Andy started this thought train for me with this post  this morning -

Microsoft To Enter VoIP World

Never first, usually not second, but always a tour de force, Microsoft has signaled the market that they plan on making a huge push in 2007 in the VoIP and Video Communications sector.

What does this mean? Well likely in January Microsoft will begin to show off some consumer VoIP products in a big way at CES, either under cover in private briefings or in their booth. It also means a flurry of activity with so called partners who will all become "Microsoft Certified."

Rich Tehrani added a little fuel to the conversation with his entry -

Microsoft VoIP

November 06, 2006

Andy has an entry titled Microsoft to Enter the VoIP World today and it seems to sync up with what I am seeing and hearing from the company as well. It remains to be see how seriously Microsoft pushes into VoIP in 2007 though. What I can tell you is many large enterprises are looking at what Microsoft does very closely. Many shared these thoughts with me at the last ITEXPO.

In particular many enterprises are focusing on Microsoft’s vision for the endpoints their employees will be using. Will phones be obsolete soon they wonder? These discussions have been around for years of course – now that Microsoft is more seriously in the game they are being revisited.

I tagged both posts for further reading and follow up eariler today. Now I spotted this from Red Herring.

Microsoft Plans VoIP Push
Redmond plans to roll out voice and videoconferencing services and reach smaller companies in Japan.
November 6, 2006

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told a crowd in Japan on Monday that his company plans to expand into the VoIP and videoconferencing markets.

“We will enter the voice over IP market at the beginning of next year,” he said at a Microsoft conference in Tokyo, according to Marketwatch.

Mr. Ballmer also indicated that the Redmond software giant plans to enter the videoconferencing market by next year.

In addition, Microsoft plans to promote its products heavily among small and midsized businesses in Japan, spending tens of millions of dollars on the effort, according to Mr. Ballmer. The company will also open four new stores across the country to reach a total of 11 by the end of next year.

Ok, so the Red Herring article pushed me to say something.

First, to their credit, they note that this isn't the frist time Microsoft has talked about pushing into VoIP. I feel compelled to point out that NetMeeting, now defunct, remaisn the most H.323 standards compliant software most of us have ever actually seen and used. MS pretty much failed to leverage that anywhere very effectively.

As Red Herring points out, Microsoft has leveraged and touted relationships with Nortel, Alcatel, Seimens, Cisco, Avaya and more recently Mitel. Yes, alliances sans solutions across the board at this point. And while Redmond talks highly of the Live Communications Server platform, from where I sit, it remains an infant technology with potential (that's a nice way os saying smoke and mirrors) in the real world. People are interested, but most are taking a wait and see approach, watching to see what Microsoft might really do beyond talk.

Interesting comments on how VoIP and Microsoft might play, and they speculate succeed, in Japan. I dont really agree. Mobility is the business in Japan and much of the world. Sure Hotmail and Messenger may be huge successes in Japan. Then again, what do they cost? Oh, that's right...NOTHING. Leveraging into telephony space in Japan is a much different animal. It's a bigger hurdle than getting Hotmail accepted. And it's a market that's already highly mobile. Mobile VoIP via FMC, sure that'll play well. VoIP in the traditional model? I'm less convinced.

I don't really agree with Andy that blogger briefings will be big. Those will come from the partners who leverage the blogger community. Siemens and Mitel come to mind. Microsoft doesn't use the blog world with any effectiveness since Robert Scoble left, and even he was only focused on small pieces of the MS business. Of course, you can really on Ray Ozzie's blog, last updated in April I believe. There's a commitment to using blogs to endgender conversation that cuts to the root of the MS culture. Come late to the party, but being an 800 pound gorilla, steamroll everyone who did the work to get there first.

Ok, so Microsoft hasn't impressed me much at all in the last six months, Not in any facet of their business. They're in decline and they're so big nobody sees it.

Rich says "many enterprises are focusing on Microsoft’s vision for the endpoints their employees will be using. "I don't agree. Enterprises view Microsoft askance, as they have for some time. The enterprise question isn't "what solution does MS have?" It's "what's MS doing to us now?" I see enterprises far and wide looking to all those alliance partners listed above - Cisco, Avaya, Mitel, Nortel, Siemens, et al. Enterprises look to the players int he space with substance. Microsoft isn't a player today. They're a wannabe player in the space. And they really haven't demonstrated anything that the enterprise universe buys into yet as a viable solution for a real problem.

For me, Rich nailed it better than most of us will note in this story -

It is a bit early to know who is at biggest risk as the software giant is partnering with so many companies in the PBX space who you would imagine would be afraid of Microsoft taking them out.

Microsoft is definitely a powerhouse company. I can see plenty of value for MS in the alliances. In my view, the benefit is heavily skewed toward Redmond, not the alliance partners. Like Rich, I'll be really interested to see how things play out.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, VoIP, Live Communications Server