Microsoft is gearing up a big PR push, prepping to talk about Live Communications Server 2007, which will merge at least part of the now separate code bases underlying the current Live Meeting hosted offering and LCS 2005.

Zig Serafin, general manager of the company's Unified Communications Group, is on the road this week talking about how Microsoft plans to bring PC software-like innovation to the staid-and-stodgy world of handsets and PBXes. The goal is, as the company has stated before, to make it easier to route calls, IMs, real-time and asynch communications as efficiently as possible, cutting down on voice-mail and e-mail tag.

He was mostly mum on details about deliverables--the stock response to many questions was wait till a unified communications event in late June.

Still some nuggets surfaced. For one thing, the new LCS server will not be relegated to 64-bit-only hardware. Microsoft caused a firestorm last year with news that Exchange Server 12 would require 64-bit hardware.

It is true, as Microsoft said, that nearly all new servers are already 64-bit, and the new Exchange is still months and months away. What it failed to acknowledge is that many, many, many current shops run fairly new 32-bit machines and might resist ripping out that hardware for a software upgrade. They might in fact, not upgrade at all. And who could blame them?

Also, there are no plans to put LCS into the core CAL for volume license agreements. When Microsoft did that with SharePoint a few years back, sales took off. Clearly, Serafin thinks LCS is doing just fine without that added incentive. Full Story At Source

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