Microsoft's Live Communications Server - Can it do next-generation telephony?

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Thanks to Irwin Lazar for the pointer to the article below. I've spoken to a number of people recently who've mentioned Microsoft's Live Communications Server. It's intergrating more into the environment every day

Microsoft's LCS: The New IP PBX?
Barbara Darrow reports
today that Microsoft will finally clarify its plans next month to turn Live Communications Server (LCS) into a next-generation telephony server. Details are to be released at Microsoft's unified communications event in June.
Perhaps the disclosure of just how far down the IP PBX path Microsoft intends to take LCS will clarify the company's postion vis a vis its PBX partners. Those relationships have long been tactically cooperative, but strategically competitive. Tactically, Microsoft needed the voice switching capabilities of the infrastructure vendors, Cisco, Avaya, Siemens etc, to tie LCS into the corporate voice system. They in turn needed Microsoft's desktop and application footprint.
Strategically, however, LCS is a fully functional SIP sever, which means it can switch and route phone calls as easily as it can IM sessions. Once everyone has an LCS client there is little need for the IP PBX. In tomorrow's business communications network, pure-play voice has as much value as it did for Vonage in the consumer market.

Microsoft's continued expansion into areas of enterprise networking well beyond their roots continues. In the VoIP environment, we know a battle looms ahead between Microsoft and Cisco. I just mentioned that the other day here. To reiterate the crux of the matter - "Microsoft will attack unified communications, the term it applies to converged realtime and asynchronous communications—including IM, e-mail and voice—from the application layer, while Cisco will do so from the network layer."

The post cited above by Dave Greenfield points to jst one of the many hurdles Microsoft will need to cross in order to find success in the VoIP and unified communications space. They certainly hope to turn LCS into a next-generation telephony server, but that will be a challenge for them in the real world. Telecommunications is a mission-critical service that can't tolerate outages, can't encounter a new vulnerability every month, and can't fail. Companies rely on telecom services and credibility (which is the real success driver) will take some time to earn.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, Live Communications Server, VoIP, unified communications, next-generation telephony