Microsoft demos new Office Communications Server

C|Net | at | by Mike

Microsoft on Wednesday fired the latest salvo in its multiyear battle to crack the business telephony market. At the VoiceCon event in Orlando, Fla., Microsoft demonstrated for the first time the next version of its Office Communications Server product.

Code-named Office Communications Server "14," the new version is part of the Office 2010 wave of products and is due out before the end of the year.

As it has for years, Microsoft is predicting the convergence of communications. At VoiceCon, Gurdeep Singh Pall, the Microsoft VP in charge of OCS, predicted that within three years, over half of voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls will include more than just voice. Pall also said, over the same time frame, three-quarters of new business applications will have communications built into them.