Microsoft Partners Its Way to UC Market Share
The word
"ecosystem"
might have a distinctly flora-and-fauna feel about it, but in the software game
it means something entirely different. For Microsoft, as for most big vendors,
the ecosystem is a universe of partners, customers and other friendly entities
that facilitate sales and implementation of applications. Or something like
that.
This week, Microsoft has been growing its ecosystem -- feeding a plant here,
breeding some animals there, if it were in the natural world -- for unified
communications. Following on the heels of UC deals with Polycom and Tandberg
is this week's announcement with Aspect
Software, which makes technology for contact centers (otherwise known, as
far as we can tell, as call centers).
Aspect will build its unified IP application for contact centers -- already
built on the .NET platform -- to integrate with Microsoft's UC offerings. Microsoft,
in turn, made an "equity
investment" in Aspect. While Aspect won't stop working with other vendors,
it will lead with Microsoft UC apps in selling an integrated package with its
Unified IP offering.
"When it comes to UC platforms, our lead will be Microsoft," Mike
Sheridan, Aspect's senior vice president of strategy and marketing, told RCPU.
"We'll only be reactive with other UC platforms customers might ask for."
For Microsoft, the idea is to be ubiquitous (hey, it's worked for Redmond before),
working with a variety of partners to become everybody's UC software platform,
no matter what or whose application is sitting on top of it or is integrated
with it. Apparently, the folks in Redmond have found their competitors in the
UC space (think Cisco and IBM, for starters) to be a little inflexible on that
front and think that they can cash in.
"We're changing the number of options that customers have traditionally
been able to work from when it comes to telecommunications investments,"
said Zig Serafin, general manager of Microsoft unified communications, in a
phone chat with RCPU today.
At the heart of Microsoft's UC offering is Office Communications Server, which
the company says is now deployed in 35 percent of the Fortune 500 (that's "about"
174 companies, according to Serafin, who didn't offer a more precise number).
But, really, the key to UC for Microsoft is partnerships and having established
UC partners whose own partners will sell Microsoft's UC platform into their
client bases. It's pretty classic Redmond strategy, and Serafin's pretty sure
that it'll work.
"Microsoft's offering in the voice space will be in the top three voice
providers within the next few years," Serafin said.
In the meantime, though, this week presented another opportunity to add a new
beast -- in this case, Aspect -- to the Redmond UC ecosystem.
Are you interested in partnering with Microsoft for UC? What do you see as
the potential for unified communications? Give us a shout at [email protected].
Posted by Lee Pender on March 19, 2008