Live Communications Server 2005 and IP Telephony Converge

 Executive Summary:

IP telephony and Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 integration let you know user availability at all times.

LCS and IP telephony integrate to form a unified communications solution that helps users forward calls more easily.

Microsoft Office Communicator is the front-end application to Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005.

Microsoft's unified communications (UC) strategy lets you integrate your organization's voice, email, fax, and IM communications into one platform. My previous UC article focused on how Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 (LCS) works with messaging platforms, such as Microsoft Exchange Server, in a UC environment. In this article, I look at how LCS and IP telephony (specifically Cisco Systems' IP telephony solution) integrate to create true presence information about users and use that information to forward phone calls to users wherever they are. A user's presence is his or her availability—that is, at a given point in time, the communications method (email, IM, phone) by which he or she can be contacted. . . .