Life with Microsoft’s OCS
Being an Account Manager here at PEI allows me to try several different technologies and use them from an end user perspective. I think one of the best tools I’ve gotten to play with is Microsoft’s Office Communications Server (OCS). I jokingly split my life into two pieces, Pre-OCS and Post-OCS. My Pre-OCS life was hectic. It was always a pain to try and find my coworkers when I needed something. My email box was insanely full with quick back and forth discussions and I was tied to my desk for all phone calls.
My Post-OCS life, much better. Being able to have a list of my coworkers and clients and their availabilities built into my Outlook is awesome. If I have a quick question, I no longer have to send an email and wait for an answer hours later. I can just shoot over a quick Instant Message and generally get a response within the same minute. Also having my office line call my computer is a wonderful benefit. I have a long commute into work and on snowy days, I can now stay at home and be just as productive, if not more, then trying to get into the office to answer calls. Everyone I’ve show OCS too loves it and I cannot imagine working anywhere that doesn’t have it. I believe in a matter of a couple years, organizations will not be able to operate at optimum efficiency levels without it.
-Arash Zadeh, PEI
