Microsoft OCS R2 adds single-number reach, hosted audio conferencing

Microsoft did, as expected, go public at long last with details about its Office Communications Server (OCS) Release 2 (R2) product on October 14 at the VoiceCon show.

R2 is a "minor" upgrade to OCS 2007, which Microsoft rolled out in the fall of 2007. Microsoft is not going to release a public beta of OCS R2, according to officials. But the final product should be released to manufacturing real soon now (word is December 2008 or so). OCS R2's official "virtual launch" is February 3, 2009.

Microsoft is billing the R2 update to OCS as furthering its enterprise-voice, conferencing and collaboration and development-platform stories with its unified instant messaging/VOIP/conferencing product.

As rumored, OCS R2 is 64-bit only. Microsoft is not providing specific migration tools for those running 32-bit OCS, said Yancey, Smith, Director of Product Management. Smith said Microsoft believes most users will do a side-by-side deployment when moving from OCS to OCS R2, which should reduce migration pains.

OCS R2 includes a number of new/enhanced features, including:

• Dial-in audioconferencing: Users can take advantage of an on-premise bridge that is managed by their IT departments to host their own audio-conferencing calls
• Persistent group chat: IM chats across geographic locations can now persist over time. Discussions are periodically archived for compliance-regulation purposes.
• Attendant console: Admins and others can more easily manage calls and conferences through new enhancements.
• Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunking: A new feature allowing the set-up of a direct VOIP connection between a service provider and OCS without requiring on-premise gateways.
• Single-number reach: An extension to Office Communicator Mobile for Nokia S40, Motorola RAZR and Windows Mobile users, allowing them access to OCS' presence, IM and voice features from a unified client.
• Integration with Visual Studio at the programming interface level: Microsoft is encouraging developers to build "communications-enabled" apps and to embed communications in existing apps by exposing more OCS APIs.

Smith declined to comment specifically on the next release of OCS -- which is expected to coincide with the release of Office 14 -- other than to say the OCS team is sticking to a roughly every-two-year release plan. That would put OCS "Next" around 2010, which increasingly is looking like the new rollout date for Office 14.

Smith also wouldn't discuss Microsoft's progress on delivering a Microsoft-hosted version of OCS, which Microsoft is expected to release this fall.