posted on Thursday, May 17, 2007 5:02 PM
by
Jonathan Hodgson
Next generation of workplace work phones
This
annoucement by Microsoft and leading telecoms companies recently to better integrate the
hardware phone devices with the desktop software space looks set to push things forward.
Most companies already have Voice Over IP (VOIP), Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) and use of conference calls for global team working and integration of address books from the PC to the phone is great.
“Today’s office phone is marooned on an island, separate from the rest of the
communications tools that information workers rely on to do their jobs,” said
Jeff Raikes, president of the Microsoft Business Division. “By weaving the
business phone together with e-mail, instant messaging, presence, conferencing
and the productivity software people use most, we are putting voice
communications back into business.”
The UI on the phones makes more sense than alot of devices I've used in the past.
I think presence should be thought of separately from instant messaging alot more, embedding it into line-of-business applications where user context\communication might be required. This can be done by leveraging the
Office Communication Server SDK\APIs.
The upcoming release of
Microsoft Office Communication Server 2007 (rewrite of Placeware) looks set to incorporate 360 degree video conferencing using hardware developed by Microsoft Research.
