Telepocalypse

Think big, act enormous

Some quick observations on Alex’s dismemberment of the new Microsoft unified communications server.

#1. Names count. People want unified communications clients, but they don’t want unified communications services as such. They want to be able to partition their lives. Beware of what you ask for.
#2. This should be Microsoft’s equivalent of IBM’s Linux moment. MS don’t have a PBX solution to cannibalise, but they do have an application server and so on. (IBM saw it was losing the OS battle, but won the hardware and services war.) Adopt Asterisk as your baby, stick in inside the MS stack (server OS, app server, database, systems management etc.). There’s already an ecosystem around Asterisk that’ll bring in all the functionality you need.
#3. Don’t integrate directly into Exchange, because you’re now in the middle of the turf war inside every enterprise between the telecom manager and IT manager. Yes, we know that these functions are merging. No, it isn’t pretty. Why stand in the middle of a duel? Technology matters, but people matter more.
#4. Vaporware smells bad. Deliver. Now, not 200x where x > 6. Microsoft’s job isn’t to be a software factory of proprietary products delivered on glacial timescales. It’s to make money, by fair means or … oops, is that a federal judge I see hiding behind the curtains? Swallow your pride.
#5. The money’s in joining the enterprise islands, and bridging those islands with consumers. Software within the islands distributed on golden CDs isn’t where it’s at any more. High margins, but no growth.
#6. “Exterminate, exterminate”. Bundle free voice into Vista, UCS etc. and use support revenues to cross-subsidise it. Establish an end-user relationship beyond the purchasing department. The best form of defence against incumbent telcos is vigorous attack. Suck the value out of the telephony system before someone else does itfor you. Be in a leading position to monetise privacy, presence, directory, identity etc. because the metered minute is about to attract the attention of endanged wildlife campaigners. You kids will only see it in the telecom zoo.
#7. Consider pushing your way into CPE and home gateways, because that’s where your QoS bottleneck is going to get fixed. Put PhoneGnome-like functionality into the gateway [Disclosure: commercial interest]. The public are now 0wn3d. Wrap, salt, deliver up to enterprises for delivery of services through your unique distribution channel. (Want QoS to the user? We got it…)

OK, that’s enough wild speculation for now.