Your feedback has driven change: Unified Messaging now on Windows Essential Business Server 2008

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Several months ago one or two UK SBSC partners came to Microsoft’s offices in Reading to meet with Nick King, Microsoft’s senior SBS and EBS Product Manager. The aim of the meeting was to share their thoughts and feedback in a roundtable style meeting. Nick has just contacted us to give an update on product changes implemented as a result of this session! 

You may recall we received feedback that Unified Communications integration was an important technology for mid market businesses and partners… This week we announced Unified Messaging support on Windows Essential Business Server 2008!

Here is a snippet from the blog article that announces this, but do click here to read the article in full and get all the details. 

Hi, my name is Scott Thompson – I'm a Program Manager on the Windows Essential Business Server team working on the messaging features of EBS.

One of the most popular features of Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 (included in Essential Business Server 2008) is Unified Messaging . Unified Messaging allows voicemail and faxes to be received into Exchange Server 2007 inboxes, and provides access to those messages via Outlook, Outlook Web Access, and ActiveSync devices. Unified Messaging also includes Outlook Voice Access which allows users to retrieve e-mail messages from their mailbox by using a telephone.

Essential Business Server customers often ask: can Essential Business Server be run as a Unified Messaging server? Great news: Yes, Unified Messaging can be added to the messaging server in Windows Essential Business Server 2008 .

This blog walks through things to consider before adding Unified Messaging to the Essential Business Server messaging server: Licensing and Hardware planning, along with how to add the UM role.

The Microsoft EBS Team Blog : Running Unified Messaging on Windows Essential Business Server 2008

Nick has asked that we extend his team’s thanks once again to the UK SBSC partners for giving feedback and for being instrumental in driving key changes to our products. He has also promised to continue to update us as Microsoft brings additional scenarios online, so stay tuned! In addition, please continue to share your constructive feedback – as proven, Microsoft is listening!