Dan Miller, Senior Analyst at Opus Research, recently spoke with Terry Gold about the power and versatility of Microsoft’s Office Communications Server (OCS) as a platform for innovation. Gold Systems has developed the Social Center application using the development tools associated with OCS. The Gold Systems Social Center brings social networking tools like Twitter and Facebook into a secure environment, manageable for compliance with corporate IT and business policies, onto the OCS platform.

Read the Opus Research Advisory on the Gold Systems Social Center (pdf).

Read more about Opus Research’s conversation with Terry Gold.

Watch Terry Gold give a Demo of Gold Systems Social Center.

Contact us to learn how Gold Systems can bring the Social Center and other Unified Communications productivity applications to your organization.

Until now it has not been practical for companies to host their own conference calls with any kind of scale, so conferencing service providers have thrived - and your costs have exploded. Traditional conference companies are paid for every minute that each person is on the call. Gold Systems just released their new Conference Server. This is a new conference call product built on top of Microsoft Office Communications Server.

Terry shared some great ideas for any entrepreneur as it relates to selling your product or surviving in this economic environment. “Yes, you know we’ve been through this before.  My service anniversary was July 4th, 18 years, and so we’ve seen a few tough times. When this one happened, and I’ll pin it back in October, that’s when we saw a big change in incoming orders and the way customers were talking, and we realized it couldn’t be business as usual. We were thinking of a new product at that time and made the conscious decision that we had to think of it from a customer’s point of view - ‘What would make it easy for them to say yes’.”

Listen to Larry Nelson’s interview with Terry Gold.

BOULDER, COLO. - July 14, 2009 - Gold Systems, a developer of voice-powered software applications for Global 1000 companies, today announced the launch of the Gold Systems Conference Server, a solution that allows companies to save money on conference calls compared to traditional conference services.

The Gold Systems Conference Server provides on-demand conference calling at a fraction of the cost of most outside conference services used by many companies. The Gold Systems offering uses Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2, running on standard servers on a company’s premises.

The system uses SIP trunks to deliver calls over an existing Internet connection, rather than traditional voice trunks based on physical wired connections, so they can be provisioned automatically only as needed. The system is quickly installed, requiring only power and a network connection. For conference participants the system is familiar: they are given a phone number, including a toll-free number if needed, and identification code to join a conference call.

Gold Systems has found that in today’s challenging economy many companies are seeking ways to reduce their communications expense, and conference call services are one area receiving increased attention. At the same time, the economy has squeezed travel budgets, placing even more demand for conference calls.

“Until now it has not been practical for companies to host their own conference calls with any kind of scale,” said Terry Gold, president and CEO of Gold Systems. “So conferencing service providers have thrived - and your costs have exploded. Gold Systems can help you quickly reverse this trend, giving you back control over this critical expense. You’ll be able to immediately cut your conferencing costs and look like a hero because you reduced the budget while improving service to your organization.”

For a heavy user of telephone conference services, Gold Systems Conference Server can pay for itself in just one to two months. Even light users will see a return on their investment in as little as five months according to the company. Gold Systems offers the flexibility of various pricing plans to meet a particular company’s needs, including per-minute charges as low as 3 cents per minute. Full details can be found at http://www.goldsys.com/conference.

The Gold Systems Conference Server can also be a first step toward utilizing additional unified communications services based on Microsoft software. Other productivity and cost-saving capabilities such as presence, instant messaging and video conferencing can later be added with Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2. “Gold Systems has long been a leader in using Microsoft unified communications technologies to deliver complete communications solutions to our customers,” said Gold.

In addition to the Conference Server solution, Gold Systems provides software development and implementation services to help companies utilize the features of Microsoft unified communications products. Gold Systems integrates Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2007 with customers’ telephony infrastructure, including PBXs, VoIP services, and mobile devices. This combination helps companies save money and improve productivity by providing on-site and mobile employees with integrated, easy-to-use conferencing, messaging and “anywhere” access. Gold Systems also offers a suite of voice-powered products, designed to enhance security and productivity, which work with the speech recognition technology built into the Office Communications Server platform.
    

About Gold Systems
Through its award-winning products and services, Gold Systems helps its customers identify where productivity can be improved with voice-driven solutions. The company’s unified communications implementation services, as well as its self-service speech recognition solutions, allow businesses to improve productivity and profitability. Gold Systems is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and a 2009 finalist in Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference Awards in Unified Communications Solutions, Voice. Since 1991, Gold Systems software has automated more than 1 billion telephone calls around the world. More information about Gold Systems can be found at www.goldsys.com or by calling 303-447-2774 and saying “Sales.”
            

Product or service names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

BOULDER, COLO. - June 24, 2009 - Today, Gold Systems announced it has been selected as a 2009 Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference Awards finalist in Unified Communications Solutions, Voice.

“We are honored and pleased that our skills and experience have been recognized through our selection by Microsoft as an award finalist,” said Terry Gold, president and CEO of Gold Systems. “Gold Systems has long been a leader in using Microsoft unified communications technologies to deliver complete communications solutions to our customers - integrating voice, messaging, conferencing and other productivity and cost-saving tools.”

Awards will be presented in a number of categories, with winners chosen from a pool of nearly 2,000 entrants worldwide. The Unified Communications Solutions, Voice Partner of the Year award recognizes partners with proven expertise in planning and implementing Voice over IP (VoIP), unified messaging, and conferencing solutions using Microsoft Office Communications Server and Microsoft Exchange Server.

“Partners are the key to igniting business innovation through great technology as well as helping customers drive down costs,” said Allison L. Watson, Corporate Vice President, Worldwide Partner Group, Microsoft Corp. “Congratulations to the 2009 WPC Award finalists who have demonstrated a superior level of expertise as well as a focus on delivering customer value. We look forward to seeing these partners fulfill their limitless potential as they continue to provide customers with world-class Microsoft solutions.”

The Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference Awards recognize Microsoft partners that have developed and delivered exceptional Microsoft-based solutions over the past year.

Gold Systems provides software development and implementation services to help companies utilize the features of Microsoft unified communications products. Gold Systems integrates Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Exchange Server 2007 with customers’ telephony infrastructure, including PBXs, VoIP services, and mobile devices. This combination helps companies save money and improve productivity by providing on-site and mobile employees with integrated, easy-to-use conferencing, messaging and “anywhere” access. Gold Systems also offers a suite of voice-powered products, designed to enhance security and productivity, which work with the speech recognition technology built into the Office Communications Server platform.

About Gold Systems
Through its award-winning products and services, Gold Systems helps its customers identify where productivity can be improved with voice-driven solutions. The company’s unified communications implementation services, as well as its self-service speech recognition solutions, allow businesses to improve productivity and profitability. Gold Systems is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. Since 1991, Gold Systems software has automated more than 1 billion telephone calls around the world. More information about Gold Systems can be found at www.goldsys.com or by calling 303-447-2774 and saying “information.”

Product or service names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Tom joined Gold Systems in 1996, and as Regional Sales Manager built and managed the company’s fast-growing Rocky Mountain and Midwest sales operations. Tom has worked across a wide range of industries and channels, consistently surpassing sales targets and earning numerous awards for top-performing territory. He also developed a long-term partnership with a leading telecommunications provider to bring contact center solutions to market.

“Tom has been a driving force behind our sales growth during his long tenure with the company,” said Terry Gold, president and CEO of Gold Systems. “He is passionate about helping our customers achieve great results with Gold Systems solutions. I am confident that Tom will help Gold Systems reach further success in his new role.”

About Gold Systems
Through its award-winning products and services, Gold Systems helps its customers identify where productivity can be improved with voice-driven solutions. The company’s unified communications implementation services, as well as its self-service speech recognition solutions, allow businesses to improve productivity and profitability. Gold Systems is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. Since 1991, Gold Systems software has automated more than 1 billion telephone calls around the world. More information about Gold Systems can be found at www.goldsys.com or by calling 303-447-2774 and saying “information.”

Gold Systems will join TechTarget’s Virtual Seminar on Unified Communications to show you how UC can drive down costs and improve productivity throughout your organization.

When: Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Time: 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time

Where: Your Desktop (Virtual Seminar)

Login: Click here to Register

Full-fledged unified communications is on the wish list of many enterprises, but when budgets are scaling back it may be difficult to justify the cost. In this Virtual Seminar and Exhibition, you’ll learn about the tangible benefits of UC and how to best translate business needs into communications applications and building blocks of UC that can actually save you money over the short and long term. You’ll get practical advice about the best approach to roll out UC in a cost-effective manner, specific applications that can give businesses the most bang for their buck, and fast and successful implementation strategies.

Microsoft is a gold sponsor of this Virtual Seminar and Exhibition, and you can learn more about Microsoft UC solutions at their virtual booth, where you can also chat live with UC experts.

Gold Systems invites you to join the Virtual Seminar and Exhibition, to learn how we can help you save costs and improve productivity by deploying unified communications services based on Microsoft technologies.

Click here for more information about the TechTarget Unified Communications Virtual Seminar and Exhibition.

Click here for more information about Gold Systems’ Unified Communications deployment services.

Virtual Seminar Keynote Expert:  Five ways UC can help your business survive the recession

One of the many benefits of UC is a rapid ROI measured in months or weeks. A bigger long-term gain is that UC ultimately streamlines business processes and operational costs across a corporation. So a smart investment in UC now can save your company money almost immediately and also give your organization a large competitive advantage coming out of the economic downturn. In this keynote webcast presentation, our expert speaker will outline five things you can act on now that will reap benefits both short and long term. We will cover:

• How UC can cut costs on travel, mobility and teleworking expenses, and how to choose products/systems
• Identifying and communications-enabling the critical applications and bottlenecks that will provide the most payback
• Building on UC capabilities that may already exist in your email or telephony systems
• Finding and maximizing as many integration points as possible
• How UC can help your business ultimately consolidate infrastructure and operational expense (moves, adds and changes)

Click here for more information and to register for the TechTarget Unified Communications Virtual Seminar and Exhibition.

Microsoft has just published a new case study on a Gold Systems customer deployment of a unified communications solution based on Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007. The deployment was for Alaska-based Alutiiq, a company that offers services such as construction, security, and training for projects around the world.

Click here to download the new unified communications case study.

Click here to view the new unified communications case study at Microsoft.com.

Situation

For interoffice and remote communications, Alutiiq had relied heavily on a distributed PBX infrastructure for voice communications and conferencing. Each company site had its own dedicated telephony hardware and required a complex dialing procedure because the systems weren’t linked. The system was also difficult to deploy and manage, and couldn’t scale to accommodate the company’s growth.

The company wanted an enterprise communications solution that would work with the telephony systems it already had in place and could be easily deployed to new sites. It also wanted to provide employees with more options for how they communicated, such as instant messaging and video conferencing.

Solution

Gold Systems presented the many benefits of a Microsoft unified communications solution to Alutiiq management, and ultimately the customer contracted Gold Systems to deploy a solution based on Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Enterprise Edition and Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 for presence awareness, instant messaging, VoIP, and conferencing. Gold Systems also deployed Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 with Unified Messaging, making it possible for users to manage e-mail and voice-mail messages from one inbox.

Gold Systems conducted an enterprise site survey and used the information to create and implement the solution architecture for Alutiiq. Gold Systems capitalized on the VoIP features of Office Communications Server 2007 to create a PBX-free environment. Office Communications Server 2007 connects to the PSTN through a media gateway, and an Office Communicator 2007 endpoint is used instead of a PBX phone.

Gold Systems conducted pilot testing to ensure stability and proper functionality, and the solution went live by June 2008. Because employees were already familiar with Microsoft software, training was minimal. Alutiiq was so pleased with the solution that it began working with Gold Systems in January 2009 to implement Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2, to take advantage of new features such as dial-in audio conferencing, cross-platform desktop sharing, and persistent group chat.

Benefits

Saved More Than $1 Million
By implementing Office Communications Server 2007, Alutiiq gained an enterprise communications solution that integrates with its existing PBX environment, helping the company to realize substantial savings. The new IT infrastructure is easy to manage, which helps Alutiiq save further.

Increased Productivity
Employees now have a stable communications infrastructure that unifies voice and data to be more productive. Employees can quickly check availability of those they need to reach and then initiate an IM conversation or voice call directly from their computers. They can also quickly escalate a conversation to an audio or video conference. In addition, Exchange Server 2007 UM gives employees the ability to receive voice- mail messages in their e-mail inboxes for easy retrieval and archiving. With enhanced communications capabilities, Alutiiq gives its employees the tools and resources necessary to help them stay on top of projects and meet customer expectations.

Reduced IT Hours by 85 Percent
For the IT staff, one of the best outcomes from implementing the Microsoft UC solution was a significant reduction in IT labor hours. The persistent phone issues for employees have become a thing of the past. Additionally, IT staff no longer must spend time deploying phone systems to new offices. Instead, they simply install the Office Communicator 2007 client on user desktops and configure them for voice and instant messaging.

Click here to learn more about Gold Systems unified communications solutions, and how they can help your company improve communications while reducing costs.

Now with Unified Messaging, users are notified of the presence of new/unread voice mail by lighting the lamp and providing a count on their supported desk phone.  Additionally, users can configure their text messaging notification account to receive the beginning content of the voice mail preview in the SMS.

MWI can be enabled or disabled by configuring the following settings on the corresponding Unified Messaging Mailbox Policy and/or Unified Messaging IP Gateways:

Allow Message Waiting Indicator

Select this check box to enable or disable Message Waiting Indicator for users associated with the UM mailbox policy.  Message Waiting Indicator is a feature found in most legacy voice mail systems.  In its most common form, it lights a lamp on the voice mail subscriber’s phone to indicate the presence of a new voice mail.  Message Waiting Indicator can also be a text message sent to the UM-enabled user’s mobile phone.  If this option is disabled on the UM IP gateway, this feature isn’t available to UM-enabled users associated with the UM mailbox policy.  This option isn’t available to UM-enabled users who have a mailbox on a Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 server.  The default setting is enabled.

Allow Message Waiting Indicator

Select this check box to allow voice mail notifications to be sent to users for calls taken by the UM IP gateway.  This setting allows for the UM IP gateway to receive and send SIP NOTIFY messages for users.  The default setting allows for notifications to be sent to users.
Message Waiting Indicator is a feature found in most legacy voice mail systems.  In its most common form, it lights a lamp on the voice mail subscriber’s phone to indicate the presence of a new voice mail.  Message Waiting Indicator can refer to any mechanism that indicates the existence of a new message.  The voice mail message could be a new or unheard voice mail.  The indication that a new voice message had arrived could be found in the Inbox in clients such as Microsoft Office Outlook or Outlook Web Access.  It could be a Short Messaging Service (SMS) or text message sent to a registered cellular phone, an outbound call made from an Exchange Unified Messaging server to a pre-configured number to play the new item, or lighting the desktop phone lamp for a user.

With the appropriate settings enabled, the Exchange 2010 Unified Messaging Server Role will send SIP NOTIFY messages to an IP/VoIP Media Gateway or IP-PBX with instructions to toggle the voice mail lamp on the subscriber’s phone.  In the following sample Dialogic Media Gateway Call Log screen shot, you can see the following:

Call Record ID #1

Inbound call to x2418.  The subscriber did not answer and a voice mail message was left.

Call Record ID #2

The subscriber at x2418 has received a new voice mail message.

Microsoft Exchange 2010 Unified Messaging sends a SIP NOTIFY message to the corresponding UM IP Gateway to turn ON the voice mail lamp for the subscriber at x2418:

NOTIFY sip:2418@10.2.1.248:5060;user=phone SIP/2.0
FROM: <sip:E14-BETA.contoso.com:5067;transport=Tcp;ms-opaque=c0f17a7698018595>;epid=8C6D79A30F;tag=6ae05021bd
TO: <sip:2418@10.2.1.248:5060;user=phone>
CSEQ: 1 NOTIFY
CALL-ID: c78cafdc22254e2a8acd52a432d98eb8
MAX-FORWARDS: 70
VIA: SIP/2.0/TCP 10.1.6.122:34646;branch=z9hG4bK9e848e7
CONTACT: <sip:2418@10.2.1.248:5060;user=phone>
CONTENT-LENGTH: 97
EVENT: message-summary
SUBSCRIPTION-STATE: terminated
USER-AGENT: RTCC/3.1.0.0
CONTENT-TYPE: application/simple-message-summary

Messages-Waiting: yes
Message-Account: sip:2418@10.2.1.248:5060;user=phone
Voice-Message: 1/0

Call Record ID #3

The subscriber at x2418 has just read the new voice mail message.

Now, Microsoft Exchange 2010 Unified Messaging sends a SIP NOTIFY message to the corresponding UM IP Gateway to turn OFF the voice mail lamp for the subscriber at x2418:

NOTIFY sip:2418@10.2.1.248:5060;user=phone SIP/2.0
FROM: <sip:E14-BETA.contoso.com:5067;transport=Tcp;ms-opaque=c0f17a7698018595>;epid=8C6D79A30F;tag=28ebdd05a
TO: <sip:2418@10.2.1.248:5060;user=phone>
CSEQ: 2 NOTIFY
CALL-ID: 4df4ae813dd14314834410759c57508d
MAX-FORWARDS: 70
VIA: SIP/2.0/TCP 10.1.6.122:50787;branch=z9hG4bKf6e0b8cc
CONTACT: <sip:2418@10.2.1.248:5060;user=phone>
CONTENT-LENGTH: 96
EVENT: message-summary
SUBSCRIPTION-STATE: terminated
USER-AGENT: RTCC/3.1.0.0
CONTENT-TYPE: application/simple-message-summary

Messages-Waiting: no
Message-Account: sip:2418@10.2.1.248:5060;user=phone
Voice-Message: 0/1

In order to deploy Exchange 2010 Unified Messaging Messaging Waiting Indicator (MWI), there are some deployment considerations that you must consider.  Otherwise, if you do not properly plan accordingly, you will have a heck of a time troubleshooting MWI.

For assistance with Unified Communications (UC) planning, deployment, and telephone integration, check out some of our services:

• UC Planning, Deployment, and Telephony Integration
• Unified Messaging

Exchange Server 2010 solves the problem of unauthorized distribution of the messages by securing the message content, specifying the users who may access that content, and the operations that they may perform on it.  It uses Active Directory Rights Management Services to apply Do Not Forward permissions to voice messages that are designated either by the sender (by marking the message as private) or by administrative policy.  This prevents the forwarding of protected voice mails in a playable form to unauthorized persons, whatever the mail client used.

Protected Voice Mail can be enabled or disabled by configuring the following settings on the corresponding Unified Messaging Mailbox Policy:

Protected Voice Mail

Protect voice messages from unauthenticated callers

Select one of the following options from the drop-down list to determine whether an incoming call answered by a Unified Messaging server will protect voice messages.   This setting applies to voice messages sent to UM-enabled users when they don’t answer their phone.   This setting also applies to voice messages sent directly to UM-enabled users when the caller uses a UM auto attendant.   This option isn’t available to UM-enabled users who have a mailbox on an Exchange 2010 Unified Messaging server.  You can configure the following:

• None.  Use this setting to not have protection applied to any voice messages sent to UM-enabled users.
• Private.  Use this setting when you want the Unified Messaging server to apply protection only to voice messages that have been marked as private by the caller.
• All.  Use this setting when you want the Unified Messaging server to apply protection to all voice messages including those not marked as private.

Protect voice messages from authenticated callers

Select one of the following options from the drop-down list to determine whether an incoming call answered by a Unified Messaging server will protect voice messages.  This setting applies to voice messages sent to UM-enabled users when they don’t answer their phone.  This setting also applies when callers log on to their mailbox using Outlook Voice Access, and then create and send a voice message.  This option isn’t available to UM-enabled users who have a mailbox on an Exchange 2010 Unified Messaging server.  You can configure the following:

• None.  Use this setting to not have protection applied to any voice messages sent to UM-enabled users.
• Private.  Use this setting when you want the Unified Messaging server to apply protection only to voice messages that have been marked as private by the caller.
• All.  Use this setting when you want the Unified Messaging server to apply protection to all voice messages including those not marked as private.

Require Play on Phone for protected voice messages

Select this check box if you want to force users who receive protected voice messages to use the Play on Phone feature.  Or, if the client software doesn’t support rights management, users must use Outlook Voice Access.  The Play on Phone feature only applies to clients using a version of Outlook that supports rights management.  For Outlook 2007 and earlier versions that don’t support rights management, and for Outlook Web Access clients, Outlook Voice Access is the only way that users can listen to protected voice mail.

The default setting requires all users associated with the UM mailbox policy to use the Play on Phone feature to listen to voice messages that are protected.  By doing this, it prevents other people from hearing the voice message using a media player over computer speakers or using a media player on a mobile phone to hear the voice message.  Even if this is enabled, a UM-enabled user can still use Outlook Voice Access to hear the protected voice mail.

This is especially useful when UM-enabled users use public computers, laptops in public places, or their mobile phone’s media player to listen to protected voice mail that can contain private information.

Specify the text to display to voice mail recipients who have e-mail clients that do not support rights management

Protected voice mail can only be accessed by e-mail clients that support Information Rights Management (IRM), or if a UM-enabled user uses Outlook Voice Access to access the protected voice mail message.

If a protected voice mail is sent to an e-mail client that doesn’t support IRM, the text that you include in this box will be sent to the user in an e-mail message.  This information should include instructions about what to do to be able to receive the protected voice mail.

With the appropriate features enabled, Exchange 2010 UM-enabled users can be restricted from distributing unauthorized messages such as voice mails.  In the following Microsoft Outlook Web Access (OWA) screen shot, you can see that the voice mail itself is protected:

With the release of Exchange 2010 Beta 1, you will only be able to listen to the voice mail using Outlook Voice Access (OVA).  You will not be able to use the embedded Windows Media Player in OWA until the appropriate IRM plug-ins are released at a later date.

Anyone who receives the above voice mail message will not be able to listen to the contents unless they are authorized from the AD RMS infrastructure.

For more information about AD RMS, refer to the following:

• Microsoft Active Directory Rights Management Services (AD RMS) in Windows Server 2008

For assistance with Unified Communications (UC) planning, deployment, and telephone integration, check out some of our services:

• UC Planning, Deployment, and Telephony Integration
• Unified Messaging

Below is diagram which Gold Systems has used to explain the concept to our customers.

The OCS Location Profile first needs to be defined.  Once that is done you create your normalization rules. Normalization rules are a set of administrator-defined digit manipulations. I’m intentionally skipping over normalization rules for purpose of this discussion.  The one thing to keep in mind is that for numbers that are normalized, the resulting translated number must have a matching route in OCS.  The Route is what OCS uses to decide if a number should be forwarded to a gateway (mediation server).

The diagram above contains four Voice Policies. Each one of the policies contains one or more phone usages. 

The Internal Dialing Policy contains the Emergency and Internal Phone Usages.  The Emergency phone usage is assigned the 911 route and the Internal phone usage is assigned the four digit (4D) internal extension range.  This policy would be ideal for a company’s Front Lobby phone.  It would allow company visitors to call 911 or internal extension ranges.

The Local Dialing Policy contains the Emergency, Internal, and Local phone usages.  Each phone usage contains its respectively assigned route. This policy would limit someone to only dialing 911, 4D internal extensions, and local 10 digit numbers.

The Long Distance Dialing Policy contains the Emergency, Internal, Local, and Long Distance phone usages. This policy allows all the dialing privileges of the Local policy plus 11D long distance.

Finally, the International Dialing Policy provides unsrestricited dialing capabilities. 

The OCS Enterprise Voice Policy configuration in the diagram above has satisfied the requirements of about 80% of our customers.  You can definitely get more granular and limit calls to specific LD and International numbers, etc.  This configuration is simply a high-level example to get you started, and help you create your own Enterprise Voice Policies.