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The New York Times' Bits blog reports that tomorrow, Bill Gates will be unveiling Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 in the company's first unpretentious bid to dominate the PBX phone system space. Only one problem with the Times' angle: Office Communications Server is not a PBX system. It certainly supports the use of VoIP phones and software like Office Communicator, allowing you to do a lot of what a PBX system does. But VoIP alone a phone system does not make.

Not only that, but OCS doesn't support connecting to public telephone network lines without outside media gateway equipment--which means it will work great next to your phone system, filling in some important functionality blanks like desktop conferencing, but probably can't replace the old phone system altogether. Well, at least not yet. That said, what can OCS do?

Office Communications Server uses SIP (session initiation protocol) to set up all types of collaborative media streams on behalf of an enterprise user group-- supported media types include instant messaging, file transfer, VoIP calling, video-conferencing, and desktop sharing and collaboration. Plus, OCS is tied to Microsoft's Active Directory, allowing you to use your existing security and directory from your Windows network.

But if you want to call for a pizza using the Microsoft Office Communicator VoIP client, you'll still need a phone system, or at least have your Office Communications Server connected to one via SIP. We invite the excitable folks at the New York Times to calmly read about all the mature, competing products to whom OCS is only now catching up: Cisco MeetingPlace, WebEx, Scopia, and, yes, to some extent, even Skype. Then again, nothing's really new until Microsoft announces it.