office communications server 2007

[Hollie1985]

Microsoft are presenting a session on OCS 2007 R2 which is happening in Birmingham, West Midlands soon so watch this space

[Soulfish]

Microsoft are presenting a session on OCS 2007 R2 which is happening in Birmingham, West Midlands soon so watch this space

 

Too far for me to travel at the moment unfortunately

[Ric_]

I'm currently leaning towards a Avaya IP PBX, which I've been assured by a couple of people integrates "seamlessly" into OCS. Does anyone have any experience of using IP PBX's with OCS and have any recomendations?

 

We have an Avaya IP Office at the moment and it's horrible to work with.

 

I admit that we are stuck on firmware from February 2007 because we have an IP403DT but from what I can tell there isn't a lot different with the new ones on the management side.

 

Avaya also seem to be the most expensive telephony company in the world and every last little bit is licensed separately. If I had this sort of money to play with I'd go for the Mitel system with Sun Ray integration plus change!!!

 

From the docs I've just been reading, any SIP-capable PBX will work to a certain extent with OCS with only a few extras being gained from a certified system.

[Soulfish]

We have an Avaya IP Office at the moment and it's horrible to work with.

 

I admit that we are stuck on firmware from February 2007 because we have an IP403DT but from what I can tell there isn't a lot different with the new ones on the management side.

 

Avaya also seem to be the most expensive telephony company in the world and every last little bit is licensed separately. If I had this sort of money to play with I'd go for the Mitel system with Sun Ray integration plus change!!!

 

From the docs I've just been reading, any SIP-capable PBX will work to a certain extent with OCS with only a few extras being gained from a certified system.

 

I have been half tempted to build our own Asterisk based PBX, but decided it's probably better to go down the all-in-one route since should I leave they'll still want to use the phone system and there's no guarantee that the next person will be able to support a Linux custom built Asterisk pbx system

 

Very interested in the Mitel stuff since it's looking like we'll be rolling out some Sun Ray gear in the next 6-9 months. Just need to find a reseller and get some pricing to compare

[john]

Ric are you feeling ok? You seem to be doing a lot of MS Loving here, OCS, Exchange, CALs, Server 2008 will be needed, MS Outlook etc etc its very un-you, next you will be saying Print Manager Plus instead of Pykota, no linux servers, Hyper-V instead of your Citrix stuff.......

[Ric_]

@Soulfish: There are companies that will provide Asterisk support which will mitigate the risk for your SLT. As for the Mitel stuff... it's ace! Cutter Project partner up with people to provide unified communications solutions so would be able to put you in touch with a partner near you (I always think a 'local' company is best for phone support - it's no good having to have an engineer drive 4 hours to get to you!!!).

 

@John: Never going back to PMP and XenServer is still nicer to administer than Hyper-V!

 

The whole reason for considering OCS is because of the need to use a subscription licensing model to get Windows 7 Enterprise. Since you get loads of random CALs with these models, I may as well try to utilise them.

[john]

Ah gotcha Exact same reason why I use a very large amount of MS, also because I like it anyway but I do the year licenceing so get a pile of others as part of it that I might as well use