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Microsoft unveils unified communications road map but limits it to enterprise applications June 26, 2006 [General] | By Edward J. R. One of the reasons why Windows Mobile phones still have minuscule global market share in smartphone market is the fact that right from the beginning Microsoft has been addressing these phones at mobile professionals or business customers and offering them mainly for enterprise applications - totally disrespecting consumer market. The same mistake Microsoft now makes with their new technologies involving Voice over IP (VoIP): Jeff Raikes, president of the Microsoft Business Division, [...]unveiled the company’s vision, technology road map and partner framework for unified communications at a strategy event in San Francisco. Microsoft Corp.’s approach to unified communications will break down today’s silos of e-mail, instant messaging, mobile and voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) telephony, and audio-, video- and webconferencing. [...] Microsoft Office Communicator 2007, a unified communications client that works in tandem with Office Communications Server 2007 to deliver a presence-based, enterprise VoIP “softphone”; secure, enterprise-grade instant messaging that allows for intercompany federation and connectivity to public instant messaging networks such as MSN, AOL and Yahoo!; one-to-one and multiparty video- and audioconferencing; and webconferencing. As with the previous versions, Office Communicator 2007 will be available in desktop, browser-based and Windows Mobile-based versions. ... so indeed Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 for Windows Mobile will be released and it indeed will be based on industry standard Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), but unfortunately it will not be "free SIP based VoIP for all Windows Mobile devices and all SIP based VoIP networks" but a proprietary solution that will work only in combination with commercial (not free) Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007! Once again Microsoft is making the mistake of releasing something usable only in enterprise environment and usably only if given company is ready to invest a lot of money into Microsoft developed server! In meantime Skype VoIP software is available for Pocket PC devices and since MS Smartphone devices already have processors 300 MHz and more with 300 MHz are coming in July 2006, hopefully also a version of Skype will be released for MS Smartphone. Skype is not SIP based and uses P2P technology so it requires more powerful devices than SIP, but due to ease of use and high quality of calls, it may clearly become de facto standard for mobile VoIP... unless Microsoft would be ready to open Microsoft Office Communicator for all SIP networks and offer it for free... what is rather unlikely, knowing the close-minded, non-innovative approach of Microsoft to business. To learn more about Microsoft's new unified communications road map click here.  Post your comment (free registration is required to post, but if you register you can edit your posts later)
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