Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 RTMs

Microsoft today announced the release to manufacturing (RTM) of Microsoft(r) Office Live Communications Server 2005. Part of the Microsoft Office System, Live Communications Server 2005.

Available for the first time in both Standard and Enterprise Editions, Live Communications Server 2005 enables organisations to extend the benefits of enterprise instant messaging and presence awareness to remote business partners, customers, co-workers and suppliers.

Currently Live Communications Server 2003, which provides encrypted, enterprise-grade instant messaging (IM) and presence capabilities inside an organisation, as well as integration with the Microsoft Office System. Live Communications Server 2005 Standard Edition builds on this foundation by extending these benefits beyond the firewall:

Federation. With Live Communications Server 2005, two or more organisations can share IM and presence awareness in real time in an encrypted, authenticated and managed environment. Live Communications Server 2005 users also can share presence information and IM with suppliers and customers using MSN(r), AOL and Yahoo! public IM networks,* creating a channel for bringing geographically dispersed people together.

Remote user access. End users now can connect to presence and IM capabilities when they are outside the corporate network, whether working from home or on the road, or visiting customers or partners. Access is provided in a more secure and authenticated manner through the use of standard firewall ports, without the need to establish a virtual private network.

Increased scalability. Active user capacity can expand to allow up to 15,000 active IM users per server. This increase of 30 percent to 45 percent in capacity over the previous version of Live Communications Server will provide most organisations with ample space to house their active users and the ability to easily accommodate more as their business expands.

In addition, Live Communications Server 2005 Enterprise Edition customers will appreciate enterprise-grade architectural enhancements such as the following:

Improved architecture. An advanced, tiered architecture using Microsoft SQL Server(tm) benefits customers by substantially improving reliability, availability and scalability to mitigate the risk of unplanned downtime and deliver a higher level of availability. Deeper management options and administrative tools help reduce overall management time while increasing the level of administrative control.

Increased capacity. Enterprise-grade active user capacity allows organisations to pool Live Communications Server 2005 Enterprise Edition servers to support up to hundreds of thousands of users as their enterprise grows.

Live Communications Server 2005 has been released to manufacturers and will be available Dec. 1 through standard Microsoft distribution channels and Microsoft volume licensing. Evaluation versions of Live Communications Server 2005 will be available in late November 2004

News source: Microsoft PressPass