I've been using
Office Communicator for months now, and I must say it's the most useful piece of new technology I've used in a while.
At Microsoft, the PBX is wired into Office Communicator, so I can dial the phone using the same app I do IM and app sharing with (
Sells has gotten me hooked on app sharing).
When my office phone rings, I get a little "toast" telling me who's calling.
I click the toast, and my phone picks up in speaker phone mode.
I don't click the toast, and the caller can leave voicemail which is automatically routed to my outlook Inbox.
I've gotten to the point where I really hate to dial the phone manually. Pretty much everyone I need to call is either in my personal Outlook contacts or in the MS directory, both of which are integrated with Communicator. I just type part of the person's name, and then click "Call" and I'm done. I then click "hang up" to terminate the call, all without touching the phone which is behind my monitor.
The feature that blew me away was when I was working from home one day recently.
My office phone rang.
I got the toast on my laptop at home. That in and of itself was cool, since I wasn't using a VPN at the time.
The toast had a "forward" dropdown and I told it to fwd the call to my home # (it knows my home and cell #).
Within one ring cycle, my home phone rang and I picked it up.
The person on the other side had no idea I was at home.
My jaw was indeed on the floor.
Posted
Jul 22 2005, 03:39 AM
by
don-box