The future of chat and presence - XMPP? Or Microsoft's OCS Bulkware?

There is a lot of talk about chat and presence in the enterprise. And of course as an IP PBX / Unified communications vendor 3CX is closely looking at chat. I am not sure most companies need chat, but definitely there are going to be enterprises using it. Right now chat in the enterprise (if allowed) is probably fragmented, with users installing clients of popular chat networks.

So what are the options? Of course the ever proprietary Microsoft has a solution - its 'Jack of all trades, master of none' product called Microsoft Office Communications Server. It does chat. Kind of. It has a proprietary client which works only with OCS. OCS itself requires a truck load of servers to setup and doesnt talk to any of the leading chat services. So with OCS you can now chat to the guy in the office next door. Great. Surely enterprise chat only works if you can use it to connect to todays AND tomorrows popular chat networks? Yahoo, MSN, Google et all? And talk to your customers, suppliers - the world basically? I am pretty sure chat can only be succesfull if based on an open standard. Just like the web is, email is, voip is.

Is XMPP this open standard protocol that will open up chat & worldwide presence? Its been around for a long time and has a lot of support. The Jabber chat server and its derivatives are based on it. Google uses it in its chat network, and there are loads of gateways to other chat networks implemented and working. If you would want chat, wouldnt you want an XMPP based solution? They are inexpensive (with several free options) and with lots of client options.

So where does 3CX tie in? We're evaluating our options how to integrate into enterprise chat. Do we create a simple integrated chat solution with SIP simple? Do we integrate with OCS? Or do we integrate XMPP and allow phone presence to be viewable in any XMPP compatible chat server and client?

I'd welcome the feedback from our 3CX community! Is chat important to you? If yes - standards based?

3CX Phone System version 6 on the way

The 3CX development team have been keeping busy over the past few months, and I am happy to report that version 6 of 3CX Phone System is just around the corner. We have added numerous features, including;

• Conferencing server - to make conference calls with up to 32 callers
• Intercom - intercom/page any extension
• Call Queue status update information from the 3CX Softphone / VOIP client
• See parked calls in 3CX Softphone / VOIP client
• See all active calls in the system from the admin interface - ability to disconnect calls
• Improved provisioning - we can now also provision the BLF lights on a phone
• Phonebook - we can provision the most popular phones with a phonebook
• HTTP API to enable/disable call recording for any extension
• HTTP API to disable/enable extensions or to disable outbound calls for an extension
• Improved call logging with extensible call reports
• Improved IVR and Call Queue functionality

We have also spent considerable work on the backup and restore procedure. Version 6 should be a painless upgrade, not requiring separate backup and restore and making the restore process much faster. (reduced from hours to minutes)

All in all a considerable upgrade from v5.1. We we're not able to add the new interface yet, but its in the works. We are hoping to release a beta of v6 within the next 2 weeks......