TMCnet News
Microsoft OCS Call RecordingOriginally posted on VoIP & Gadgets Blog, here: http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/microsoft/microsoft-ocs-call-recording.asp.
Last week, I wrote how Microsoft is making inroads in the enterprise with their Office Communications Server 2007 R2 platform and how they are looking to achieve five 9s of reliability. Well, one other critical feature needed for an enterprise phone system is decent call recording. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a lot of options for call recording on OCS 2007. One of the problems is that not all calls go through a PBX (News - Alert). 5) Telrex has a call recording offering for OCS available today. According to their website, CallRex� software enables businesses to implement Microsoft Unified Communications while maintaining and extending their call recording and monitoring business processes. CallRex further extends the value of Office Communicator 2007 by making recorded calls accessible at the desktop. For example, Microsoft Unified Communications users can link recorded calls from the CallRex solution to customer records in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. In addition, call recording and monitoring features can be integrated with business applications via the CallRex API�. The Future of Recording in OCS... It's certainly possible that a future release of OCS could feature a decent call recording feature built-in that is 100% software. It would be nice if you could simply click a record button from within Communicator and it records the call as a .wav file directly to your PC. Microsoft no doubt is working on a future OCS release that is 100% software without the need for a PBX, so they'll need a 100% software-based recording solution as well. Maybe it won't be a fully-featured call recorder that puts recordings on a centralized server for call center managers, admins, etc. with fully reporting capabilities -- but certainly OCS's Communicator client should act at least as a "personal" recorder. I should mention that while Microsoft OCS 2007 R2 did not quite herald the death of the IP-PBX, most experts, myself included, predict a future release of OCS that doesn't require a PBX. Who knows - maybe OCS 2010, OCS 2011, or a later release will be PBX-free? Probably sooners rather that later, that day is coming. A 100% Microsoft UC solution without the need for a PBX/IP-PBX at all could be a game changer. Of course, the current version, Microsoft OCS 2007 R2, does have some limited support for SIP IP phones, so you could throw out your existing PBX today if you wanted to. Any future release of OCS will have to support SIP phones from popular SIP phone players such as Aastra (News - Alert), Polycom, and snom. Also, most businesses aren't ready to toss desktop hard phones for a 100% software-based softphone solution, i.e. Microsoft Communicator. Additionally, any future OCS release will have to include all the advanced call center functionality you get from Nortel, Avaya, Mitel, or even some low-cost Asterisk (News - Alert)-based PBXs, if they plan on completely eliminating the need for a PBX. A 100% software-based IP-PBX with unified communications capabilities, advanced call center functionality, and call recording would certainly be a compelling choice for many businesses.
Tags:
Related tags: future release, software based, unified communications, center functionality, software hardware, recording
Facebook Profile FriendFeed Profile Google Reader Profile LinkedIn Profile Netflix Profile Twitter Profile |