What is the Mac story on OCS?
This was a question from a Northeastern school district:
Mac Messenger 7.0
Mac Messenger 7.0 is available for a Mac user to login into either Windows Live (MSN) or OCS 2007:
Login to either Windows Live or OCS 2007
Messenger 7.0 client is similar to OC client on PC with presence, groups, etc.
You can grab Mac Messenger 7.0.1 here.
Features of the Mac Messenger 7.0 client:
Presence
1-1 & Multi-party IM
1-1 & Multi-party Voice and video support with other OCS users
Exchange Global Address List Search
Enhanced Presence
Bonjour support
Office for Mac Integration
Support for OCS Public IM Connectivity (connect to OCS off campus)
NTLM & Kerberos Authentication
Emoticons
Secure IM - - encrypted. Same protocol as OC
Spell check – This is a nice Mac only feature
Multiple Points of Presence – MPOP implantation similar to OC – the ability to sign in with the same account on multiple devices
Integration with Office for the Mac – display presence information for people that are in your Messenger contact list, start IM, add user as Messenger contacts, Integration in Entourage, Word, and Project Center…
Conversation History Archive – saving Instant Messages and reviewing them in the Conversation History view.
Selectable sign-in status – the ability to sign in with a specific status set (Busy, Away, Available…)
File Transfer
Mac Messenger 7.0 OS requirements:
Mac OS X version 10.4.9 (Tiger) or a later version of Mac OS
Communicator Web Access (CWA) with Macs:
We support Firefox and Safari browsers on the Mac connecting to OCS 2007. With the upcoming OCS 2007 R2 CWA, you can take it a step further on the Mac or Linux browsers where you can join a PC desktop sharing session and view and collaborate with their desktops. There may be plans to allow for Mac to host at some point in the future (always subject to change of course).
What about On-Prem OCS Live Meeting support?
Currently, there is no Mac support at this point but the alternative solution to this is to use the Communicator Web Access coming in R2 to join a shared desktop session. The other alternative option would be to leverage the Live Meeting Web Access, via a Mac browser, for the LM service in the cloud vs. with OCS. See my other blog here about the Live Meeting differences.
What are some of the differences with from the PC Office Communicator client, Communicator Web Access and the Mac Messenger 7.0 client? Here is a useful matrix:
Comments
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
This was a question from a Northeastern school district:   Mac Messenger 7.0 Mac Messenger 7.0 isAnonymous
January 01, 2003
Tom, Exactly correct. Sorry if that was not clear. It only supports 1-1 or multiparty voip to OCS and federated users but not external calls.Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Abd, You can do video and voice over IP calls similar to commercial IM voice and video calls. What doesn't work without something like Fusion is PSTN voice over IP calls outbound or inbound such as to a PSTN phone from this client.Anonymous
January 01, 2003
I haven't seen a Communicator Mobile client for iPhone yet but I would imagine someone will develop one soon. We do have one for Blackberry, Windows Mobile, and certain Nokia and Motorola phones.Anonymous
January 01, 2003
Jay, I am not aware of a Mac policy template to prevent video calls.Anonymous
January 01, 2003
There have been a lot of question reagarding the capabilities of using the MAC Messenger client withAnonymous
December 05, 2008
Note: Currently, Mac Messenger only allows you to phone/video to other OCS users. You cannot call a normal (PSTN) phone. 12/5/08Anonymous
January 16, 2009
Hi one question Can I use iphone to use OCS Service?Anonymous
March 17, 2009
Is there any policy template? For example if I wantd to not display the video call options?Anonymous
March 18, 2009
videocalls and audiocalls actually works on this windowslive messenger 7 mac ? or do i need Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2. to let the videocalls works ?