Microsoft Integration

Cisco offers several categories of Unified Communications inter-operability with Microsoft:

• Cisco IP Telephony with Microsoft: For customers with existing Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) investments, Cisco UC Integration™ for Microsoft Office Communicator directly extends a broad set of Cisco Unified Communications services - Cisco IP softphone with mid-call control features, messaging, conferencing, desk-phone control, phone presence - directly to Microsoft Office Communicator 2007. Cisco also offers click-to-call capabilities from Microsoft Office Communicator, Microsoft desktop productivity applications, and Windows Mobile handsets. With native simultaneous ringing capabilities of Cisco Unified Communications Manager, you can answer incoming calls on either Microsoft Office Communicator or your Cisco Unified IP Phone. In addition, you can enable Cisco Unified Communications Manager and Cisco Unified Communications Manager Business Edition to inter-operate with Microsoft Exchange 2007 as a companion unified messaging solution.
• Cisco Presence with Microsoft: Cisco offers interoperability through Cisco Unified Presence and Cisco Unified Communications Manager so you can view the presence status of Cisco Unified IP Phone users directly in the Microsoft Office Communicator client. Business-to-business federation between Cisco Unified Presence and Microsoft Live Communications or Office Communications Server facilitates ongoing collaboration between businesses. With Cisco Unified Personal Communicator, you can add Microsoft Office Communicator users in other businesses to your buddy list, view their presence status, and securely exchange instant messages for ongoing collaboration. Cisco Unified Presence also integrates with Microsoft Exchange 2003 and 2007 Calendar and automatically updates Cisco Unified Personal Communicator presence state based on a user's calendar availability. This server-to-server integration provides always-on Microsoft Exchange Calendar availability information of the originating user even when the user is not logged into the client.
• Cisco Messaging with Microsoft: For unified or integrated messaging with Microsoft Exchange, Cisco offers three proven enterprise-class solutions. Cisco Unity unified communications facilitates unified messaging with Microsoft Exchange so you can manage all e-mail, voice, and fax messages in a single inbox. Cisco Unity Connection is an integrated messaging solution that requires less time and effort to deploy and offers enhanced speech access to Microsoft Exchange 2003 and 2007 E-mail and Calendar. Both Cisco Unity and Cisco Unity Connection solutions provide secure and easy access to voice messages with Cisco Unity and Cisco Unity Connection ViewMail applications for Microsoft Outlook. Cisco Unity Express provides integrated messaging with Microsoft Outlook for up to 250 users - ideal for small enterprises or branch offices.
• Cisco Conferencing and Collaboration with Microsoft: For conferencing and collaboration with Microsoft, Cisco offers the ability to schedule Cisco Unified MeetingPlace, Cisco WebEx, and Cisco TelePresence meetings directly from Microsoft Outlook. For real-time collaboration, you can initiate impromptu Cisco Unified MeetingPlace and Cisco WebEx meetings directly from Microsoft Office Communicator and use its presence and instant messaging capabilities. Cisco Unified Videoconferencing enables multi-participant video conferencing between Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 and other standards-based video endpoints supported by Cisco Unified Videoconferencing such as Cisco TelePresence, Cisco Unified Video Advantage endpoints, and Cisco Unified IP video phones. In addition, Cisco WebEx Connect also facilitates asynchronous collaboration by exposing Microsoft Outlook information through the WebEx Connect interface.

• Cisco Contact Centre with Microsoft: The Cisco Unified CallConnector for Microsoft Dynamics CRM integrates Cisco Unified Communications with the Microsoft Dynamics CRM application at the desktop, without the need for additional hardware. It provides greater employee productivity and organizational efficiencies, immediate information about inbound and outbound calls, fast and easy click-to-dial functions from customer-relationship-management (CRM) database records, and call-duration tracking, information capture, and record creation. With Cisco Unified Expert Advisor, Cisco also offers the ability to increase first-call resolution and caller satisfaction by allowing presence-enabled knowledge experts using Microsoft Office Communicator or Cisco Unified Personal Communicator anywhere in the business to assist and collaborate with callers, with or without a formal contact centre.
• Cisco Network with Microsoft: Cisco integrated services routers and Cisco Catalyst switches provide the ideal foundation with network services (such as Call Admission Control [CAC], QoS, Session Initiation Protocol [SIP] trunking, Survivable Remote Site Telephony [SRST], and secure access from public networks) for delivering unified communications applications for secure business-class, real-time communications and collaboration. Cisco integrated services routers are Microsoft-certified gateways for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 deployments.