Microsoft Office finds its voice
Microsoft is staging the long-awaited coming-out party for its IP telephony software with an announcement that the public beta release of Office Communications Server 2007, Microsoft’s voice over IP and unified communications server, and Office Communicator 2007, Microsoft’s unified communications client, will be available to testers later this month.
The announcement will be made by Jeff Raikes, president of Microsoft’s Business Division, during a keynote address Wednesday morning at the VoiceCon trade show in Orlando, Fla.
The launch of the new software puts Microsoft head to head with other companies selling IP telephony and unified communications software to large companies. As the No. 1 supplier of desktop software to most businesses around the world, Microsoft will likely be a formidable competitor not only to the traditional telephony players, such as Avaya, but also to its longtime partner and more recent rival Cisco Systems.