Check out this post from the UC team regarding some virtual labs you can use to try your hand at deploying OCS 2007, Exchange 2007 Unified Messaging, etc. http://blogs.technet.com/uc/archive/2007/07/21/new-microsoft-office-communications-server-2007...

I thought I'd mention Michael Dunn's book Pro Microsoft Speech Server 2007: Developing Speech Enabled Applications with .NET is now available. I haven't received it yet, but based on talking with Michael and his SS knowledge and real world experience...

If you've never participated in a geekSpeak before, these sessions are conversational in nature and are driven by your questons rather than a set agenda. This session on Speech Server by Michael Dunn is a great overview of the speech capabilities in OCS...

After 3 years of incredibly hard work, Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 have been sent to manufacturing! Congrats to the UC Product teams! OCS 2007 and OC 2007 were released to manufacturing last week...