BPOS Office Communicator integration with other IM's

Hi. I have just started using Office Communicator and I am really new to it. On the trial basis I have started it in BPO's. The only problem that I am facing here is that, I am not able to add contacts that uses messengers like Google Talk or Yahoo Messenger or Live Messengers to the communicator. I am pretty sure about running everything else like mail, sharepoint, communicator and live meeting, etc.I think that there should be an option for this, and I am really sure that there was an option. If any of you there come to know any thing regarding this I would be very much thankful to you.

The answer to your question goes in this way, yes it is possible in the current offering of BPO's, and it is possible if you have On Premises Office Communications Server 2007 R2. Now everyone there, I would like to tell you all that I am also running OC BPO's and I am interested in federation services in this architecture. I know that there is no such feature having ETA, but would be interested to know that if that is requested as new feature, or if it is on the way.

What you have asked for is absolutely sensible and is correct. BPO's do not support federation for sure, but my team is looking into it and if more information regarding this will be available I will let you know for sure. For you Dwarner, I have really something for you, that there is, no ETA for this feature currently in the market. Actually this feature is highly requested and willingly waiting for this feature to be offered.

Here I would like to give detail explanation on Office Communicator. Actually Office Communicator is the messaging component of BPO's. It is used for sending instant messages. You all might think that, this is odd, and it really does not comes as a default program along with Exchange. The reason behind this is because of the earlier incompatibility between on-premise edition of Office Communicator 2007 and Microsoft Office Communications. One case that I would like you all to draw your point to is that a user using Office Communicator 2007 will not be able to IM with all the other users in the company using on-premise Communicator. Now if you want to migrate your company onto BPO's, the only thing you need to take care of is that, each and everyone must use the same server model either cloud or local.Specifically, an end-user with Office Communicator 2007 configured for use with Office Communications Online will be unable to IM with other users inside the company using on-premise Communicator. When you want to migrate the company onto BPOS, you’ll need to have everyone using the same server model—local or cloud, but not both.

It is better(advisable) to know full information about what you are using. I think you have enough information regarding the soft side of the Communicator, let us deal with the hard part. The most difficult part of the Office Communicator for the administrator is to set it up. After setting it up, text messages can be send, also present status can be set, video chat calls can be made, etc.The hardest part of Office Communicator for admins is simply setting it up. Honestly, the tool is very similar to conventional consumer IM clients. You can send text messages, set your own presence status(busy, online,etc.), make video chat calls, and all the usual functions. In bpos there are two ways in which Office communicator differentiates itself. First encrypt all the communications,so that all the applications are more secured. Second, there are only few ways by which meshing of the Communicator with other Microsoft Online Services can take place.

For the new-comers, there are a few important admin-type tasks that should be done in the Communicator. Starters can import the Exchange distribution lists, since, this can be of a great help. It ca be used as time-saving short-cut instead of creating again and again the same groups one by one in Communicator.The other step for the admin is to change contact access levels of IM. This thing helps in modifying how much information others can see about the user.