Live Communications Server 2005 compatibility

[thamola]

hello all, please i need to ascertain the compatibility of the 3cx ip pbx with LCS 2005 and office communicator 2005. Office communicator demands that for PBx support it must be compatible with computer Supportes Telecommunications applications (CSTA).

Please does anyone in the forum know if the 3cx application supports it. I need to implement telephony intgration of my PBX with lcs and i need a solution urgently.

Thank you all in anticipation of a favourable response.

I remain,

AAOI

 

[N_G]

We dont support or plan to support any proprietary standards of Microsoft LCS or OCS. We support SIP and if Microsoft supports it then it would work.

 

[Borsoock]

Nick,
I'm sorry I have to disagree with you. CSTA is not proprietary Microsoft protocol, its standard protocol defined for CTI integration in 1992 http://www.ecma-international.org/...n with external world. Thank you Marcin

 

[N_G]

Fair enough. Still SIP remains the absolute standard and this is the only one we will be supporting. CSTA is not on our road map for the forseeable future.

 

[thamola]

LCS 2005 csta compatibility

Thanks for your replies.

I will be deploying the telephony integration with the LCs server this week and if I get any success, surely I will inform you all.

Once again your comments are appreciated.

cheers,

adedamola

 

[Tdar]

Fair enough. Still SIP remains the absolute standard and this is the only one we will be supporting. CSTA is not on our road map for the forseeable future.

Nick: I have to disagree with you on this. SIP is the "absolute standard" for call setup and control. In the same way, CSTA is the "absolute standard" for PC telephony control. In the mainstream corporate world a PBX without CSTA is a non starter. That might not be your market, but it is a fact.

If you'r not going to support CSTA, what are your PC telephony control plans.?.... TAPI? JTAPI? Once again, SIP is NOT a CTI standard.

OCS is real and coming....it's from Microsoft, why not support it?

 

[N_G]

The main stream corporate world is definitely our market, but quite frankly so far we have had no requests for CSTA. If we get a larger number of customers requesting this with real applications we will definitely consider CSTA support. However so far there has been no requests for it.

We are going to support placing calls via TAPI though in future versions of our software.

We have no plans to integrate with OCS. Microsoft OCS is a competitor product. In my opinion its difficult to install, complex to administer and expensive. I doubt whether it will be popular, but only time will tell of course.

 

[Tdar]

The main stream corporate world is definitely our market, but quite frankly so far we have had no requests for CSTA. If we get a larger number of customers requesting this with real applications we will definitely consider CSTA support. However so far there has been no requests for it.
We are going to support placing calls via TAPI though in future versions of our software.

We have no plans to integrate with OCS. Microsoft OCS is a competitor product. In my opinion its difficult to install, complex to administer and expensive. I doubt whether it will be popular, but only time will tell of course.

So I quess It will not do any good to note that you've had three requests just in this thread alone.

It would seem that the real issue here is that you see OCS as a competitor. It's not. Not yet anyway. It's very light on switching and Microsofts own advice is to run it off of your PBX.....sadly those of us that want to do that with say...3CX will have to go elsewhere. Before you deside you know what is going on here you should read this press release from yesterday at interop:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/may07/05-22InteropRoadmapPR.mspx

 

[ketilgri]

I totally agree. Please consider implementing CSTA. It's useless trying to compete with Microsoft on this, interaction is the key to success in this business.

 

[Ralph]

Let me add another vote for integration with OCS

Integration with OCS 2007, LCS, and Exchange 2007 (currently supported right?) would be a very good thing. All these products require a PBX in order to obtain full functionality. Why not have that PBX be 3CX? :wink:

Please count me in as a vote for integrating with these programs.

Thanks again

 

[SOSAGES]

i agree - OCS 2007 and Speech server have RTM'd
in a couple of months time when we can buy the software people will come looking for a PBX that works with it.

 

[VladislavA]

Yes, OCS 2007 uses SIP. But OCS 2007 uses proprietary RTAudio codec also.

Currently there is only one way to convert G.711<->RTAudio - Mediation Server.

In such case you must have two (TWO!) computers - computer A with OCS 2007 and computer B with OCS 2007 role Mediation Server. Each Windows server costs at least 1500 USD, you know.

 

[hcv]

Each server does not cost 1500 USD when you are using Microsoft Virtual server or VMWare.

 

[VladislavA]

I mean a license cost. Each Windows server license costs at least 1500 USD. And if you deployed Windows server within virtual machine - you also must pay license cost.

(Yes, I know about MS's licensing rule "pay for one host license and use four VMs without additional payments». Unfortunately it works only for MS Windows 2003 R2 Enterprise.)

 

[ketilgri]

OCS lacks some of the simplest PBX features such as ring groups. As long as OCS isn't a full feature PBX, OCS users need a PBX too. Why shouldn't that be 3cx instead of Avaya or Nortel?

Answer: because 3cx lacks CSTA

 

[Doug]

OCS Support

I am just doing a trial of 3CX and was hoping to find a SIP-PBX product thast would work in the E2007UM and OCS world.

I have a customer base that wants E2007UM and OCS to work with a PBX.

It sure seems like a good idea to not lose potential customers for a technical difficulty.

Another competitor of yours seems to be able to talk to the OCS Mediation server & Exchange with no problems. However your features and UI is far superior.

Because I am not technical - since OCS is just another Gateway (like Exchange that you do support), that uses transport=TCP I truly don't understand why it should not just work?

I am just a customer that wants to buy product.

 

[archie]

Just give us some more time and our PBX will work with that stuff. Though it's far from primary goal we're going to expand interoperability options. Mind that we've started only a year and half ago.

 

[Doug]

OCS comments

I like your product and hope we can use it and sell a bunch. My 2 cents was in a possibtive way.

And for what it is worth, E2007UM is really much of the competitive part. It does messaging and AA. OCS is really a very complicated SIP phone (with some extra goodies).

The PBX market to do the call handling, phones, hund groups, etc. is where you guys cam make a killing.

MS does not want to be in that part of the business.

Just my thoughts.

Thanks.