Galdon Data makes Microsoft Live Communications Server a key communication tool for 2010

Local IT services company Galdon Data has announced that it is gearing itself to provide services and solutions around Microsoft`s Live Communications Server 2005, making this a cog in its future growth strategy.

As one of the early Microsoft partners in South Africa to achieve Microsoft Gold Partner status in the competency Information Worker Solutions, Galdon Data believes Live Communications Server will be one of the most popular technologies by 2010.

According to Galdon Data MD Garry Ackerman, Live Communications Server provides a powerful, scalable, enterprise-grade instant messaging and integrated presence solution. "Live Communications Server improves business efficiencies by extending instant messaging and other real-time communication capabilities to team members, partners, suppliers and customers across multiple geographies, time zones and organisational boundaries."

Live Communications Server provides instant messaging (IM) and presence awareness, a critical enterprise capability allowing users to discover if others are available to collaborate, communicate and share information. Customers can connect and communicate with users of the public IM service providers (MSN, AOL and Yahoo!). This means information can flow rapidly and efficiently, reducing costs and enabling better, faster decision-making.

Integrated with Microsoft Office System, Sharepoint and the Windows Server System, Live Communications Server fits seamlessly into one`s existing work processes and infrastructure to deliver immediate benefits to ones organisation. It also supports peer-to-peer audio, video, application-sharing and data collaboration, instantly accelerating the workflow of today`s information workers.

Ackerman says when information workers can see their colleagues on instant messaging, they can immediately get the answers to quick questions involving work issues. "Cutting through the e-mail clutter and less invasive than a phone call, instant messaging focuses on the exact information needed to keep business processes moving forward. Earlier this year we underwent training in the UK and we are already successfully using this application across our three national offices.

"For example, Live Communications Server enables users to display their status (away, idle, busy, do not disturb, etc) to other users. One can also determine who is offline or unavailable. By right-clicking on a user that is offline, users will see if a contact is available via other forms of communication such as e-mail or telephone if the organisation has taken advantage of telephony integration," he explains.

Today, users inside typical corporations can instant message with customers and partners using one of the three main public IM clients (MSN, AOL and Yahoo!). However, using these public IM clients does not offer the encryption of data, or the ability for administrators to log and archive the transactions, which is often required to meet record retention or disclosure requirements.

Ackerman says public IM clients usually do not meet most corporate security standards and often require corporate users to run multiple clients simultaneously to enable connections with multiple public IM service providers. "This makes the management of desktop software difficult and also decreases productivity of users. Many corporations choose to disable public IM connectivity either at the network edge or by locking the desktop software, either to help increase corporate security or to help reduce the number of employees that use public IM services for personal use."

In a world of communications overload, where virtual working continues to increase, existing forms of asynchronous communication are no longer sufficient. Communicator 2005 integrates rich communication capabilities to allow teams and information workers to more easily and efficiently communicate in real-time.

The enterprise telephone has been a key form of real-time communications for some time, although until today, it has not been well integrated with the PC. Communicator 2005 bridges the gap between the enterprise phone and the PC.