Introduction

Communications Server 2007 is Microsoft’s latest platform for unified communications, which provides instant messaging (IM), user presence, voice, e-mail and other communications services over a single network and directory infrastructure. Unified communications promises to reduce ongoing equipment and service charges, simplify management, and make communication more efficient for users. Communications Server 2007 will be a more credible unified communications platform than past versions thanks to dramatically improved voice features and new support for Web conferences, which combine voice with synchronized PowerPoint presentations and other data sharing features. However, unified communications technology is relatively new and imposes significant upfront costs, so most organizations will move in stages as the technology and Microsoft’s offerings are proven.

Improvements Focus on Voice and Web Conferencing

First introduced in early 2004 (under the name Live Communications Server), Communications Server and its associated client, Communicator, supported enterprise IM and presence tracking. IM enables users to send short text messages to other online users, and presence indicates whether users are actively using a PC or other device and are willing to receive IM or other communications at the device. With each subsequent release, Communications Server and Communicator have added more support for other forms of communication, such as voice calls, video calls, and application sharing. The 2007 versions of these products now support three main forms of real-time communication: