Communications Online Roadmap

The Microsoft-hosted Communications Online service will gain new Web conferencing, voice, and video functions and eventually take over the role of the company’s Live Meeting service. The move will simplify deployment of Microsoft’s unified communications technology and management of Communications Online, which could reduce costs for both Microsoft and customers. However, the company has provided only vague timeframes for the transition, which is to begin by the end of 2010.

Instant Messaging and Web Conferencing Separate

Microsoft-hosted communications services are available stand-alone or as part of its Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) bundle, which also includes its Exchange Online e-mail and SharePoint Online Web collaboration services. Three main Microsoft-hosted communications services are sold with BPOS.

Communications Online Dedicated enables users with Microsoft’s Communicator 2007 R2 client software to exchange instant messages (IMs) and publish and see one another’s presence status (e.g., available, busy, away). The service can broker voice and video calls between Communicator users, but only between two parties, and users cannot call conventional wired or mobile telephones. Like the other BPOS Dedicated services, Communications Online Dedicated is priced for organizations of 5,000 users or more and uses dedicated server hardware for each customer. Dedicated customers can add public IM connectivity (PIC) service, which enables users to securely exchange presence status and IMs with users of public IM services hosted by AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo.