Microsoft and VoIP
Disappointed I missed VON this past week. It seems that Microsoft has finally awoken on the VoIP front.
The stories are mostly about the Windows CE 5.0 announcement. Rob Enderle covers it for eWeek. Wireless Week had a breathless assessment that VoIP would be at the center of everything Microsoft did moving forward as well. Om Malik has an inciteful bit of commentary in The Incredible importance of Instant Message clients on how Microsoft has sewn up all the backend pieces as well. All that remains is to actually offer a service.
The timing of the announcement was very clever, naturally. Microsoft took full advantage of the fact that the Embedded Systems Conference was happening at the exact same time as VON in the exact same location. This was a PR gift. March 29 they announced the new release of Windows CE at ESC in San Francisco. Then they trotted on over to VON and on March 31 announced a raft of new partners planning to take advantage of the VoIP features mentioned in their March 29 announcement.
- TMCNet: Microsoft Extends VoIP Platform in Next Version of Windows CE
- Techworld: Windows CE Sings in Better Voice
- eWeek: Microsoft talks VoIP for new Windows CE
I’m not as convinced as Om Malik on this one, however. To be sure, Microsoft has made huge inroads into the communications space in recent years. However, few carriers today are using Microsoft products in infrastructure, despite efforts by the company that date all the way back to 1995. Sun still has a stranglehold there. Microsoft’s end-to-end strategy of delivering software for both client and back end is not yet widely embraced.
Will they keep pushing at it? Sure. And the coming price war in the carrier space will only play to Microsoft’s strengths as carriers seek to preserve margins by offering new services to differentiate themselves from competitors.
