Hailing a VoIP-driven unified communications solution from the world’s largest maker of software – a cost-effective telecom technology that appears to be thriving in this slower economy – officials at a South Africa-based systems integrator say they’re saving clients’ money.

 

Officials at Dimension Data say Microsoft Corp.’s so-called “Office Communications Server 2007 R2” – which manages real-time communications such as instant messaging, VoIP, audio and video conferencing – is helping them offer clients new collaboration features, enhanced voice capabilities and integrated development tools.

 

“Office Communications Server 2007 R2 provides us with a broader set of features and functions that we can use to enhance our existing solutions while we reduce complexity, risk, and cost for our clients,” said Gavin Hill, global business development manager for UC at Dimension Data.

 

The Microsoft (News - Alert) solution – known as “OCS R2” – is built on software-powered VoIP – an approach that officials at the Redmond, Washington-based company say offers every customer and developer an extensible platform.

 

This week at the Internet Telephony Conference & Expo in Miami, Microsoft officials plugged their approach in a keynote address that emphasized how software will form the foundation of communications’ next major phase.

 

As TMCnet reported here, John Frederiksen, general manager of Microsoft Response Point – the company’s IP-PBX (News - Alert) for small businesses – very few businesses are reaping the benefits of cost-saving VoIP technologies.

 

Frederiksen said he was surprised at “how many legacy phone systems are still out there and how many are paying large telephone charges without being aware of the possibilities of Voice-over-IP or switching over to a next-generation system. I think there’s really going to be a wave of upgrades which are going to occur in the next couple of years that are going to let customers start to reap those benefits.”

 

Microsoft hopes that products such as Response Point and OCS R2 will fill that gap.

 

As far as OCS R2 goes, Microsoft says its APIs allow clients to build click-to-communicate capabilities into any software that customers use on a daily basis.

 

“With a single click, the user can e-mail, instant message, call, or share applications,” Microsoft officials say. “The Microsoft enhanced presence shows the user, at a glance, not only whether their contact is available, but also which communication mode is most appropriate. And when users start a conversation, they can use the software to share whatever content they would like to talk about via data or application sharing.”

 

Microsoft is trying to get the word out about the UC solution through a new Web site –  ocsforum.com – which aims to offer a hosted OCS 2007 R2 lab environment for online training and learning.

 

As TMC (News - Alert) Vice President and CTO Tom Keating reports here, tech insiders who are hailing OCS R2 say they plan to add SIP gateways to the hosted environment to enable

 

“If you’re interesting in playing with OCS 2007 R2, but don’t want to spend the time installing and configuring the various server components, heads on over to ocsforum.com,” Keating writes.