Microsoft's Unified Communications Roadmap...

I'm knee deep in about a dozen half-finished blogs but I wanted to acknowledge today's news regarding Microsoft's road map for Unified Communications. At an event in San Francisco, Jeff Raikes discussed the company's vision of integrating communication touch points (voice, email, IM, conferencing, etc...) in an IP-based, singular infrastructure. The notion of unified communications has been buzzworthy (and not-so-buzzworthy) for almost a decade (remember OneBox?), so what's different this time?

Well, for one, advancements in the packetization of traditional voice/PBX functionality have met head on with broadband proliferation. Second, much of the integration work between the disparate layers of unified communications can now be done in a software environment (i.e., hardware agnostic) thanks to standards like SIP. In fact, Raikes highlights SIP as a major driver of Microsoft's push toward UniCom.

Well, a big part of it is connecting workers seamlessly, using the evolving networks that are coming into place, and we can do this providing a rich, multimodal, contextual communications experience. And this will be built on open standards like SIP. SIP is to communications in the same way HTML was to the Web. And that's why we're emphasizing this as a software platform that will create a broad ecosystem. And this will result in a direction that is centered on people, not devices, so that you can have one consistent identity. And it will be cost effective for IT with single directory and common management tools.

Here's the Unified Communications lineup, as presented today:

• Office Communications Server 2007
• Office Exchange Server 2007 UM
• Office Communicator 2007
• Office Live Meeting
• Office RoundTable (formerly RingCam)
• Office Communicator device software
• Affiliated Peripherals

While Raikes and the Microsoft team did a nice job today, it's important to temper our expectations for now. Remember, unified communications has been promised (but not delivered) for years by not just software vendors including Microsoft and Oracle but networking vendors like Cisco and Siemens, too. As importantly, several of today's products aren't due until this time NEXT YEAR; which could mean 2008 or later judging from recent history. Many of these concepts have been floating around the Microsoft periphery for years. Take a look at this interview by none other than Jeff Raikes in early 2003. Even the vaunted RoundTable (a 360 degree webcam) which was on center stage today has actually been in the works since 2001.

Ultimately, there is tangible value in each of the individual components of Microsoft's Unified Communications product road map. If, collectively, they can position the company at the forefront of the coming UM wave, that's an added bonus.

Related Articles:

• As usual, Don Dodge does a nice job summarizing today's Microsoft news

Note: At the time of this writing I, and/or funds I maintain discretionary control over, maintained a long equity positions in CSCO, MSFT and ORCL but did not maintain a position (long or short) in any of the other public companies mentioned.

unified communications microsoft msft jeff raikes software office2007 woodrow