, and VoIP (Voice over IP) telephony in a fully integrated unified communications solution.
The Henson Group specializes in designing and deploying highly customized solutions based on OCS 2007 that provide richer presence capabilities, enhanced support for group IM, and improved deployment and management than its predecessor, Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 SP1.
To existing features, such as federation and public IM connectivity, OCS 2007 includes real-time conferencing hosted on servers inside your organization’s firewall and a full-featured, software-powered VoIP solution that can stand on its own or integrate easily with an existing PBX infrastructure.
These solutions will enable your employees to communicate in real time across your enterprise in a manageable and more secure way than is possible with consumer-oriented services. An extensible platform as well as an IM solution, THG’s solutions can actually embed real-time communications capabilities into a client’s existing applications.
THG'S MICROSOFT OCS 2007 CREDENTIALS
• Winner: 2007 Microsoft Partner of the Year (Microsoft East Region)
• Dedicated practice staffed by Microsoft Certified Systems Engineers (MCSE), many former Microsoft employees
• Microsoft “Gold Certified Partner” founded by former Microsoft engineers in 2002
• Direct ties to the Microsoft OCS and Exchange Product Groups
• Preferred sub-contractor of Microsoft Consulting Services for OCS/Exchange Deployments
• Holds a seat on the national Microsoft Partner Advisory Council
• Recognized among the top US consultancies in Microsoft's partner community (Microsoft’s Official “Solution Finder”).
• Possesses Seven Official Microsoft Solutions Competencies, Including Advanced Infrastructure Solutions
• THG consultants are regular participants in OCS/Exchange-related conferences and other Microsoft community-based forums
• Participated in Beta Deployment of OCS/Exchange at Multiple Clients
• Provider of Pilot and Deployment Planning Programs
MICROSOFT UNIFIED COMMUNCATIONS FIELD EXPERIENCE*
This is a partial list of clients where The Henson Group has deployed Exchange and/or Communications Server technologies. *Additional Case Studies available upon request.
• Bloomberg (financial data)
• Daiwa Securities (financial services)
• Charming Shoppes (retail apparel manufacturer)
• Church & Dwight (consumer products)
• Elite Models (modeling agency)
• Grey Global (advertising services)
• Lehman Brothers (financial services)
• Maimonides Hospital (healthcare)
• PHH Corp. (mortgage financing)
• Merck & Co. (pharmaceuticals)
• Merrill Lynch (financial services)
• Sandler O’Neill (investment banking)
• The H.W. Wilson Co. (publishing services)
• Tommy Hilfiger (clothing manufacturer)
• Tower Group (financial services)
* Read more about The Henson Group’s successful deployments at www.HensonGroup.com/CaseStudies.
MICROSOFT OCS 2007 SERVICES DESCRIPTIONS
Custom Solution Design and Project Deployment: THG guides clients through the design and deployment process for OCS 2007, producing IM applications and functionality specific to the client's unique messaging needs.
Application Integration: Leveraging one of the core strengths of Office Communications Server, THG designs IM solutions that integrate seamlessly with the client's existing applications, allowing them to have employees send instant messages to colleagues from within the productivity applications they use every day.
Enhanced Manageability: THG's solutions based on Office Communications Server are easy to deploy, extend and manage using existing technology assets and tools familiar to your internal IT staff.
Increased Security: THG's Office Communications Server solutions offer enhanced security and manageability of IM, making this popular form of communication an asset to enterprises that value productivity, but need enhanced security and archiving capabilities. Additionally, THG's solutions allow enterprises to log IM communications, helping protect corporate privacy and intellectual property, not to mention ensuring regulatory compliance in certain industries.
Greater Employee Collaboration: Collaboration in real time through THG's messaging solutions allows for faster resolution of issues and shorter time to decisions.
Productivity Monitoring: THG's solutions make it possible to incorporate presence, or knowledge of whether a person is online and available, into productivity applications and enterprise line-of-business applications to foster instant communication and collaboration among information workers across an enterprise.
Infrastructure Design Enhancement: THG's custom messaging solutions provide the methodology that enables clients to deploy and structure real-time communications tools as an integral part of their information infrastructure moving forward.
Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Frequently Asked Questions
What is Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007?
Office Communications Server 2007 is the next version of Microsoft Live Communications Server 2005. This trial software delivers streamlined communications to end users, a software-powered VoIP foundation for organizations, and operational control for IT.
What software does the free trial include?
The free trial includes Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, Microsoft Office Communicator 2007, and Speech Server (2007).
What is new in Office Communications Server 2007?
Office Communications Server 2007 builds on the foundation of Presence and Instant Messaging, Federated Communications and Remote Call Control delivered by Live Communications Server 2005 and Microsoft Office Communicator 2005. Key new features include a number of improvements to Instant Messaging and Presence capability such as integration with Microsoft Exchange Server distribution lists as well as the addition of software-powered VoIP, allowing users to make, receive and manage voice (phone) calls using Office Communicator 2007 running on their computer and multi-party on-premise audio/video and Web conferencing. Office Communications Server 2007 also supports the ICE framework of protocols, allowing users to take advantage of these communications capabilities from wherever they are without needing to establish a VPN connection.
How does the Web conferencing functionality in Office Communications Server 2007 compare with Microsoft Office Live Meeting?
Web conferencing capability in Office Communications Server 2007 provides Web conferencing to users via an on-premise solution residing inside the corporate firewall. Users can connect to Office Communications Server 2007 or to Office Live Meeting using the same client. Office Live Meeting is a hosted Web conferencing service which will continue to be offered as a hosted service in addition to the on-premise Office Communications Server 2007 product.
Will Office Communications Server 2007 interoperate with Live Communications Server 2005?
Yes. While organizations are in the process of migrating, Office Communications Server 2007 and Live Communications Server 2005 can interoperate.
Can I upgrade from Live Communications Server 2005 to Office Communications Server 2007?
Yes. The migration process involves deploying some Office Communications Server 2007 infrastructure in parallel to a Live Communications Server 2005 deployment and then easily migrating the users across to the new infrastructure. Read about migrating to Office Communications Server 2007.
Where can I get a free trial of Office Communications Server 2007?
Contact The Henson Group for help on downloading a free trial at Info@HensonGroup.com.
How many servers do I need to run Office Communications Server 2007?
This depends on your organization’s requirements. For smaller deployments you could potentially run your infrastructure on one server, but for environments where greater scale, geographical distribution or fault tolerance are required, Office Communications Server 2007 has a flexible architecture to allow this kind of scaling in a multi-server environment.
What version of Office Communicator can I use with Office Communications Server 2007?
You can use Office Communicator 2005 or Office Communicator 2007 with Office Communications Server 2007. Note that to use the new features offered by Office Communications Server 2007 you will need to use Office Communicator 2007. For a specific user, once you have started using Office Communicator 2007 with Office Communications Server 2007 you will no longer be able to sign in with Office Communicator 2005.