Microsoft_® Office Communications Online is a hosted, enterprise-class communications solution based on Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2. Office Communications Online provides your organization with real-time communications capabilities including secure instant messaging and delivery of “presence” information. Presence enables users to see at a glance if someone is available online to receive an instant message.

Your organization can purchase Office Communications Online as a standalone service from Microsoft Online Services or as part of the Business Productivity Online Suite—which includes Microsoft Exchange Online, Microsoft SharePoint_® Online, and the Microsoft Office Live Meeting service.

This service description is intended to help IT professionals and describes the features that are included with the Standard offering of Office Communications Online.

Why Office Communications Online?

As an enterprise-class instant messaging and presence solution, Microsoft Office Communications Online helps individuals be more productive without increasing their company’s IT burden.  Here are some of the key benefits of the service.

Business-class presence and instant messaging

Phone or e-mail “tag” is an all too common communications problem in today’s business world. Often the problem stems from workers lacking visibility into other people’s availability or “presence.” Presence information is especially important when there is a need for a critical business discussion or a time-sensitive decision has to be made. Office Communications Online helps organizations increase individual productivity by combining presence with instant messaging in a secure environment.

Real-time collaboration capabilities within Office programs

Office Communications Online adds real-time collaboration capabilities and presence to the Microsoft Office programs workers use on a regular basis, such as Microsoft Office Outlook®, Microsoft Office Excel®, and Microsoft Office Word. Integrating presence in these applications helps integrate collaboration into the everyday workflow.

Collaboration capabilities within SharePoint sites

Office Communications Online serves as the presence engine for Microsoft SharePoint Online sites and portals, providing presence and IM access from within SharePoint sites. SharePoint Online is a separate service available from Microsoft Online Services.

Reduced travel and IT costs

Using Office Communications Online allows person-to-person communication across an organization without expensive business travel or costly long-distance or international calls. The service gives organizations the opportunity to focus IT resources on developing value instead of running IT infrastructure. Microsoft manages the risks and complexity of operational systems.

Reliability

Microsoft has extensive expertise with Office Communications Server, supporting more than 100,000 global users on the Microsoft internal network. Since 2003 when the product was introduced, Microsoft has implemented Office Communications Server client and server services in an array of environments and developed best-in-class deployment and operational practices along the way.

Timely platform upgrades

The Office Communications Online service is regularly upgraded to take advantage of new features that become available with service pack releases or new versions of Office Communications Server. Any upgrade to the service is available to customers at no additional charge. This means that companies are not burdened with the planning and execution of upgrades and their users can start working with the latest features and improvements without delay.

Standard Features

Microsoft offers comprehensive instant messaging and presence services with a simple per-user fee. Major capabilities include:

• Instant messaging (IM) with text-based chat, file transfer, and one-to-one (1:1) audio and video communication using the Microsoft instant messaging and presence desktop client, Web client,  or  mobile devices.
• Intelligent Instant Message Filter helps protect both the customer network and the Microsoft managed network against common forms of viruses and spam.
• Presence awareness enables users to detect other users’ availability and determine when they are available to communicate. Included is presence information that is integrated with Microsoft Office applications, such as Office Outlook.
• Service level agreements at the service level, not just the server level, covering Office Communications Online—with 99.9-percent service availability offered.
• Directory synchronization from your Active Directory® service, which provides single sign-on capability.
• Dedicated servers and networks that increase your logical and physical security.

Optional Features

• IM federation. Allows two separate instant messaging and presence installations to interconnect and communicate with each other.
• Public IM connectivity.  Provides connectivity with users from the MSN® Messenger, Windows Live™ Messenger, America Online (AOL), and Yahoo! public instant messaging services.

• Content archiving. Captures and retains text instant message content for all users.