Microsoft News Tracker

You may recall an odd device under development by Microsoft that caused a stir in early February when it was mistaken for a Zune phone. Well, it’s back in the news and may cause even a bigger stir as John Letzing explains at MarketWatch:

When Microsoft Corp. delivers a mysterious prototype for government testing this coming week, it will mark a crucial juncture for a high-stakes bid to change the way consumers get their Internet access.

That bid has cast Microsoft and a group of powerful allies from Silicon Valley in the relatively unfamiliar role of Washington policy players.

Microsoft’s prototype, delivered on behalf of the group, is a wireless device that could provide the public with free and more widespread access to the Web instead of relying on networks owned by big telecom and cable firms.

That breakthrough, tapping into an unused part of the nation’s airwaves, is politically charged because it threatens to shift the Internet-access business away from telecom and cable companies that are historically well-connected in Washington, throwing open the field to a brand new batch of competitors.

It all hinges on how well the prototype performs in tests by the Federal Communications Commission. Microsoft and allies must prove that such devices, which can connect users via unlicensed portions of the nation’s wireless spectrum known as white spaces, won’t interfere with airwaves that major license holders acquired for large sums. While the FCC is obligated to protect license holders from such interference, several “white spaces” bills introduced in Congress have placed added pressure on the commission to wrap up the tests in a hurry.
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Analysts say that if the white-space group succeeds, consumers could see a flood of new devices enabling them to bypass the networks of incumbent service providers like AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. to get online. White spaces, which sit between bands used for TV, could theoretically be licensed; but the tech group is explicitly pushing to allow unlicensed use — or use similar to picking up WiFi signals at a cafe.

The group lined up with Microsoft includes Google, HP, Dell, and Intel which, while mighty in the tech world, are novices in the corridors of power compared to the telecoms and cable companies. The opposition is already on the case as well they might be:

“The telephone companies are terrified they’ll lose 40% of their wireless minutes, because you’ll be able to connect from work or home and bypass their wireless networks,” said J.H. Snider, research director of the wireless future program at the New America Foundation, a Washington-based policy institute that has long advocated to allow use of white spaces.

There’s much more in the full article, but the FCC has until July to complete testing and may decide on the matter by October.

Rik Turner sets the stage for the upcoming showdown in unified business communications at Computer Business Review Online in IBM and Cisco team against Microsoft and Nortel:

IBM and Cisco have announced an alliance bringing together Big Blue’s Sametime collaboration platform with Cisco’s Unified Communications portfolio, in an obvious face-off against Microsoft and Nortel’s Innovative Communications Alliance.

The two industry heavyweights unveiled the initiative a the VoiceCon Spring event in Orlando, Florida, describing plans to deliver something they call the Unified Comms and Collaboration (UC2) Client Platform, which they call “an open set of application programming interfaces offered by IBM as a subset of Lotus Sametime… along with communication APIs by Cisco to access comms functionality such as voice and video services.”

The partners intend to drive app development for their joint offerings by fostering the use of the Eclipse Java development environment and the Open Services Gateway Initiative (OSGi) framework, both of which IBM has been heavily involved in over the years.
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Beyond that, however, they’ll be doing their own app dev work, delivering “specific customer offerings including a joint solution based on the new client platform and a set of plug-ins that bring together the communications and collaboration capabilities of both companies.”

The UC2 Client Platform will now form the basis of both companies’ comms and collaboration clients, IBM saying Sametime 7.5 is already based on it, while Cisco committed to porting its newly launched Unified Personal Communicator client in future versions. Among other companies expressing support for the new platform from the get-go were Nokia and RIM, both of whose handset will presumably be able to house the client, as well as Citrix and Presidio, which is a Cisco partner for its high-end TelePresence conferencing portfolio.
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In addition to the UC2 client serving as the basis for joint offerings, IBM and Cisco also promised “communication and collaboration products from both companies” as well as “expanded go-to-market activities including Cisco selling Lotus Sametime and IBM selling Cisco Unified Communications Manager [i.e. the Cisco IP PBX], Cisco Unity [the voicemail platform] and Cisco Unified MeetingPlace [its conferencing platform].” There is also a services dimension with IBM Global Technology Services offering assessment through to implementation on the combined portfolio.

There are many more details on the partners’ planned offerings by following the link, but here’s the nut:

And so the battle lines are drawn in unified communications, with Microsoft and its operating system and Real-Time Collaboration Suite, going in alongside Nortel’s CS1000 IP PBX and its MCS5100 app server for conferencing, and IBM hooking up with Cisco for an equivalent offering, with a greater open source component from Big Blue and Cisco increasingly embracing Linux.

It is, in essence, the Notes vs. Exchange battle writ large, and with Microsoft and Cisco moving increasingly into competition in a variety of other areas such as network access control, it is only natural that the networking heavyweight should seek an alliance with IBM to present as broad a front as ICA promises.

Finally, on a related note, Microsoft announced a March beta for Office Communications Server 2007:

In a keynote address at VoiceCon Spring 2007, Jeff Raikes, president of Microsoft Corp.’s Business Division, today predicted that in just three years, the average voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) solution for business will cost half what it does today, as VoIP systems move from hardware to software. Raikes also predicted that in the same time frame, 100 million people — twice the number of current business VoIP users — will have the ability to make phone calls from Microsoft® Office applications.
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Outlining Microsoft’s progress toward delivering its enterprise voice solutions, Raikes also announced that Microsoft will distribute the public beta-test version of Office Communications Server 2007, Microsoft’s VoIP and unified communications server, and Office Communicator 2007, Microsoft’s unified communications client, to millions of testers later this month.

There had been a private beta back in December.