"With only a limited number of Microsoft Voice Certified partners globally being offered the opportunity to complete the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Release 2 (R2) Technical Adoption Programme (TAP), Galdon Data is the first National Systems Integrator (NSI) partner in South Africa to have fully deployed and completed the TAP for this release. Once again, Galdon Data has taken the lead in the local unified communications realm.
"Building on the customer, partner, and industry momentum of Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, the new Office Communications Server 2007 R2 release continues to deliver on the Microsoft promise to streamline communications for users, giving organisations the flexibility and control they need to better manage their communications infrastructure, and provides an extensible platform to help organisations create communications-enabled business processes," says Galdon Data director Fairoz Jaffer.
Microsoft's unique software-based approach to business communications has enabled rapid innovation in Office Communications Server 2007 R2. This will completely transform the way organisations think about business communications in the years to come.
Today, users face the challenge of managing their communications across many devices and applications, which negatively impacts productivity. Office Communications Server 2007 R2 streamlines the way users manage communications, enabling them to find and communicate with the right person, from whichever applications they use most.
Jaffer says new call management capabilities let receptionists and team assistants take a large volume of incoming calls and quickly route them to the intended recipients with a simple click. "Delegation features allow executives to completely hand over the management of their phone calls to their assistants. New desktop-sharing capabilities allow users on Windows, Macintosh, and Linux platforms to collaborate with one another at the same time they talk to each other using enhanced audio conferencing features.
"Furthermore, the Group Chat feature lets organisations set up searchable, topic-based chat rooms that persist over time, allowing geographically distributed teams to better collaborate with one another while preserving organisational knowledge," he adds.
The new on-premise audio conferencing capability puts the customer in control of their audio conferencing infrastructure while saving potentially millions of Rands in audio conferencing costs. The Single Number Reach feature allows IT to log business calls placed by users from cellular phones for accounting purposes while helping to ensure that the same dialling rules that apply to calls made by users from their work phone also extend to their cellular calls.
In addition, the new video monitoring capabilities allow IT to monitor the quality of video calls and conferences on their network, while support for SIP-trunking does away with the need to manage expensive on-premise gateways.
He says one of the biggest advantages of having a software-based communications infrastructure is that businesses can embed communications capabilities into existing line-of-business applications and use communications and workflow capabilities to automate business processes, which saves money, saves time, and improves customer service. "Office Communications Server 2007 R2 delivers an extensible communications platform that works with an organisation's existing messaging and telephony infrastructure and can adapt to changing business needs."
"South African businesses are looking for better ways to communicate in an increasingly mobile and globalised world, while workers are faced with ever-increasing volumes of communication and the dangers of information overload," said Microsoft SA UC and Collaboration Product Solution Manager, Danie Gordon. "Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 is a significant step toward a fully software-based PBX, meaning that workers can reach the right person, right now. It gives our customers streamlined communications, new levels of operational flexibility and control, and an extensible communications platform."
Office Communications Server 2007 R2 was released globally on 3 February 2009 and to-date, many organisations are already deploying the technology with the aim of cost reduction. In light of the global financial crisis, many organisations are deploying Office Communication Server R2 to drive reduction in operational cost by being able to eliminate local travel through the rich audio and video conferencing functionality.
"Through our successful internal deployment R2 we are now able to deploy the new additional features such as the attendant console, enhanced audio conferencing and mobility features as well as group chat within any customer environment. Customers are also able to visit our offices where they can experience firsthand how the technology works," Jaffer concludes.
Galdon Data is hosting a series of roundtables to demonstrate how Microsoft Unified Communications has the ability to fundamentally change the way that businesses work and help drive operational costs down - in and out of the office.
For more information, contact Galdon Data on (011) 805 4420 or e-mail sales@galdon.co.za.
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