Everyone knows about Microsoft's strategic relationships with the big players around OCS; Nortel, Polycom, NEC, etc. However I wanted to focus on some of the smaller third party products around OCS 2007. Each week, for at least a few weeks, I'll try to bring two or three not-so-well-know products to light. Note that I haven't necessarily used these products in a production environment and their mention here does not imply an endorsement... I'm just passing along information.

Although not really a third-party tool, the Microsoft Roundtable is still my favorite OCS "gadget". It has 5 cameras and 6 highly-directional microphones in one unit. It's perfect for a small-mid sized conference room and for conf room to conf room communication. The camera follows and emphasizes the speaker at any given time. Compared to any solution I've seen, including Cisco's $600,000+ telepresence, this is the closest solution I've seen to actually being in the room.

RadVision's [url=http://www.radvision.com/Products/Network/SCOPIAIBMMicrosoftConnectors/]Scopia[/url] product is niche product in a niche market. However it does some functions very well. It's also the first third-party AV conferencing solution to fully integrate with OCS 2007. I'm a huge fan of allowing users to make their own client choice without alienating users who may have made a different choice. One of my favorite features of OCS is PIC, the ability to use Office Communicator to IM with my Yahoo, MSN and AOL friends as well as other OCS users... but I digress. RadVision has a full datasheet on Scopia/OCS integration available [url=http://www.radvision.com/NR/rdonlyres/C8E6160B-423D-4B8B-9616-6A0812F9AE26/0/SCOPIAforMicrosoft.pdf]here[/url].

Finally, a small company here in the bay area called [url=http://www.ipevo.com]IPEvo[/url]. I had some initial discussions with Ed Lucero at IPEvo about tighter integration with OCS across their entire product suite but it must have fallen through the cracks between our travel schedules. What really caught my eye was the [url=http://www.ipevo.com/products/pov/pov_overview.htm]POV webcam[/url]. Whereas most webcams are designed to put your head in box the PoV is designed to show different parts of the environment. I can see this being especially useful for spotlighting presentations or whiteboards during a meeting. That's always been a tough requirement for tradition conferencing webcams. I'm excited that someone has taken this approach!

Keep coming back for more tools, tips and tricks!!

Check out my recent posts on:
[url=http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/25022]Office Communicator for Mac[/url]
[url=http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/24817]Which version of OCS is right for you?[/url]