Tech rant

just before lunchtime on Thursday, the 29th of June 2006 by Chad

A review about Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 that’s coming out soon…

Although the Office Communicator 2007 client can connect to an IP-PBX, it has to first go through Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 as an intermediary. I should point out that Microsoft’s smartphones (Windows Mobile 5.0) have still been fairly slow to take off as compared to Treo and others, which are often used for business applications such as email access.
If Microsoft wanted to give its smartphones a shot in the arm, the company should have included support in Office Communicator 2007 client for any SIP-based IP-PBX without the need for the Server 2007 platform. Sure, it’s nice to have all the tight integration and ease of management, but hasn’t Microsoft realized that most organizations are not 100 percent Microsoft shops? What if I want to use Microsoft’s client with the popular Asterisk IP-PBX and without the commercial Office Communications Server 2007 software? Can’t do it.

OK… now, here’s my question: how does this guy mix up Microsoft’s smartphones, which are cellphones, that have pocket pc capabilities, with VOIP?
I have a smartphone, the XV6700. And I run Communicator 2005 on it, so I can chat via LCS no problem.
But it has nothing to do with the Communicator client which runs on your normal windows desktop like MSN messenger and is primarily an instant messenger platform based on the LCS. LCS also supports SIP signalling to tie it in with PBXs. In fact, I did this exact thing the other day…
But what it really comes down to: Office Communicator is a client for the Live Communications Server. You don’t buy OC clients if you don’t have LCS. That’s just stoopid. And then the guy complains that a side feature of OC requires LCS too. Does this make sense to anyone???