Microsoft

Mutual dislike of Microsoft won’t salvage Google and Apple’s broken BFF bromance

The days of Google and Apple having a cuddly relationship appear to be ending, and unified communications has played a small part in the break-up.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt resigned from Apple’s board of directors today, just a few days after the FCC opened an inquiry into why Apple rejected the Google Voice application from its iPhone App Store. Google Voice, based on the technology Google acquired with GrandCentral, is sort of a UC-on-the-cheap technology, as pointed out by our Click to Talk blogger, Tony Bradley.  At it’s core, Google Voice allows users to establish a single phone number which can be set to ring any number of devices - desk phones, mobile phones, home phones. It also has some unified messaging features, such as visual voice mail and online voice mail access, and it offers some other useful features, such as call recording, conference calling and directory assistance.

When Apple rejected the Google Voice application, many bloggers were upset. Some suspected that Apple was trying to protect AT&T from losing revenue, since Google Voice users can easily use the technology to move a phone call from their mobile device to a land-line. However, the picture is much more complicated than that.

As Dave Michaels pointed out on his blog, Pin Drop Soup, Apple and Google are now competitors. Although Google remains largely a Web-based software company and Apple remains mostly a hardware company, that distinction isn’t enough to keep this bromance alive. Michaels writes: “Well, maybe not a ‘primary’ competitor since Google doesn’t make hardware. But Google does make a browser, a cell phone platform, and an OS - direct alternatives to those made by Apple.”

Historically, Google and Apple have been relatively friendly toward, based on a mutual distrust of Microsoft. Schmidt’s presence on Apple’s board formalized that friendship. But now the companies’ interests are diverging. Google, which makes the bulk of its revenue in online advertising, wants a wireless Internet that is as open as its wired cousin is. Apple, like Microsoft and the majority of wireless service providers, want maintain a market where devices, operating systems, and carriers have a high degree of control over how wireless users access the Internet.

Apple and Google should have seen this split coming. After all, Microsoft is mostly a software company, too, and it has been Apple’s fiercest rival for decades.

INTEROP: HP, Microsoft expand unifed communications alliance

At Interop this morning, HP and Microsoft announced a $180 million expansion of their partnership to jointly develop services and products as well as sell and market those products.

“Together, we are offering the extensive breadth of capabilities of our respective technologies to deliver a truly unified communications and collaboration solution to help our customers improve business productivity,” stated Stephen Elop, president, Microsoft Business Division, Microsoft, in a release on the HP-Microsoft partnership. “This means one click to communicate, one click to conference, one click to collaborate.”

The announcement highlights steps towards closer integration of the two companies’ product lines, such Microsoft Unified Communications qualification for the HP dx9000 TouchSmart Business PC, select smartphones, and new IP deskphones. Possibly more exciting is the integration of HP Halo Telepresence Solutions with OCS, enabling any OCS-compatible PC to join in on a HP teleconference call.

More details on the partnership, from the official release, after the jump.

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VoiceCon 2009: Building success through innovation

The impact of today’s global economic crisis has wrenched companies into shaping new business models merely to survive, much less thrive. But top-tier UC vendors at the recent spring VoiceCon 2009 show in Orlando are interpreting the recession (or depression) as a unique opportunity to change the old ways of doing things. The dawn of a new day. A time to rely on and trust in innovation to carry us through these dark days.

Tough times coupled with perpetual, driving need is the catalyst that has historically sparked prodigious ideas. And, as in the past, the tumultuous times we’re now experiencing paired with our insatiable thirst for new technology will be the impetus to finding more efficient ways to do what, in otherwise good times, would keep us trekking down the same path, doing things the same way. The way to survive, more over, come out ahead of the competition, is to innovate now.

In every VoiceCon keynote presentation, a single theme threaded its way through — innovation. Kevin Kennedy, president and CEO of Avaya, kicked off the keynote sessions stressing the critical importance of innovation. According to Kennedy, innovation will help us navigate these uncertain times and emerge from these times of turmoil.

Gurdeep Singh Pall, corporate VP of unified communications with Microsoft, said in his keynote address that it’s the choices companies make now that will determine their viability when we’ve moved beyond the current recession.

General manager of IBM, Bob Picciano, stated simply, “We can’t afford to do things the way we did before.”

Cisco’s CTO, Padmasree Warrior, went further to say that ideas get stronger when we share them with others and social networks and collaboration are powerful in making connections stronger.

All of the keynote speakers offered sensible, reasonable reasons why companies should invest now in collaborative innovation in some capacity (irrespective of their financial status). Each presented their thoughts on the best ways in which to do so – respective to their agendas, of course.

Whether you innovate through social networking software, collaboration tools, UC technologies, CEBP, otherwise, or all of the above and more, a thoughtful strategy is imperative. Gurdeep Singh Pall rightly said that hope is not a strategy. If you want to keep your company afloat now and gain a healthy degree of competitive dominance in the future, in a sunnier financial climate, heed Pall’s simple, but wise, advice:

• Focus on innovation
• Shift away from old models
• Lay down the foundation for the future

VoiceCon Microsoft keynote: Gurdeep Singh Pall throws desk phone in the trash

Microsoft corporate vice president for unified communications Gurdeep Singh Pall essentially threw the contemporary desk phone in the proverbial trashcan today during his VoiceCon keynote, arguing that software-based communications is the way of the future.

Pall compared the desk phone to the Brother word processor that started filling landfills across the country in the 1980s and 1990s. Pall was merciless, saying that too many telecom vendors are stuck in the past, still insisting that their customers need to buy a desk phone for every user. His disdain for the desk phone probably stings the ears of many of these same vendors who have partnered with Microsoft on OCS, but apparently Pall thinks everyone needs to hear his message, whether friend or foe.

“Folks, we cannot afford to do the things you did before,” he said.

Pall admitted that some users still need a desk phone, but he said the softphone capabilities available from Microsoft’s Office Communications Server and the Office Communicator client promise to make employees more flexible and productive. He said OCS is a single platform and a single infrastructure, not “five infrastructures with copious amount of duct tape around it.”

Pall ended his address with a memorable image. He asked attendees to imagine that they’ve been given a $300-per-user budget to buy a device for the desktop. He held up two options: A typical desk phone, which he said would cost $300. And then a small notebook computer, which he said you could buy at Walmart for $300. Which one would you buy, he asked. Then he said, “It’s time to get rid of the Brother word processor,” and he tossed the desk phone aside.

Microsoft decides it shouldn’t be in the video conference phone business

When Microsoft introduced its Roundtable phone 2007, it was pretty clear to me that they had a cool device on their hands. The phone has a ring of video cameras on a small turret. It is meant ti sit in a conference room, where it offers a 360-degree view of meeting participants. The phone uses directional technology to cut in real-time to whoever is speaking in a meeting.

I shot this demo of the phone at the Microsoft booth at VoiceCon Orlando 2008.

The only aspect of the Roundtable phone that troubled me was Microsoft.  It’s a software company, not a hardware company. It does Windows and lets others build the PCs. It does Windows Mobile and lets others do the smartphone. And when Microsoft does venture into hardware, it tends to do it in the consumer market, and with mixed results (see Zune, XBox).  So it wasn’t clear to me why Microsoft was trying to get into this business.

Granted, the Roundtable integrates with Office Communications Server, but every phone equipment vendor under the sun is looking to integrate with OCS these days. Walk the exhibitor’s hall at this year’s VoiceCon and see that for yourself.

Apparently Microsoft agrees that it’s not the ideal vendor for a product like Roundtable. It announced at VoiceCon this week that it is transferring the Roundtable phone to Polycom, which will become the sole distributor of the device. Polycom is re-branding Roundtable as the CX5000, which integrates it into Polycom’s existing line of conference phone products. Microsoft will continue to manufacture the device, but as far as I can tell, this phone is now going to market as a Polycom product. Microsoft will continue to support customers who bought the device through it, but all subsequent support will be provided by Polycom.

According to Tim Yankey, director of voice product marketing at Polycom, said Microsoft will stop selling Roundtable on April 13 and hand over sales, marketing and distribution to Polycom. The sales price under Polycom will be $4300.

Although Microsoft will continue to manufacture the device, Yankey told me that Polycom has the right to make changes and additions to the phone in the future.

Polycom also announced at VoiceCon that it will begin offering 1080p and 720p resolution in its high definition telepresence systems. This is the broadcast quality video that competitors such as Tandberg and Cisco already offer in their telepresence systems.

Avaya starts layoffs

This week I’ve been hearing rumors that Avaya has laid off a bunch of employees this month. Avaya went private back in 2007, so I doubt they’ll release any specific information on the extent of the layoffs and where they are occurring. But I did reach out to their PR folks to ask them what was going on.

Lynn Newman, Avaya’s director of corporate communications sent me this statement.

In December, we told our employees we’d be reducing the size of our workforce in response to the global economic slowdown.  The notifications about reductions are happening in different regions at different times.

Avaya’s situation isn’t unique. Plenty of companies that play in the UC market are having layoffs, just like any other industry. Microsoft and Cisco both laid people off a few months ago. No one is immune, sadly.