I started trialling the ip phones made by snom about 6 weeks ago, and found that these devices integrate natively into my OCS pilot. There are a number of reasons why one would consider using ip phones in conjunction with the MOC, these are:
- users are still used to the physical handset and out of habit/culture continue to resist software-only telephony; this is probably the greatest reason certain UC deployments fail
- an office cannot remain devoid of any phones; the main reason for that would be 000 (911 in other countries) emergency calls
The fact that Snom has manufactured this family of OCS compatible devices brings new blood to the competition and keeps the pricing realistic.
Snom have declared that their devices allow to do the following:
* have incoming calls announced simultaneously on your desktop AND your snom phone;
* search for names or phone numbers on the Microsoft® Office Communication Server via snom ActiveDirectory Search (snom LDAP);
* see the current status of your contacts (free, not logged on, busy);
* place secure calls both from your computer via Microsoft® OCS OR from your snom phone.
An additional benefit to these phones is the ability to integrate with another sip deployment (other ip pabx) by using multiple identities that exiting within separate systems.
Tags: ip telephony, microsoft ocs, Unified Comm's
