There are a LOT of new features in Exchange 2007 SP1. It seems like more of a feature pack than a service pack. I’ll spend the next few blog posts hitting the highlights of major functional areas. The first area I wanted to highlight is Exchange 2007 UM enhancements as related to Office Communications Server 2007. Although Exchange 2007 SP1 isn’t available yet, the first of the [url=http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb691398.aspx]documentation[/url] is beginning to trickle out of Microsoft. The feature list below is from the first publicly available docs.
- Ability to create SIP URI and E.164 dial plans by using the New Dial Plan wizard
- Additional logic for resolving internal calling number
- Notification of forwarding when leaving voice messages in scenarios where the destination uses call forwarding
- Support for recording high-fidelity voice messages in Exchange Unified Messaging
- Access to Outlook Voice Access from Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 without requiring the user to enter a PIN
- Ability for Office Communicator 2007 clients to associate subjects and priorities to voice messages
- Support for media streams to traverse firewalls
- Integration of missed call notification e-mail messages with Office Communicator 2007
- Ability to prohibit Play on Phone calls that are placed by using Office Communicator 2007 from being subjected to call forwarding rules that are configured
- Support for Secure Realtime Transport Protocol (SRTP).
- Exchange Management Console support for configuring Mutual Transport Layer Security (mutual TLS) for dial plans.
- Ability to add a SIP or E.164 address for a user by using the Enable Unified Messaging Wizard.
- Ability to modify extension numbers and SIP and E.164 addresses for a UM-enabled user by using the Exchange Management Console.
- In-band fax tone detection. By default, this feature is disabled but can be enabled in environments that use IP PBXs.
- Quality of Service (QoS) support.
There are a lot of great features that companies have been asking for in SP1. There are a few that I think stand out among the best! The seamless Office Communication Voice integration is a big area. Initially the products seemed very separate but this shows the divide is starting to shrink allowing Microsoft to show all UM as an single platform even though it may involve many products on the back end. QoS using DiffServ is a necessary component that was really lacking in the initial release.
Something I don’t see that I would have liked to is tighter integration with CoMo, Communicator Mobile. The world has a passion for wireless, as you may have seen in my recent Blackberry post, and Microsoft has a huge opportunity to play in that space.
