Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile 2007 R2 is almost ready to be shipped to customers, so now is the perfect time to present this Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) client that makes it easy to stay connected from a mobile phone.

The Communicator Mobile project was conducted in parallel with the other OCS 2007 projects. The goal was to elevate mobile devices to first-class participants in Microsoft’s Unified Communications (UC) ecosystem. Thinking about the investments Microsoft made in voice, it made sense for us to have an OCS client on the mobile phone. We wanted this client to be a full UC endpoint, allowing the mobile phone to be the user’s only phone and a great complement to Microsoft Office Communicator.

When Communicator Mobile 2007 shipped last year, it had the necessary foundations that we needed to achieve our goal. It allowed a user to send and receive instant messages, receive and publish presence, and search for contacts in the enterprise’s address book. Shipping Communicator Mobile 2007 was exciting. We were anxiously awaiting the first customer feedback—after all, this is who we build products for. Users were happy with the ability to receive and send instant messages from the mobile phone and to update their presence on the road, but they asked for better battery life and the ability to receive and place phone calls through their enterprise OCS server. Both features had been on our minds from the beginning, and this feedback told us what to focus on for the next release Communicator Mobile.