Hard Endpoints
Officially, Microsoft will not manufacture any hard endpoints. That task will be left to partners such as Polycom and LG-Nortel. At the time of testing, devices from those manufactures were not yet available for tests, but we were able to look at two Microsoft reference designs. Press releases for the current status of these partner devices can be found here.
The first endpoint was an IP phone. Physically it had many of the features you would expect: a full duplex speakerphone, number pad, hard keys for speaker, headset, mute, volume control and a 64K color touch screen. The back of the unit had ports for external power (it also supports 802.3af PoE), headset, USB and two 10/100 Ethernet (phone and PC). There was also a Help key to access additional information regarding phone features.
Some interesting aspects of the phone are the click wheel and the presence indicator. To navigate menu options, users can slide their finger around the click wheel, similar to an iPod, and select them by pressing the button in the middle of the wheel. When a user sets their presence, either on the phone or using Office Communicator, an LED in the lower right corner will change color to reflect their state: Green for available, red for busy or unavailable, yellow for away and a split green and yellow for users who have signed in but are inactive.
At its core, the IP phone is a Windows CE device running Office Communicator. The screen is bright and with the depth of color pallet, easy to read and use. The main screen has four basic tabs for Contacts, Voice mail, Call log and Settings (phone configuration). The click wheel made navigation easy for options, and the touch screen allowed for quick access once the choice was visible. The voice mail tab displays all messages, allowing users to select critical ones first. From the contact screen, a user can select an individual, choose the number to use and place the call based on the information in their contact database. The contact list is pulled from what the user has defined in OCS such as Exchange or Outlook.
For security, the phone logged into Active Directory for authentication. A fingerprint reader was equipped on the model we looked at. Once set up, the user could log into the phone with a finger swipe and a PIN number—on these reference designs, both authentication factors were required, though the OEMs’ products could behave differently.
The second device was a USB handset designed to be used in conjunction with Office Communicator. It plugs into the USB port and provides the user with a handset, speaker phone, mute, volume control and the same presence LCD as the IP phone. Incoming calls can be answered by picking up the handset or clicking “accept”’ on the Office Communicator (OC) client. The rest of the call handling features are provided by the OC client.
