What is OCS 2007? What Does it Do?

April 13, 2009 by Chris Williams
Filed under: Instant Messaging (IM), OCS 2007, OCS 2007 R2, Unified Communications, Voice over IP 

We can”t have an OCS Insider Blog without the obligatory “what is OCS 2007″ post to start us off, can we? I know many people are still confused over what “OCS” stands for, what this program does, why people get excited over it, etc. So I”ll try to put together a reasonable overview here.

What OCS 2007 Is

“OCS” stands for “Office Communications Server.” It’’s the abbreviated name for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007. The current version is OCS 2007 R2 (stands for “Revision 2,” naturally).

OCS 2007 is a software platform for communicating with people. It gives you several communications options from existing Microsoft products, like Outlook. (Yes, this means it’’s even easier for people to bug you in the middle of a project. Or does it? See the “Presence” stuff below.)

OCS exists in two primary parts: the main OCS server, and the Office Communicator client application. Office Communicator is what 95% of users will see every day. It acts much like a commercial IM application - but the server behind it has more capabilities than AIM or Yahoo! Messenger.

What You Use OCS 2007 For

  • Talk with co-workers via Instant Messaging/”IM”.
  • Hold a group chat if you need several opinions (or approvals).
  • Set your current status - Available, Do Not Disturb, Away, In a Call - with Presence. Leave a note as to what you”re doing.
    • See? With Presence you can notify everyone when you”re working on something important. That doesn”t necessarily stop them from bugging you, but it”ll help!
    • You can see other peoples” status like this too.
  • Hold a conference (video conference or audio-only) anytime, with as many people as you want.
  • (if VoIP is set up) Talk with anyone, even non-OCS phones, either through your computer or using a SIP-enabled phone.
  • If you want VoIP functionality through OCS, you”ll need a SIP gateway between the OCS server and the main POTS network. Only a few of these are available: Aculab has one; Sprint is working on it too.

OCS” Role in Unifying Communications

OCS is part of Microsoft’’s Unified Communications (UC) platform. Microsoft intends to streamline all forms of communication - phone, fax, email, voice - using Unified Communications software. OCS is something of a vanguard for this platform, since it plugs communication into almost every other Microsoft system.

So, What Have We Learned?

There’’s a LOT more detail about OCS 2007 out there. I”ll get to much of it here, in future posts. I”ll also link to other blogs and articles, to build up The OCS Insider as a central resource for this ridiculously-handy application.

Welcome to the Inside, everybody!

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Comments

2 Comments on What is OCS 2007? What Does it Do?

  1. Aspect Contact Center: Unplugged Blog » Blog Archive » Getting Rid of Your PBX Can Be Liberating on Sun, 21st Jun 2009 6:03 pm

    2. [...] concept of doing away with our PBXs because that required taking a big leap into the world of “communicating” vs. just calling– trusting that there was another way to efficiently route calls, but also [...]

  2. Is Moving to VoIP a Smart Thing to Do in a Recession? : The OCS Insider on Thu, 24th Sep 2009 5:37 am

    3. [...] This is the top benefit a complete VoIP system can provide. Unified Communications, as I’ve blogged about before, builds more communication options around regular old voice. Instant Messaging, working with [...]

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