WebMessenger delivers Microsoft's OCS unified communications to the BlackBerry |
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By Shamus McGillicuddy, News Editor
12 May 2008 | SearchMobileComputing.com |
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At the Wireless Enterprise Summit this week, WebMessenger, the mobile messaging software company, will debut software that extends Microsoft's unified communications platform to the BlackBerry.
WebMessenger Mobile for Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) is the first technology to deliver OCS functionality to Research in Motion's BlackBerry platform.
WebMessenger president Joe Naylor said that his conversations with CIOs reveal that Microsoft's OCS platform is seeing great traction in the market in comparison with IBM's SameTime platform. He said CIOs recognize the value of having collaboration and presence on the desktop, but they're looking to extend that to mobile devices.
"Employees have started to benefit from collaboration on the desktop, but that benefit drops tremendously as soon as they walk away from their desk," Naylor said. "By extending presence and collaboration out to the BlackBerry, you don't have that drop in benefit."
WebMessenger Mobile extends presence, chat and call control to the BlackBerry.
"We're integrating into IP PBX so they can escalate from chat to voice call or conference call from one user interface," Naylor said. "They have access to their contacts from a single client interface and contact those people any way they want."
Mobile managers can deploy a WebMessenger Mobile server behind the corporate firewall. The server synchronizes with Active Directory, and the administrator can simply flag all users scheduled to be deployed with WebMessenger. The next time users synchronize their handsets with the company's BlackBerry Enterprise Server, client software automatically downloads onto their devices.
"One of the key differentiators for us is we've developed our own wireless protocol between the server and clients and devices themselves to make sure we have optimum performance or user experiences on the mobile device," Naylor said. "It's much trickier than what you get on the desktop. We put in a lot of code to minimize latency. We've also put a lot of work into minimizing the impact on the battery. Some presence applications can be a drain on the battery."
Naylor said WebMessenger Mobile for Microsoft OCS also works with the Symbian S60 smartphone platform. Pricing starts at $72 per user.
Let us know what you think about the story; email: Shamus McGillicuddy, News Editor
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