Bill Gates introduced Microsoft’s next generation of unified communications software, predicting that impact of converged communications may be as significant as the adoption of graphical user interfaces.
“In the next decade, sweeping technology innovations driven by the power of software will transform communications,” Gates said.
At a media event in San Francisco, Gates and fellow Microsoft executives launched unified communications and VoIP software that includes the following:
- Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007. Software that delivers VoIP, video, instant messaging, conferencing and presence within the applications people already know and use such as Microsoft Office system applications and upcoming versions of Microsoft Dynamics ERP products and the Microsoft CRM release due later this year.
- Microsoft Communicator 2007 — client software for phone, instant messaging and video communications that works across the PC, mobile phone and Web browser
- Microsoft Office Live Meeting — the next version of Microsoft’s conferencing service that enables workers to conduct meetings, share documents, utilize video and record discussions from virtually any computer
- Microsoft RoundTable — a conferencing phone with a 360-degree camera that captures a panoramic view of meeting participants, tracks the speaker and can record meetings
- Service pack update of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007, providing an e-mail, voice mail, calendaring and unified messaging platform.
More than 50 partners joined Microsoft to announce new products and services built on Microsoft’s unified communications platform.
Microsoft also unveiled Unified Communications Open Interoperability, a telephony system qualification program, to give customers the assurance that Microsoft unified communications software works with their telephony systems.
