Manufacturers to benefit from new office products

The manufacturing industry will welcome news that Microsoft has added both office Communications Server 2007 and Office Communicator 2007 to its range of office products, due out later this year.

From autumn, Microsoft will enable manufacturers to get more from their PCs by offering them the opportunity to combine instant messaging, conferencing and voice over internet protocol (VoIP).

Manufacturers are increasingly looking to new options for their PCs that will give them the edge in the marketplace and allow them to streamline their office products, a new study conducted by Infonetics Research found.

Product manager of Microsoft’s unified communications Mark Deakin said: “The open standards-based architecture of Office Communications Server delivers this through existing telephony infrastructure.”

Demand for unified communications rose by 21 per cent to $363 million (£181.5 million) between 2005 and 2006, underlining its popularity among businesses.

Microsoft’s unified communications group vice-president Gurdeep Singh Pall remarked: “We believe all forms of enterprise communications, including VoIP, are moving from hardware-based systems to software.”

According to Infonetics’ Matthias Machowinski all manufacturers should add unified communications to their PCs and added that “everyone seems to agree” on the fact that these communications rely on both unified messaging and communicator features.

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