Imagine if your corporate e-mail was only able to send mail internally in today??™s
world. To address this, Microsoft introduced Public IM Connectivity (PIC). PIC made it
possible??”for a fee??”to communicate with MSN Messenger users, Yahoo! Messenger users,
and AOL Instant Messenger users. The fee is fairly low (about $3/user/month, varying on
the number of users), but it opens LCS to a whole new world. With the introduction of
PIC, we needed a way to monitor and track IMs being sent both internally and externally.
Archiving
As mentioned, we needed a way to track IMs that were being transmitted to internal users,
federated users, and public IM users. With the LCS Archiving service, we are able to record
and recover IMs as needed.
Exchange Integration
With LCS 2003, we were already inside the Outlook mailbox. However, communication was
only one-way. With LCS 2005, we were now able to automatically update our presence status
by allowing the MOC client access into our calendar, which would automatically change
our status to ???In a Meeting??? as appropriate, and show our next availability. Likewise, when
we set our ???Out of Offi ce??? message in Outlook, MOC was able to present this message to
other MOC contacts when they would look at our status in a Microsoft application or the
MOC client itself.
PBX Integration
Here??™s the big one. LCS 2005 was now able to tie into certain PBX systems, almost always
with the use of a third-party gateway product. Typical functionality included the following:
?– Remote call control The ability to answer and place calls to a desk phone
(or software-based telephone)
?– Click-to-dial Simply clicking on user properties in MOC, Outlook, or other
presence-aware applications to make a phone call
Unified Communications ??? Chapter 1 19
?– Location-based forwarding As described earlier, the ability to forward a call
based on physical location and/or current status
?– ???In a Call??? presence Ties directly to remote call control; shows your presence
as ???In a Call??? when the desk phone is off the hook
Although this was all very exciting stuff in terms of PBX integration, there were two
glaring holes in the solution.
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