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It’s been a big year in the enterprise communications industry, and since this newsletter is taking a two-week hiatus and won’t be back until the first week of 2008, I thought I’d take a look back at 2007.

The big news of 2007, for our industry, was the release of Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, and I’m proud that VoiceCon played a significant role in this development. It was at VoiceCon Orlando back in March that Jeff Raikes, president of Microsoft’s Business Division, predicted that Unified Communications-from his perspective, led by Microsoft-would drive costs for the average solution down by half within 3 years. That got everyone’s attention.

Also in March, Cisco’s acquisition of WebEx was a major event for 2007. We’ve yet to really see exactly how this is going to play out, but Cisco’s mantra of “it’s the network” requires the underpinning of a software-as-a-service strategy, and WebEx is the heart of such a strategy. Microsoft is making its own noises about SaaS, as they have to do, but their edge, at least in this market, is their ownership of the desktop.

That’s an enormous edge, of course. The next voice communications interface is the PC, not the phone (I know, I know, the phone’s not going away. It’s also, I’ll predict, not going to evolve much further or receive significant new R&D from the people who make high-end desk sets.) For road warriors, the interface is a handheld PC, and for desk-bound workers it’s a desktop PC/laptop.

Microsoft is doing pretty well in these “desktops,” and Cisco isn’t going to catch them there. However, if the systems that power these desktops run off platforms within the network, Cisco’s got the edge.

A lot of the other big news that affects our industry came out of the wireless world. Verizon’s decision to open up its network will, if the full promise is realized, drive technical innovation and purchasing flexibility that must have a major effect on the enterprise.

Similarly, the release of Apple’s iPhone and announcement of Google’s Android platform will change the device/end user environment, which again will profoundly change how a large segment of the enterprise end user base does business. Which in turn will have a major effect on enterprise telecom/IT departments.

A final news event happened this past year, though we don’t know exactly when or where: Somewhere, a Cisco Unified Communications Manager system shipped to a customer, and this particular system turned out to be the one that pushed Cisco ahead of Avaya in terms of current enterprise telephony shipments. Avaya still has a larger installed base, but Cisco now outships Avaya in overall station shipments, not just IP. It was a milestone for an industry that, a decade ago, scoffed at Cisco; blustered that “you never have to reboot your phone” when TDM was the dominant technology; and proceeded to whistle past the graveyard for another several years.

Things are different now; everybody-Avaya, Nortel, Siemens, and, yes, Cisco-is on a war footing as the big bad bullies from Microsoft shove their way into the enterprise voice industry. In 2008, we’ll start to see how it all plays out.

What do you think? Drop me a note here in the VoiceCon Enews Forum or directly at ekrapf@cmp.com

Eric H. Krapf
Editor & Lead Blogger, NoJitter.com
VoiceCon Program Chair

Posted in Market Trends, Tech Trends, Unified Communications, VOIP, Wireless |

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