Is Microsoft Too Late? Take 2Is Microsoft Too Late? Take 2

OCS is the trojan horse.

Back in October of 2007 I authored a column for Business Communications Review that looked at Microsoft's entry into the VOIP market and asked whether Microsoft had entered the market after most enterprise organizations had already moved forward with alternate vendors for their VOIP plans, meaning Microsoft was too late to gain significant VOIP market share.At the time of writing, Nemertes Research indicated that 99% of organizations we had interviewed that year had already selected a VOIP vendor and were moving forward with at least a limited pilot, meaning that for Microsoft to succeed in the VOIP arena, it would have to convince potential customers to call a halt to existing plans and switch to Microsoft's Office Communications Server as a VOIP platform. Microsoft made this pitch by promising that it could cut the cost of VOIP in half when compared to its competitors.

The customers for the most part didn't listen. The overwhelming majority of participants in our 2008 research interviews said that the only impact of Microsoft's entry into the VOIP space was to pay more attention to the ability to integrate their existing or planned voice systems with the Microsoft Office Communications server and client, enabling features such as "click-to-call" and presence awareness for desktop and Windows Mobile users.

Now, about a year and a half later, Microsoft is stepping up its game with the release of OCS Release 2, adding a number of VOIP related features including single-number reachability and dial-in audio conferencing. Perhaps most importantly, OCS R2 adds support for SIP trunking; already Microsoft has announced a number of partnerships with service providers to bring SIP trunks to OCS installations. So with R2 is Microsoft back in the VOIP game?

Not yet. Microsoft still faces some of the same issues we heard about in 2007. There's still no good option for remote site survivability nor is there an E-911 capability just yet. Integrating Microsoft into existing voice systems will typically require a mediation server (or multiple servers). Choices for stand-alone desktop phones are limited and most IT architects still don't trust software-based phones running on Windows as their primary means of communication.

But maybe we're asking the wrong question? Sure, Microsoft is happy to offer OCS as a phone system replacement to those whose requirements fit Microsoft's capabilities. But perhaps more importantly, OCS is the trojan horse. Today, it offers desktop and mobile device control over communications services, Microsoft's and partners, along with a robust set of collaboration features such as instant messaging, persistent chat, audio, video, and web conferencing, and so on. It integrates presence into the full suite of Microsoft office products including Exchange/Outlook and Office. Web-based clients enable non-Windows users to become part of the Microsoft eco-system. And maybe, just maybe, as OCS's phone feature list grows, and as OCS deployments grow, perhaps with R3 Microsoft will begin to convince a growing number of its customers that they really don't need that old IP-PBX anymore when employees are already using OCS to make the majority of their calls.

As we conduct our 2009 round of interviews we're continuing to gather data on the role of Microsoft in VOIP/UC planning. Stay tuned...

If you would like to participate in our research please contact me at [email protected]. All participants receive a copy of our summary VOIP/UC report due out in late spring, 2009.OCS is the trojan horse.