A great set of tools for working with Cisco IP phones is here.

Here is a summary of what is available:

Phone Remote

Phone Remote allows you to take control a Cisco IP phone (7940, 7941, 7960, 7961, 7970 and 7971 models) from anywhere with network connectivity.

Background Deployment

Background Deployment allows an administrator to remotely push a background image to java based phones (7941, 7961, 7970 and 7971 phones)

Ringtone Deployment Tool

Ring Tone Deployment is a utility which allows an administrator to remotely deploy a default ring type to 7940, 7941, 7960, 7961, 7970, 7971 model IP phones.

Here is the link to download the latest hotfix roll-up for Office Communicator 2007.  Full details on the roll-up are available here.

Goofy presence and 100% CPU issues have actually been fixed.

Highly recommended…

Microsoft’s Communicator 2007 is a fine piece of software.  It’s small, its fast, its amazingly stable, and it simply connects all other forms of technical (business) communications other than email. 

Its clear this is a very important piece of software to Microsoft’s future.

Having started with Windows Messenger and Exchange 2000 and worked through today’s Communicator, I am very impressed.  Our business just hasn’t been the same since we started with Messenger - its vital. 

I am exploring all of the telephony options with Communicator now (more on this soon) as well as other offshoots which I am still under NDA about.  I can say that Exchange 2007’s Unified Messaging with Communicator and Office Communications Server 2007, all of which we are running, is great stuff. 

So without further ado, your Windows Mobile 5.0 or 6.0 can now run its own version of Communicator.  Yes its IM only at this point, but that’s just a start I’m sure.  Skype and Cisco has some formidable competition here.

Speaking of Cisco, I look forward to testing their Unified Personal Communicator (http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps6844/index.html) sometime soon to compare.

Grab Communicator Mobile 2007 from here http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=2eea3e24-f216-4887-92b0-f37d942e26e0&displaylang=en and let us know what you think.

For the OCS admins, you’ll need to follow these instructions (http://blogs.technet.com/networking/archive/2007/09/06/communicator-mobile-beta-2-cannot-sign-on-to-ocs-2007.aspx) to allow Communicator Mobile access for your users.

Before you install the Unified Messaging Role in Exchange 2007, you’ll need to have the following updates already installed.

Windows Media Encoder 9 Series x64 Edition
Fix KB917312. Info on fix here.

All of the system and role requirements are listed in the Exchange 2007 System Requirements document.

After the UM role is setup, you can enable integration with Office Communications Server 2007 by running “exchucutil.ps1″ from the scripts directory of your Exchange 2007 install media/directory.  Run this from the Exchange Management Shell.  Then reboot your OCS server. Verify all is working by looking at the events with source “OCS Exchange Unified Messaging Routing” in the OCS category in your Event Log.

Video 1 - What IM and VIP have to do with business

Video 2 - The new business conference room

Want this for your business?

Give us a shout… The Montopolis Group, Ltd.