"Communicator and Live Communications Server demonstrate how we are bringing integrated communications to life for our customers as rich presence and multimodal communications become an integrated part of the Microsoft Office System," said Jeff Raikes, group vice president of the Information Worker Group at Microsoft. "Users now can view rich presence information for colleagues, partners and customers; select the most efficient mode of communication, whether it's IM, a phone call, a Web conference or e-mail; and instantly share ideas and information."
The partnerships with major IP-PBX vendors, Siemens and Alcatel, are only part of the story. It is also working on new initiatives with carriers where Microsoft is building partnerships with service providers such as British Telecom, MCI and Telstra.
The key to this part of Microsoft’s strategy is the Connected Services Framework (CSF), an integrated solution that allows service providers to deliver converged services across multiple networks and a range of device types. By deploying the CSF, service providers can bring together not only Microsoft services such as Microsoft Solution for Hosted Exchange 2003, the Microsoft TV platform and Microsoft Office Live Communications Server, but also a broad array of operator-developed and third-party services and content. Telecommunications operators such as BT, Bell Canada and Celcom Malaysia are deploying CSF to facilitate the delivery of services to their customers, says IDC.
These partnerships represent an important step toward strengthening Microsoft's position in the VOIP space.
“VoIP has become a lightning rod for a new competitive dynamic between IT and telecom vendors,” notes Tom Valovic IDC’s program director for VoIP Infrastructure.
“A battle for the enterprise desktop is looming between major IT and telecom vendors, and at the center of it are innovative types of user-defined communications and the marriage of telecom-based convergence and IT-based desktop collaboration."
IDC is not the only researcher trying to track Microsoft’s VoIP strategy. Over recent times, "Microsoft is tying together all of its multimedia-capable messaging assets into a cohesive strategy to penetrate and dominate the burgeoning VoIP market," points out Carmi Levy, senior research analyst with Info-Tech Research Group.
Levy argues that VoIP is just the next generation of messaging and the company will by its very nature want to pursue dominance in this category as well. The strategy to do this is likely to be to target the enterprise first and then bring in consumer VoIP at a later stage.
The study is done out of IDC in the US, but is available for purchase locally.
Email
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
to buy the report. The study is called Microsoft (and Bill Gates) Put LCS and VoIP Center Stage (IDC #
33329).
See also
Info-Tech Research Group.
