Genesys adds key telephony capabilities to Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS), with GETS software for remote call control and presence-based call management

San Francisco, October 16th, 2007 – Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, an Alcatel-Lucent company (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) today announced that Genesys Enterprise Telephony Server (GETS) will allow users of Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) ’07 to leverage telephony-enabled presence and control, in combination with new or existing telephony systems, to deliver advanced services without replacing their infrastructure. GETS provides sophisticated call control and telephony-enabled presence capabilities for enterprises using OCS ’07, no matter what generation their underlying telephony infrastructure may be.

The announcement comes in conjunction with Microsoft’s first shipments of OCS and is part of the companies’ ongoing efforts to make it easier for enterprises to link the phone and the PC without taking a “rip and replace” approach to their existing infrastructure. GETS software is an add-on to OCS that allows users to route calls to and from any contact using both IP soft phones and traditional telephony equipment. GETS is the only telephony solution that supports over 100 industry standard switches and can be deployed in multi-site, heterogeneous environments with interoperability across 25 TDM and IP-PBX platform vendors.As a result, any enterprise can quickly add next generation collaboration technology to its communications infrastructure.

Microsoft Office Communications Server with Genesys GETS gives enterprises the ability to telephony-enable information workers via a cost-effective, small footprint application that offers an immediate return-on-investment. GETS can reduce phone bills, cut the cost of conference calls by up to 25%, and extend the life of existing PBX equipment.

GETS can also reduce the amount of time it takes to centrally provision users across PBXs and OCS because it provides a common interface where an administrator can provision users in Microsoft Active Directory and components of the Genesys environment. When an extension is opened for an employee, GETS user provisioning can quickly tie that extension into the Microsoft environment through active directory regardless of where the employee’s extension resides.

As part of OCS, the Genesys GETS software adds or enhances several key features of Microsoft Office Communicator and Office Communications Server, including:

– Ability to detect “In a call” presence status regardless of what generation PBX users are connected to

– Smart transfer—dynamically deflect incoming calls to any telephony device

– Telephony integration with Microsoft SmartTags allows users to dial contacts by clicking their name in any Microsoft Office Application

– Highlight-and-call any 10-digit telephone number appearing in Internet Explorer, Outlook, Word, Excel, Communicator and Firefox

– Multi-line Control and selection

– Telephony controls, including ad-hoc conference calls



“Microsoft is a key Genesys partner, and the combination of OCS and GETS allows us to continue extending our reach beyond the contact center, while also adding value and unique capabilities for Microsoft Office Communicator users,” said Paul Lang, vice president of product management at Genesys.

A production tested version of GETS that supports OCS is available for immediate delivery. Implementations of the GETS software have scaled up to 50,000 seats, and Microsoft itself has already deployed GETS across 40,000 desktops at its facility in Redmond, Washington.