Monday, July 07, 2008

Microsoft Office Open Protocol Specifications

So Microsoft is releasing a lot of information on the way that it uses and support the different protocols in Office, which includes Office Communications Server 2007.

Why is this interesting for you/us? Well maybe you have a problem with ABS download, Firewall Traversal, Sending DTMF digits or similar issues that you have problems solving or maybe you are developing applications that integrate with the Microsoft UC platform; then these specifications are a excellent guide to the inner workings of OCS. Find information from the homepage here -

Microsoft Office Protocol Documents

The Microsoft Office protocol documentation provides detailed technical specifications for Microsoft proprietary protocols (including extensions to industry-standard or other published protocols) that are implemented and used by Microsoft Office 2007 to interoperate or communicate with other Microsoft products.

The documentation includes a set of companion overview and reference documents that supplement the technical specifications with conceptual background, overviews of inter-protocol relationships and interactions, and technical reference information.

Audience

The Microsoft Office protocol documentation is intended for use in conjunction with publicly available standard specifications and network programming art. It assumes that the reader either is familiar with this material or has immediate access to it.

The technical documentation provides the following levels of audience support:

  • Implementer: Sufficient conceptual and reference information for a successful implementation of one or more protocol specifications for a given task or scenario.

  • Reviewer: A definitive resource for readers who want to evaluate or understand one or more protocols.

The Microsoft Office protocol documentation provides detailed technical specifications for Microsoft proprietary protocols (including extensions to industry-standard or other published protocols) that are implemented and used by Microsoft Office 2007 to interoperate or communicate with other Microsoft products.

The documentation includes a set of companion overview and reference documents that supplement the technical specifications with conceptual background, overviews of inter-protocol relationships and interactions, and technical reference information.

Find the documentation at MSDN

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

For those in Colorado, the Rocky Mountain Windows Technology User Group (www.rmwtug.org) is hosting a special guest from Microsoft in July 2008 to discuss Microsoft's Open Protocols. The Denver meeting is July 15 and the Colorado Springs meeting is July 16.

Thomas Lee said...

These open specs are excellent. It's a shame that MS had to have the EU's financial gun to its head to develop these, but that's water under the bridge and we now have them.

I've been delving into the OCS related specs (c/f http://tfl09.blogspot.com/2008/07/open-geek-goodness-from-microsoft.html) and find them good. These are an excellent advance on what we had before.

While ogod, they could be better. For example, look at my comments in the thread at: http://forums.msdn.microsoft.com/en-US/os_office/thread/91092a24-71b4-4092-86b0-29efcac5cfec

I know I can figure out the answers to the issues I raise. AND I think that most folks really don't care. But that's not the point. As a pedant, I'd like to see these documents as a shining example of quality that can be delivered, vs a "we'll do what Nellie demands and that's it."

To some degree, the community is ready, willing, and able to improve the quality of these already excellent documents. I've commented (in the thread mentioned above) that MS should open up these docs for comments (and for questions too!!!). I've got a bunch stored up!

In the meantime, thanks very much for your post. I saw it after discovering the site by other means. This is good stuff, and I hope MS can do more. And if not, I hope MS can allow the community to do more.

I hope MS are listening!