With the Microsoft Unified Communications Virtual Experience, you can see first-hand how Microsoft’s Unified Communications solution can help you harness the power of software to streamline communications between people anytime, anywhere, free for 60-days.
NB : Use AALL in the company name if you want to test it with me !
Microsoft is putting the finishing touches on its suite of Microsoft-hosted services known as the Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS).
Microsoft is going to deliver a near-final Release Candidate test build of BPOS on September 26 and is telling users that a final build of the BPOS product should be released within 30 days, according to a September 25 posting to the Microsoft Online Services blog.
“On that date, BPOS will be available for purchase in the United States. Those that are in the BPOS TAP (Technology Adoption Program) program or are current Beta users will continue to enjoy the service free of charge until 30 days after GA (general availability).”
BPOS is a bundle of Microsoft Exchange Online, Microsoft SharePoint Online, Microsoft Office Live Meeting conferencing, Microsoft Office Communications Online (the hosted version of Office Communications Server) and the Microsoft Online Administration Center management portal.
Features of the Business Productivity Online Suite are :
E-mail and calendar functions — Exchange Online delivers e-mail services including spam filtering, anti-virus protection, and synchronization of mobile devices.
E-mail coexistence and migration tools — You can also use the Migration Tools to copy content from your Exchange Server, POP3, or IMAP4 e-mail server mailboxes to your Exchange Online mailboxes.
Document collaboration and workspaces — SharePoint Online allows you to share and work together on documents, maintain version control for shared documents, create intranet sites to manage projects and project workflows, post calendar information, and set up wikis and blogs.
Web conferencing — Office Live Meeting allows you to hold online meetings with colleagues, customers, and partners in real time. Office Live Meeting participants can convene online to share documents, ask questions, work on a virtual “whiteboard,” and talk to each other during the meeting.
Microsoft Online Services Administration Center — The Administration Center gives you an online management portal to manage your services and users.
Microsoft Online Services Sign In application — The Sign In application is a tool that automatically sets up services and allows users to access all of their services with no need to sign in each time they use them.
Microsoft is marketing its Microsoft-hosted services to customers of all sizes, not just large enterprises, which were the initial target of the offering.
Office Live Workspace is publicly available to English-speaking users worldwide. Live Workspace is not a Web-based version of Microsoft Office, but a complement to Microsoft Office according o the Software-plus-service strategy from Microsoft. It provides an easy way for people to save their Office documents and other files to the web, and then to share their work and collaborate with others.
Others web 2.0 competitors like Google offer a fully online service for managing and sharing your document and you not need a local application to create or edit your documents. The Microsoft strategy is to offer some additional services to your local Office applications, that’s why Microsoft use the acronym S+S and not the Software As A Service (SaaS).Office Live Workspace service can be used from a PC, kiosk or other Web-access point without Office installed; all you technically need is an Internet Explorer or Firefox browser to access and share your document, but you cannot edit or create without a local installation of Office. To be able to save from inside Office to Office Live Workspace, users need to download a client plug-in that is available on the Microsoft Download Center. Microsoft has said that current Office for Mac and Open Office users also will be able to make use of Office Live Workspace, but there are no plug-ins allowing the automatic saving of content from those products to the Live service.Then, after uploading a document using the web browser or the plug-in inside Office, you can share access to this document using email or IM.You can use Microsoft SharedView for screen sharing, group chats and sharing documents with multiple people in real time.Microsoft SharedView allows connecting with up to 15 people in different locations. Users can be invited to join a session by email or IM. They are able to communicate with each other by being able to view each other’s screens and control them. Also, handouts, or files, can be broadcasted by one to all users. Creation of a session is done with Windows Live ID. SharedView also provides integration into Microsoft Office applications and Windows Live Messenger. For example, in Microsoft Office Word, if tracked changes are turned on and another user is granted control and he or she changes the documents, those changes are tracked as being done by that user. SharedView is partially ad-supported by advertisements from Live Search.SharedView is similar to Windows Meeting Space, which is included in Windows Vista. However, Windows Meeting Space supports ad hoc meetings, application sharing, file transfer, and simple messaging within a network and works primarily inside the firewall, requiring IT involvement (on both sides) to bridge firewalls. Microsoft SharedView, on the contrary is designed for collaboration over the internet.
Microsoft Office Communications Online allows you to take advantage of industry-leading collaboration capabilities without managing your own infrastructure, server hardware, facilities, or hiring support staff. Microsoft provides a more secure environment than public instant messaging tools for sharing intellectual property and working within teams that are increasingly dispersed around the world.
With Office Communications Online, your enterprise can be up and running quickly. At the heart of the solution are Microsoft data centers located at key sites around the world. Each data center houses a highly available complex of equipment that hosts your communication services. The servers needed to support your organization are dedicated to your company only, as your data is always kept separate from other organizations.
Core Office Communications Online Service will include :
• Secure instant messaging by deploying the Intelligent Instant Message Filter (IIMF) program as
a standard feature.
• Presence awareness,
• Access to instant messaging via your intranet and the Internet.
• Service Level Agreements at the service, not just server level, covering Office Communications Online. 99.9% service availability is offered.
• Dedicated hosting in Microsoft data centers.
• Directory synchronization from your Microsoft Active Directory providing single sign-on capability.
• Dedicated servers and networks providing you with logical and physical security.
• Service evolution that includes upgrades to new Office Communications Online release versions at no additional charge.
• Disaster recovery services that provide full instant messaging and presence capability in an alternate and geographically diverse data center within 72 hours.
• Federation with Microsoft includes a dedicated trusted connection between the customer and Microsoft.
Optional Services will include :
• Federation to allow two or more disparate instant messaging and presence installations to interconnect and communicate with each other.
• Public IM Connectivity (PIC) providing connectivity with users from the MSN, AOL, and Yahoo public Instant Messaging services.
• Content archiving to capture and retain text instant message content for all users.
• Web access to extend the reach of instant messaging and presence to a broader base of users.
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