Feature Comparison of LCS and OCS
With the recent release of Office Communications Server 2007 (OCS), I thought it might be a good idea to compare it with its predecessor, Live Communications Server 2005. As with my Exchange UM vs. Unity matrix, I can’t find many good comparative studies out there, so I figured this would be a good place to start.
Overall, the main difference between OCS and LCS is that OCS is aimed squarely at the central nervous system of most organizations: communication. LCS, to me, seemed like Enterprise IM on steroids. OCS is a major overhaul and it is being positioned as the hub of all employee-to-employee communications in the enterprise. The major upside to this new positioning is that organizations are able to trim down the number of products and services required in their IT infrastructure.
The thinking here is that people use the following methods to communicate: e-mail, IM, voice, video, conference. Why use several different products from several different manufactures with their own directories, applications, user interfaces etc.? Why not be able to do all that from one client? That’s the aim of OCS.
Now, OCS may be a communications wunderkind, but it still has some growing up to do. It really isn’t a totally full-featured PBX like Cisco or Avaya have. There is a limitation to the conferencing capability in this version, as I’ve written about previously. But that’s ok for now. MS is not positioning OCS as the total replacement for EVERYTHING (yet!), OCS integrates with your current PBX, be it Cisco, Avaya or some other. You can continue to use an outside audio conferencing service with OCS. MS realizes that it’s not going to take down the world overnight, but OCS 2007 smartly, and strongly, establishes itself as a communications foundation for the future. The genius of it all is that if you pay for enterprise IM (and IM is becoming more and more of a business productivity tool rather than just a college-kid toy), for FREE you are getting audio/video/web conferencing and the ability to extend your current PBX’s capabilities to the IP network. As OCS matures, it’s going to be difficult to find a good reason (financial or otherwise) not to use it.
|
Feature |
Office Communications Server 2007 |
LCS 2005 |
Other Players |
|
Multimedia Conferencing |
Delivers on-premise Web conferencing with rich multimedia capabilities for application sharing, whiteboarding |
Not available |
WebEx, Cisco MeetingPlace, Genesys |
|
VoIP |
Brings VoIP to your organization by integrating to your current phone system, or connecting directly to the PSTN |
Available, but more work is required |
Cisco CallManager, Avaya Communications Manager |
|
Video Conferencing |
Adds video capability to any conference, phone call, or IM conversation |
Only peer-to-peer video, no video conferencing |
Tandberg, Polycom, Cisco |
|
Secure IM |
Enforces security standards by encrypting all Instant Messaging traffic as well as server-to-server communication |
Is possible with LCS, but not required like it is in OCS |
Lotus SameTime, Cisco CUPS |
|
Directory Integration |
Uses Active Directory, natively allowing synchronization between Exchange, OCS, and other enterprise applications |
Uses AD |
various |
|
Enhanced Presence |
Allows greater control over who is can see your specific presence information and provides the best contact options. Information is shared between OCS, SharePoint, and Exchange and integrates with Exchange Distribution lists |
Only basic presence available |
None have enhanced presence like OCS 2007 |
|
End User Connectivity |
Securely communicates with users outside your network without requiring a VPN connection |
Same as OCS |
Most require VPN connection for client connectivity |
|
User Interface |
Gives users a single, familiar interface to communicate by IM, phone, video, conference |
Same as OCS |
various |
|
Multimedia Devices |
RoundTable, PolyCom CX700, various others: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/uc/gallery.mspx#E4G |
None |
various |
