Microsoft Plans to Integrate VoIP Into Office 2007

Microsoft has unveiled a new integrated software capable of transforming the upcoming Office 2007 in to a platform for unified email, voice and video communications.

The software giant announced plans for the Office Communications Server 2007, featuring Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) for presence-based VoIP call management, audio, video, and web-conferencing and IM within existing applications.

Working with Office Communications Server 2007, Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 will offer a connection to external networks such as MSN, AOL and Yahoo!, in addition to feature presence-based VoIP softphone and enterprise-level IM.

It also will introduce plus Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 unified messaging to provide a single destination for email and voice messages.

This move of Microsoft towards unified communications is a part of an effort to encourage customers to upgrade to Office 2007.

One way in which Microsoft has attempted to do this is by positioning its suite as a window into data in customers' back office systems, resulting in Microsoft's integration with its own Dynamics software, called Snap.

Some six client, server and device products plus alliances with Hewlett Packard, Motorola and Siemens were identified by Jeff Raikes, president of Microsoft's business division, as part of an event in San Francisco to unveil its vision.