MVP Battle of the Month - October 2009 Winner..

Today we won the MVP battle of the Month with our free NFR license to the OCS/Exchange Community! Congrats to all the guys who make this happen.

Special thanks to Menno Windsma, Michiel van Oudheusden and Robbert Seidemann!
-Joachim

iDialog update release (1.1)

Special thanks to the iDialog Development Team and Congrats to my MVP buddy John Lamb. Nice work.

See all information on: http://www.modalitysystems.com/idialog/

This free update (v1.1.1) was released today:

Features:

• Support for OCS CWA 2007 and 2007 R2 servers that are published behind an ISA Server using Single-Sign On (SSO) authentication. If you have deployed CWA using ISA SSO, the connection will now be seamless.
• Support for Enterprise certificates. If your OCS CWA is configured with an internal certificate, the user is warned about the untrusted certificate and can choose to “accept” the certificate in order to proceed. This is the same behavior that is available in all major web browsers today. This will greatly improve the out of box experience for users at companies that have used an internal CA to issue their CWA certificate (or certain Public CA’s that have proved to be problematic for the iPhone platform).
• Support for Distribution Groups (This feature is available only if your company has deployed OCS 2007 R2).
• Robust connection status information and error messages

Fixes:

• Improved speed and responsiveness.
• Support for passwords with certain special characters.
• Fix for intermittent app crashes when signed in to multiple OCS endpoints.

Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2 Hotfix KB 972884

File Name:
communicator.msp

Version:
6907.56

Knowledge Base (KB) Articles:
KB972884

Date Published:
10/27/2009

Language:
English

Download Size:
9.9 MB

October 2009 Updates for OC 2007 R2 and OCS 2007 R2

Update for Communicator 2007 R2: Oct 2009

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/972884

Article ID: 972884 - Last Review: October 28, 2009 - Revision: 1.0

 

Cumulative Update for Office Communications Server 2007 R2: October 2009

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/975611

Article ID: 975611 - Last Review: October 28, 2009 - Revision: 1.0

 

I didn’t test these updates already but they are supported and published on Support Microsoft. Enjoy!

New Unified Communications ISV Customer Evidence Available

• Click on the Open Text Corporation case study to learn how they enhanced their fax-processing software to work with Microsoft® Exchange Server 2010.
• Click on the NetApp case study to learn how they help their customers reduce storage costs, streamline data management, and provide high availability for their messaging system.
• Click on the HP case study to learn how they provide organizations with new efficiency in planning, deployment, and management tools for Exchange Server 2010 environments.
• Click on the EMC case study to learn how they helped their customers by enhancing storage, backup and archiving, and security options for Exchange Server 2010 environments.
• Click on the Symantec case study to learn how they help customers migrate and manage their updated messaging platforms.
• Click on the Dell case study to learn how they help customers take advantage of new solutions and features that can deliver greater cost efficiencies, increase productivity, and improve communications.

Source: Voice Specialized Partner Sales and Technical Resources: October 2009

Registration Now Open for Microsoft Certified Masters Training Programs!!!

The Office Communications Server 2007 Microsoft Certified Masters Program offers three weeks of intensive technical training to enable your consultants and engineers to deliver the highest quality solutions for your end customers. Many partners are making strategic investments in the Microsoft Certified Masters training programs to enable them to differentiate their services and build credibility in a competitive market. The program offers a unique mix of in class instruction and a substantial hands on labs infrastructure where candidates can perfect their product knowledge to ‘level 400 and beyond’ – see the Master team blog for more details.  Sessions are delivered by recognized experts in their field including members of the Product Team, MSIT, and Microsoft Consulting. All supported by over 70 hours of lab exercises and hands on activities. 

Curriculum areas include:

• Core Protocols – discover how OCS leverages wide range protocols and how to interpret/troubleshoot them
• OCS Server and Client internals – detailed analysis of all server and client components and services
• Edge – understand the details of Edge services and how to deploy/troubleshoot
• Voice – dive into the OCS media stack, codecs, voice design, and integration
• Video and Video Conferencing – the internals of native OCS video and how to integrate with third party solutions
• Application Integration – how to drive value for customers and expand consulting opportunities with the UC stack and line of business application integration

Source: Voice Specialized Partner Sales and Technical Resources: October 2009.

Don’t miss out - the next delivery is now open for registration.  For more information, please contact Adrian Maclean.

New OCS R2 visio stencils and OCS R2 documentation published on 23/10

OCS 2007 R2 Documentation

Use this page to find technical documentation to help you understand, plan, deploy, and operate Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 servers.

10/23/2009
799

Office Communications Server 2007 Visio stencil

The Office Communications Server 2007 Visio stencil contains icons for Office Communications Server 2007 server roles and components.

10/23/2009
1238

Office Communications Server Public IM Connectivity Provisioning Guide 2.0 available

File Name:
OCS PIC Provisioning Guide.doc

Version:
2.0

Date Published:
10/20/2009

Language:
English

Download Size:
43 KB – 128

Overview

This document describes the requirements and processes for activating and provisioning public instant messaging (IM) connectivity for Microsoft® Office Communications Server 2007 R2, Office Communications Server 2007, and Live Communications Server 2005.

Telenor Launches Unified Communications (UC)

Cool I missed this one. Congrats guys!

Telenor is the first telecoms operator to launch a Unified Communications (UC) solution on the Norwegian market. A total of 30,000 Telenor employees currently use Unified Communications services. This important internal experience forms the basis for the product being launched commercially today.

Source: http://www.telenor.com/en/news-and-media/news/2009/telenor-launches-unified-communications-UC

“with Unified Mobile Status, staff members can see from their own PC client whether colleagues are free or busy on their mobiles. This service obtains information from the Telenor mobile network about whether the colleague in question is busy or free, and this status information is then sent to the employee's PC (Unified Communications client). Mobile Status is delivered together with Blueposition.”

New Downloads

Forefront Security for OCS MP for Ops Mgr 2007

Forefront Security for Office Communications Server Management Pack provides real-time insight into the health and performance of key Forefront Security for Office Communications Server (Version 10) components and services.

10/16/2009
28603

Communications Server 2007 R2 Site Resiliency White Paper

This white paper provides guidelines and best practices for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 site resiliency.

10/15/2009
4366

The Total Economic Impact™ Of Microsoft Unified Communications Products and Services

Quick Details

File Name:
TEI of Microsoft UC - English.pdf

Version:
October 2007

Date Published:
10/8/2009

Language:
English

Download Size:
281 KB

Overview

This is an analysis of the total economic impact of implementing Microsoft Unified Communications products and services.

Office Communicator Mobile 2007 R2 for Java (Nokia S60 320X240 resolution - U.S.)

File Name:
communicator_NOKIAS60R2_ATT_EN_US.zip

Version:
1.0.6875.0

Date Published:
10/7/2009

Language:
English

Download Size:
466 KB

OCS WebChat NFR license for your blog/Community Server or public SharePoint website!

<<Special offer ONLY for UC/Exchange experts /[MVP’s]>>

As Unified Communications expert or Exchange Server expert within the UC community e-office would like to offer a free single user, OCS WebChat NFR license for your blog/Community Server or public SharePoint website!

See also our story on Microsoft Case Studies.

LIVE:

See the live version of OCS WebChat on this weblog Unified Communications Netherlands and lets have a chat. Support the community members now with OCS WebChat! Let’s interact and Unified Now.

Goal: Our Chat Solution Extends Benefits of Unified Communications to Web Site Visitors on your personal blog! Our main goal is to support you guys with all your activities right within the (OCS or Exchange) community.

REGISTRATION NOW OPEN

HERE 

**and sent it back to joachim.farla (at) e-office.com**

QueryServiceForStatus (DWORD) for Office Communicator 2007 R2

TIP: As you probably know the DWORD value QueryServiceForStatus is a very special DWORD value in your registry. Sometimes it makes customers happy! By default when setting up a MOSS 2007 (SharePoint) intranet or other topology (extranet, internet) a nice integration feature is showing up. The item where I would like to focus on is the OC ActiveX   control who controls the presence icon in your IE session. When having Microsoft Office 2003 and Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2 installed on your local computer presence is shown in SharePoint.

By default SharePoint calls name.dll, which calls MSO.DLL, which in turn calls Communicator or Windows Messenger. For Office 2003 it was always Windows Messenger, which would call Communicator, until SP2 when MSO.DLL started calling Communicator directly. The reg key effects the behavior of MSO.DLL

A registry value is available to configure how Outlook queries for a contact's presence information. You can configure this registry value to determine how Outlook retrieves the online status for contacts who are not on your Windows Messenger contact list.

The issue was showing up last week while doing a large OCS R2 implementation (2k seats).

Case: Customer is using MOSS 2007 as there intranet platform and PowerFuse from Citrix to connect to that.

Process:

• All users connect via PowerFuse (Citrix) to MOSS
• When users open the MOSS intranet they see presence from content managers
• The users are using Office 2003.

Problem: the users see only presence from content managers who are added to the personal contact list of the user.

Question: Is there any way to set this by default:

• where each user who is connecting to the MOSS intranet page is seeing all the presence of the content managers (even when they are not "connected" through mutual acceptance)

Answer: YES! You can control the behavior on how presence is shown in MOSS. Like the same we had with LCS 2003 Microsoft published a article how to change your registry. For more information feel free to read the entire article (recommendation). Here the short to do list:

To modify this behavior, change the QueryServiceForStatus value in the following registry subkey:

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.

2. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:

• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Common\PersonaMenu
• If this registry subkey does not exist, create it. To do this, follow these steps:
• a. Right-click Common, point to New, and then click Key.
• b. In the New Key # 1 box, type PersonaMenu, and then press ENTER.

3. Right-click PersonaMenu, point to New, and then click DWORD Value.

4. In the New Value # 1 box, type QueryServiceForStatus, and then press ENTER.

5. Right-click QueryServiceForStatus, and then click Modify.

6. In the Value data box, type one of the following values:

• If you type a value of two (2), Outlook requests status information from the Real-Time Communications (RTC) service about people who may or may not be on your contact list.

7. Click OK, and then quit Registry Editor.

Conclusion:

• There are still ways to control how presence is shown in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.
• This investigation is a nice add-on on my former investigation on Mutual Acceptance in OCS R2 and how to control that. Read my earlier blogpost.
• The article KB889938 is also effective on Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server 2007 with Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 and Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2.
• This setting is also tested on Citrix with PowerFuse.
• Special thanks to Kyle Marsh (Microsoft) for giving us some insides.

Technorati Tags: PowerFuse,Citrix,QueryServiceForStatus,DWORD,Office Communications Server 2007 R2,OCS R2,MOSS,PersonaMenu,registry,Communicator 2007 R2,OC,R2

New PIC Licensing and released XMPP Gateway

Source: OCS Team Blog!
We are excited to announce changes to the Office Communications Server Public IM Connectivity (PIC) license that provides instant messaging and presence federation to the Windows Live, AOL and Yahoo! public IM networks. Starting October 1, 2009, the following licensing changes will be made:

A PIC License will no longer be required for federation with American Online (AOL). Customers qualify for federation with AOL if they have Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Standard CAL or active Software Assurance on their current LCS/OCS license.
Customers who want Yahoo! federation will continue to purchase PIC licenses. The price of PIC will be reduced by 50%, effective October 1, 2009, to reflect this change.

We are also excited to announce the release of the OCS 2007 R2 XMPP Gateway (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=141529). The Gateway provides Presence and two-party IM interoperability with the XMPP based systems of Jabber and Google Talk.
The Gateway interoperability has been tested against Jabber CXP Server version 5.4 and the current version of Google Talk. The OCS 2007 R2 XMPP Gateway is supported by Microsoft Support

This Gateway is licensed as Additional Software to OCS 2007 R2, meaning that there is no additional license cost associated with deploying the Gateway for OCS 2007 R2 licenses.
For more details about these two great announcements you can read the Microsoft Press Pass article with Eric Swift, General Manager of the Unified Communications Group at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2009/oct09/10-01ucinterop.mspx or in this Channel9 interview with the responsible Product Managers Ashima Singhal and Albert Kooiman http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/jccim/Instant-Messaging-Interoperability-extended-through-XMPP-Jabber/

Recap of June Announcement: In June 2009, we announced a similar change for Windows Live and renamed the OCS PIC license.

The LCS PIC license was renamed to Office Communications Server Public IM Connectivity.
A PIC License is no longer required for federation with Windows Live. Customers qualify for federation with Windows Live if they have Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Standard CAL or active SA on their current LCS/OCS license.

With these changes, customers qualify for IM/P federation with Windows Live and AOL with the Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Standard CAL or OCS 2007/LCS 2005 SP1 Standard CAL with Software Assurance. http://www.microsoft.com/communicationsserver/en/us/public-im-connectivity.aspx

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Documentation updated

Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Documentation updated on 30/09 (Microsoft Download). Check it out.

Quick Details

Version:
1.0

Date Published:
9/30/2009

Language:
English

Download Size:
114 KB - 90.9 MB*

DOWNLOAD IT HERE! The download also contains a link to the new OCS 2007 R2 Deploying Certificates.doc!