Voice and Video Improvements

Communications Server and the Communicator client have been substantially improved for voice and video. Together, Microsoft’s unified communications platform components can act as an organization’s primary system for voice and video communication, but more likely they will supplement and coexist with older PBXs. The voice and video features will particularly interest organizations deploying custom voice applications (e.g., for customer service), and organizations looking to consolidate voice and data on a single directory and network. The Communicator client could also enable users to more effectively employ more complex voice features (e.g., conference calling) than ordinary phones do.

Communications Server for Voice and Video

Organizations already have telephone systems and videoconferencing systems that Microsoft does not intend to displace, at least in the short term, so it’s not immediately clear why an organization would run voice and video on Communications Server. Fundamentally, the business case is similar to that for unified communications in general.