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PC Magazine Stops the Presses - Online Only

November 19, 2008

I grew up reading PC Magazine and I looked forward each couple weeks to picking up my copy of PC Magazine at the local grocery store. But today, Ziff Davis has announced that the legendary PC Magazine print publication is shutting down its print publication and focusing exclusively on online content. This is truly a sad day... Hold on while I grab some tissues...

PC Magazine started the whole in-depth comparative reviews of PCs and Microsoft software.

Posted in Computer Hardware, Computer Software, Gadgets, Home Entertainment, Microsoft, Mobile Phones, News, TMCnet, Video Games & Gaming, Video Hardware & Software

Microsoft and IBM Announce Sametime and Microsoft OCS integration

November 13, 2008

As one of my sources told me a few days ago, IBM and Microsoft planned on offering Sametime and OCS 2007 integration to be announced at VoiceCon. Three days ago I wrote:

Rumor has it that Microsoft and/or IBM will announce integration between Office Communications Server 2007 and IBM's Lotus Sametime "Unified Telephony" platform at this week's VoiceCon show. If true, this would combine approximately 20 million Sametime users with Microsoft's fast growing OCS 2007 user base creating the largest unified communications user base.

Well, it just hit the newswires. At Voicecon, IBM and Microsoft announced that IBM Sametime and OCS will offer Interdomain Federation in Q4 of 2008, using SIP/SIMPLE.

The support will require an update to the Sametime Gateway 8.0.2. It will support OCS 2007 and OCE 2007 R2.

Posted in Microsoft, SIP, TMCnet, Unified Communications, VoIP

VoIPshield Finds Security Flaws in Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, Office Communicator and Windows Live Messenger

November 12, 2008

I'm always a bit skeptical of VoIP security vulnerabilities discovered by firms which sell security products. Nevertheless, I thought it was worth sharing this bit of news.

Update: Microsoft responded that VoIPShield's test is "on a non-secure implementation of OCS, which you would have to disable as we are secure with a default installation."

See, that's why I was "a bit skeptical"!

VoIPshield Laboratories, the research division of VoIPshield Systems Inc., is making its first-ever announcement in a new category of research related to security vulnerabilities in VoIP and Unified Communications (UC) systems. These vulnerabilities affect applications that use media stream protocols like RTP (Real-time Transport Protocol), a popular standardized packet format for delivering audio and instant messaging over the Internet.

The Microsoft products affected are Office Communications Server 2007, Office Communicator and Windows Live Messenger.

Posted in Microsoft, SIP, TMCnet, Unified Communications, VoIP

Internet Explorer 6 Mobile Browser Coming

November 12, 2008

Internet Explorer 6 Mobile browser is close to release, with the Windows Mobile Team Blog announcing the availability of emulator images of Windows Mobile 6.1.4 containing the updated browser. Even though Microsoft is finalizing IE 8 for PCs, it's only up to version IE 6 for its mobile platform, though IE8's javascript engine is backported to IE6 Mobile.

Check out the features in Pocket Internet Explorer 6 Mobile (PIE6):

Improved fidelity (support for full fidelity desktop rendering)
Layout fixes to accommodate a mobile screen (text wrap)
Enhanced Script and AJAX support (Jscript v5.7 from Internet Explorer 8)
Improved multimedia experience (Adobe Flash Lite 3.1 for Adobe Flash content)
Deeper integration with search
Enhanced cursor navigation model
Touch and gesture support - pan support
Multiple zoom levels
Easy switching between mobile / desktop versions of sites by specifying UA strings.

The question is, is this too little, too late? Several browsers have surpassed Pocket Internet Explorer to become the mobile browser of choice, including Opera Mini, which just released Opera Mini 4.2 yesterday, but also Opera Mobile 9.5, and Skyfire, which handles video streaming Flash sites such Youtube.

Posted in Internet, Microsoft, Mobile Phones, TMCnet, Wireless

Sametime and Microsoft OCS integration

November 10, 2008

Rumor has it that Microsoft and/or IBM will announce integration between Office Communications Server 2007 and IBM's Lotus Sametime "Unified Telephony" platform at this week's VoiceCon show. If true, this would combine approximately 20 million Sametime users with Microsoft's fast growing OCS 2007 user base creating the largest unified communications user base.

There are ways of getting OCS and Sametime to integrate via 3rd party gateways, however it is somewhat limiting. I don't believe you can do video for instance.

If Sametime and OCS can interoperate and offer IM/presence, voice, and video, that would be HUGE.

Posted in Microsoft, SIP, TMCnet, Unified Communications, VoIP

NetQoS Unified Communications Monitor 2.0 Launches

November 10, 2008

NetQoS today launched its first unified communications focused management tool called NetQoS Unified Communications (UC) Monitor. NetQoS is broadening the focus of its formerly named VoIP Monitor product to reflect the growing role and functionality of unified communications. NetQoS UC Monitor 2.0 supports voice and video quality metrics in a Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) environment as well as enhanced diagnostics and reporting for Cisco IP telephony environments.

In my conversation with NetQoS I asked them what the upgrade/migration path was for current customers, and they said existing customers would be upgraded to NetQoS UC Monitor 2.0 free of charge.

Posted in Microsoft, SIP, TMCnet, Unified Communications, Video Conferencing, VoIP

What's New in Administration and Management with Office Communications Server 2007 R2

October 31, 2008

With Microsoft OCS R2's pending release, I thought you'd be interested in seeing a video interview of Microsoft's Ananad Lakshminarayanan about some of the new features in Office Communications Server R2, which is Microsoft's popular unified communications platform. In the video you'll see some of the IT Admin specific features in OCS R2, which includes an OCS architecture planner to make OCS much easier to deploy. Essentially, it includes a wizard that you provide with your locations, users, and feature requirements and it spits out a detailed Visio style architecture for you, including recommendations for number of servers and locations, as well as bandwidth requirements. The wizard will even list out all the ports & IPs that you need to open.

They've added load balancing for Edge Servers for scalability.

Posted in Microsoft, SIP, TMCnet, Unified Communications

Tell me something I don't know - Telefónica & Microsoft team up for Live Messenger VoIP

October 24, 2008

Just saw a news release put out today that Telefonica and Microsoft have teamed up for Live Messenger VoIP. CNet also picked up this news. Only one problem - on October 2nd, I discovered Microsoft had added something called "Voype" (a service by Telefonica) to Live Messenger. The article was title "Windows Live Messenger Back in the VoIP game!".

Posted in Internet, Microsoft, TMCnet, VoIP

Microsoft OCS 2007 R2 Heralds the Death of the IP-PBX

October 14, 2008

Today, Microsoft debuted Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Release 2 (R2), an update to Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007. Customers will be able to purchase the release, currently in private beta testing, beginning in February 2009.

Office Communications Server 2007 R2 includes several new important functionality, particularly for remote and mobile workers. It includes on-premise audioconferencing to help reduce operational costs and introduces new developer advances, including the ability to build communications-enabled business processes.

"Office Communications Server 2007 R2, debuting just one year after the Microsoft unified communications launch, highlights the pace of innovation that is possible with software," said Stephen Elop, president of the Microsoft Business Division at Microsoft.

Posted in Microsoft, TMCnet, Unified Communications, VoIP

Run Windows Mobile on the iPhone

October 13, 2008

Apparently, a young a Norwegian developer named Erik Kristiansen has developed an application that lets you run Windows Mobile on the iPhone! Now why would someone go and do something like that? How bout actual copy/paste that works, plus the ability to run 3rd party apps in the background? The video is an interview taken at MyPhone 2008 and he explains that he has essentially created bootcamp for the iPhone.

Posted in Apple, Microsoft, Mobile Phones, Wireless

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