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Gadget truck

By: Clint Cooper
(Contact)

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John Rouser

A time-saving application of Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 will help business people find the right person at the right time using the right method, according to company representatives.

With the system’s presence icon, a person seeking to communicate with another person will be able to glance at a computer screen and see if the other person is online and available for a conversation.

If communication is available, a connection can be made through instant message, phone call or an audio- or videoconference.

“It gives access to all office communications right now,” said Ron Grattop, who was in Chattanooga for three days last week with Microsoft Across America demonstrating the company’s latest products for students, teachers, business owners and employees.

Consolidated Integrative Services (CIS) sponsored the device-filled truck’s appearance at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where it was hosted by the school’s department of electrical engineering.

“We wanted to have it as a community event,” said Clyde Zimmerman of CIS, a computer integration company that offers planning, implementation and support for networking systems. “We wanted people to see the latest that Microsoft offers.”

SRC Technologies and InfoSystems also sponsored subsequent appearances by the Microsoft truck.

Together, the three stops drew more than 200 people, officials said.

Among other new products and services the company displayed at UTC was Response Point, phone

system software which allows small businesses to access the phone system and its features using just your voice; and Windows Home Server, a central hub which connects home portable computers and enables families to organize, share and protect photos, videos and music.

Mr. Grattop said businesses often buy sophisticated phone systems that become widely misused or underused.

Response Point, he said, allows Voice-over Internet Protocol phone users to forward, transfer or put someone on hold with a few simple mouse clicks.

The speech recognition capability, for instance, allows callers to speak their desired party’s name and be automatically transferred to that extension. For workers, it affords the ability to say, “Transfer my call to Joe,” instead of memorizing or looking up the number and having to manipulate the keys.

Windows Home Server, according to Mr. Grattop, hosts up to 10 computers.

Among other things, it also monitors the health of the computer by alerting the user whether the anti-virus or firewall are out of date; automatically backs up information across multiple hard drives; allows remote access to networked files; and provides a personalized Web address that allows the sharing of photos and home videos.

Mr. Grattop said in a home where he, his wife and his college-age son have laptops, he could use a Windows Home Server. But the reason he is going to get one, he said, is the personalized Web address that will allow photos of his grandchildren in different parts of the country from his Tulsa, Okla., home, to be shared.

Tom Wengler, director of business development for SRC Technology Solutions, said during the Microsoft truck’s stop there, officials told visitors about The Big Easy, a rebate-type program that allows them to use the rebates for additional products; CRM (Customer Relationship Management), a business solution which focuses on sales, marketing and service; and SharePoint, a document and process visibility solution which can be shared inside an organization or externally with customers.

The new Microsoft solutions, he said, allows SRC “the ability to give a company a 360-degree view of its customers.”

John Rouser of InfoSystems said his business used the truck to provide education on Windows Server 2008, which he said is Microsoft’s first update of the operating system since 2003.

Among its advantages, he said, was virtualization, which allows multiple instances of the operating system to be run at the same time. Previously, he said, only one instance could be run per machine.

Such a system was previously only available for larger businesses, Mr. Rouser said, but now can offer attributes such as disaster recovery ability and cost savings within the smaller business realm.