During a keynote speech at VoiceCon Orlando 2009, Microsoft proclaimed unified communications and soft phones will ultimately kill traditional desktop business phones. Here are The VAR Guy’s top 10 highlights from the keynote, delivered by Gurdeep Singh Pall, corporate VP for Microsoft Unified Communications Group.
10. No Booth, No Worries: Pall conceded that Microsoft does not have a booth at VoiceCon, but he insisted the company remains fully committed to the event — and perhaps more committed than ever.
9. Looking Back One Year: Pall recapped Microsoft’s past 12 months in the UC market, noting the company launched Office Communications Server 2007 R2. It’s positioned as a single platform for telephony, instant messaging, voice and video.
8. Analysts Buying Into Microsoft UC: Pall pointed to upbeat views on Microsoft UC from Forrester and other researchers. Yawn. Generally speaking, The VAR Guy doesn’t get excited over research firms. However, customer quotes from University of Kentucky and RealPage showed that Microsoft is gaining momentum with UC.
7. What A Downer: Pall noted that today’s Wall Street Journal said the recession is deepening. “We can be sure this is a recession, we don’t know how long it’s going to last and this is a bad one,” said Pall. He noted a conversation with a Harvard researcher who said this recession could take years to end. But he added that “hope” is not a strategy.
6. And Here’s A Shocker: Twenty-five years after the depression, only nine companies from the Fortune 500 had gone on to survive and thrive, asserted Pall. They were GM, Exxon Mobile, GE, DuPont, Bethlehem Steel, AT&T, RCA, Procter & Gamble, and IBM. He noted that innovation and transformation were key. By spending less you can survive a recession or depression, but if you make the wrong budget choices you could fail to catch an innovation wave coming out of a recession or depression.
5. True Believer: Andreas Arrigoni, head of collaboration services at Swisscom, described how Switzerland’s largest telecom provider began its migration to Microsoft Office Communications Server. In general, Swisscom went with Microsoft OSC because it offered the best integration of voice, video and is easy to deploy, said Arrigoni. Plus, a federation feature allows Swisscom to work more closely with partners.
4. Softphone Killing PCs?: “Folks, you cannot afford to do the things you did before,” said Pall. He noted that dedicated word processing hardware ultimately converged into the PC, and predicted the same trend will happen with many desktop phones.
3. BNSF Railway and Sprint: Two more customer endorsements. Um, The VAR Guy already covered the Sprint Office Communications System in March.
2. Where’s Nortel Networks?: We’re 35 minutes into the Microsoft keynote, and there hasn’t been a single mention of Microsoft’s unified communications partnership with Nortel Networks. Considering Nortel’s financial standing, The VAR Guy is hardly surprised. Microsoft noted Polycom, Aspect, Lenovo and BT North America as four key partners in the UC space. There are still a few minutes left in the speech. Will Microsoft mention Nortel? Unfortunately, The VAR Guy can’t stick around to listen. He’s got a meeting.
1. Hello, Apple: Microsoft demonstrated some new UC capabilities from an Apple Macintosh. The VAR Guy rather enjoyed that twist.
Bonus: What would you rather spend $300 on — a corporate desktop phone or a netbook? When Pall held up an intelligent netbook and a dumb phone, the audience went for the obvious answer and applauded for the netbook.
Telephones are dead, long live soft phones? There’s only one problem with that thesis. It’s called Windows. Until Microsoft makes Windows a rock-solid desktop operating system, there’s no way businesses are going to fully transition from traditional phones to smart phones. Hopefully, Windows 7 will be a step in the right direction.
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Tags: Andreas Arrigoni | Microsoft Gurdeep Singh Pall | Microsoft Office Communications Server | Microsoft Unified Communications Group | Swisscom
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Great to see you earlier today at VoiceCon.
I agree that Windows is too shaky a platform to be your only phone line. (No IT guy will be happy to hear that the BSOD is now coming to his phone system as well as his desktops…)
However, what I take away from MS is: “the expensive phone is dead — long live the cheap phone”. Whether a softphone or a cheap plastic SIP phone, the point is that the intelligence (and the revenue) should not come via a plastic box — it should come in the form of software.
The move to UC is a classic IT paradigm shift. Value moves out of hardware — which is commoditized — and into the software stack. It’s great for low-cost UC software companies like ours (Unison) but very very bad for what I call the ‘metal and plastic dinosaurs’ like Nortel etc.
I will keep you updated as we roll out our Unison partner program.
Rurik: Great to meet … assuming you really did meet The VAR Guy.
I agree with the idea that phones will be converging into computers. Many people are already doing this to save costs, and it will only makes more sense as video-chat becomes available. Do you want to stare at a small 4-inch screen, or do you want to have a video conference meeting where you can see each persons face on your large monitor? Do you really want to spend $500 on that video-capable phone?
One thing that I have learned recently is that users do not care about VoIP (as a transport mechanism). All they really care about are the features that Unified Communications provide.
Tristan
Tristan,
Always good to have your perspective. The VAR Guy thinks traditional desktop phones will be replaced by dual-mode smart phones that let you jump between Cellular calls and VoIP calls. That single phone will roam between your office, your business travel and your home.
But it’s going to be a decade-long transition.