The vendors are LG Nortel, GN Netcom-Jabra, Plantronics, Polycom, Samsung, Tatung, Asus, Vitelix, and NEC. Mark Deakin, unified comms group product manager for Microsoft in the UK, said the companies will launch their devices to coincide with the launch in the third quarter of this year of the next generation of LCS, which is when it officially becomes Office Communications Server.

He said there are multiple form factors and connectivity options in the various phones. Some are fixed deskphones that don’t require a PC at all, while others attach to a PC via USB or Bluetooth and don’t even need a dial pad because you do it on the computer, he said. Two of the phones from Jabra are DECT devices, and some are just conference phones, like the Polycom device. Samsung is developing a monitor with a camera, speakers, and a microphone, so there won’t be a phone at all in the conventional sense; you’ll just talk directly into the screen.

He said that at least one of the devices can use LCS/OCS as its comms platform for IPT, and can also connect to a conventional phone for TDM calls, in which case it becomes a headset. They key thing here is that, unlike other IP phones, you won’t be tied to any particular IP PBX, which means more choice and lower prices, he said.

Notable by their absence are WiFi and cellular phones, though at least in the case of WiFi, the presence on the list of Polycom, which acquired WiFi phone vendor SpectraLink earlier this year, suggests that OC-enabled devices using 802.11 radios won’t be long in coming. As for mobile phones, Deakin said Microsoft itself already has an OC client for devices running the Windows Mobile OS for LCS, with an OCS version in development now. There was also a client developed for Symbian, Java and BlackBerry phones by a Greek ISV called Velti SA.

Our View

Just as it did in the PC market, Microsoft is partnering with multiple phone manufacturers for phones bearing its OC client, and as in the desktop and laptop world, it preaches the interoperability of such devices against proprietary offerings from other companies.