Wednesday, April 25, 2007

I can finally talk about Office Communications Server 2007

It's been several months since I've last posted. Now that the next version of Live Communications Server is available in public beta, I can start blogging about what I've learned over the past 4 months about Office Communications Server 2007.

In December, I attend the OCS Summit. This was a exclusive event for TAP customers, Microsoft technical specialists, and a select group of LCS/OCS MVPs. The event took us through several in-depth presentations. We were able to go through setting up OCS in our own lab environment. We even got to use the telephony functionality. Lee Mackey, one of the OCS MVPs and a goof ball, took advantage of the video cameras to embarrass me.

It was a very productive week even though high winds cut power to 90% of Bellevue and several people missed their flights home. The presentation on Exchange UM integration was done using a generator to power the projector. It was great. I played Gears of War for the first time during game night which led to the purchase of my very own Xbox 360.

In March, I attend the Microsoft MVP Summit. The OCS MVPs had a wonderful opportunity to talk to the product group in several sessions. We had a lot of active dialogue on what we love about OCS and what we felt they left out. Some of our OCS MVPs were passionate about some of the telephony changes.