Microsoft OCS Launch

The name “Microsoft” is not top of mind whenever one thinks of suppliers of enterprise phone systems. But Microsoft hopes that will change in a big way. Microsoft unveiled its own IP phones in May, and is preparing for a major launch of Office Communications Server, the latest revision to Live Communications Server.

Not be alarmist, but “road kill” comes to mind as one surveys the existing line up of providers of business phone systems. Heck, it has to. As Cisco before it came essentially out of nowhere to claim a lead position in the enterprise phone systems market, so now Microsoft is about to make its move as well.

To be sure, Microsoft is “playing nice” for the next two years, designing its new line of phones to work with existing private branch exchanges. Inevitably, Microsoft will go further. That is what Office Communications Server 2007 and Office Communicator 2007 are about, after all: the full integration of desktop and other enterprise apps with unified messaging and communications in a Microsoft framework, as the Wainhouse Research illustration shows.

“Microsoft’s plan is a 10 to 15 year view of the market, which is only starting to be visible today,” says Alec Saunders, Iotum CEO and former Windows CE executive. “Taken in totality, it’s a plan to dominate every aspect of enterprise communications, with the exception, perhaps, of the carrier network.” And even there, Microsoft would like to have its software embedded.

As Saunders puts it, every provider in the enterprise voice space now has to have an answer for OCS; some strategy for surviving Microsoft's charge.