MS, Nortel continue convergence

By Leon Engelbrecht for Microsoft

Johannesburg, 17 Jul 2008

Microsoft and Nortel are continuing their joint venture to recreate the "telecosm" in their own image. This is as telecommunication convergence forces the software giant and PBX manufacturer to collaborate under the rubric "unified communications" (UC).

"UC with Microsoft and Nortel is not that new," says Danie Gordon, UC product solution manager at Microsoft`s Business and Marketing Group.

"The alliance has been going since the end of 2006. Nortel has been in telecoms for a long time and Microsoft has been in software since forever ... and it is these environments that are converging.

"UC, in essence, is about broadening your toolset while making it simpler to communicate."

Gordon says it involves the seamless integration and archiving of instant messaging, e-mail, video and voice calls with technology such as MS Active Directory. "It`s about knowing what the people you are communicating to are doing so you can decide how to contact them appropriately."

Nortel Innovative Communications Alliance EMEA leader John Mann says his company and Microsoft independently foresaw the advent of hyperconnectivity, the "notion where anything that can reasonably be connected to the Internet will be connected to the Internet".

Ambitious Microsoft

"Communications will increasingly be launched from within software and from within applications running the enterprise," says Mann. "Since there`s a natural synergy there between our objectives and Microsoft`s, we decided to come together to offer the ubiquity of Microsoft and the power of software and applications with the robustness and reliability and higher levels of functionality you enjoy in telecoms terms with Nortel."

Mann says Microsoft has set itself the objective of capturing 100 million customers in the software-driven communications market by 2010. It also aims to halve the cost of voice over IP in that timeframe.

"Microsoft is getting into communications in a big way," says Mann. "It may not be immediately apparent why a PBX manufacturer like Nortel has allied themselves so closely with a company that is talking about coming in and - to a certain extent- eating their lunch.

"What`s behind the alliance is ... that Microsoft has this ambition. But they have realised they cannot reach these ambitions on their own. Getting into telecoms is a difficult thing to do. Microsoft tried once before...

"This time around, Microsoft decided to find a partner that could help it realise its ambitions and offer a mass market proposition it could sell to hundreds of millions of customers," adds Mann.

Edge of revolution

"We are trying to deliver, as far as is possible, a common infrastructure across both companies so that as an end-user, you don`t have to bear a lot of cost around maintaining disparate infrastructures with disparate maintainers. You can draw on the vast pool of Microsoft skills that exist in the world to maintain not just your Microsoft applications but increasingly also your Nortel software.

"I know that statement causes concern among our channel partners, but what I say to that is that Microsoft is coming... Nortel will grow its services offerings; we have to, its part of our transformation plans."

BMI-TechKnowledge analyst Roy Blume says the convergence indicates ICT may be on the "cusp of a revolution".

He notes that a survey conducted last year shows 20% of South African businesses surveyed viewed UC "strategically important" and 20% to 30% more said it was a "nice to have".

Blume also warns that UC is coming, whether organisations like it or not.

"A whole plethora of people in your organisation are using it already [in the form of, for example, Google IM and social networks such as Facebook]. In doing so, they`ve made virtual tunnels through your firewalls, exposing you to a huge amount of security risk as well.

"Young professionals consider UC almost a right within a work environment. It is becoming easier and easier to do this in structured environment that minimises security risk, and optimises efficiency and business rewards."