When Microsoft first announced the Unified Communications strategy & partnerships last year, one of the pictures that was shown off was of a prototype “Communicator phone” – a networked device which could be used to make phone calls through the Office Communications Server, and would show the presence of the user’s list of contacts, as held on OCS and normally manipulated through the Office Communicator client.

I’ve had a play with one of these prototype devices (courtesy of Mark Deakin) and although it still has the air of an unfinished product, it’s a really interesting idea – sign in to the phone and see the presence of all your contacts, or search the AD directly from the phone so you can dial people by name rather than a number.

I saw a slide the other day with a photo of a device that Polycom is building – and came across the same picture on Tom Keating’s blog too… it’s starting to look very interesting device-wise. Word is, further details will be available soon, so watch this space…