Microsoft joins hands with Cisco to ensure product interoperability

After several years of planning, Microsoft finally moved into the telephone field.

On the morning of the second week, gates and Microsoft Enterprise Department President Lacos officially launched several products that are critical to Microsoft's "Unified Communication" strategy. Lacos said at the meeting that telephone numbers were the product of technical restrictions of the time. He said that I want to contact you, not your phone number.

Office Communications Server 2007, the most important new product, has been significantly expanded compared to Live Communications Server, a product of its predecessor. Live Communications Server is mainly used to process enterprise instant messaging services. In addition to this task, Office Communications Server
2007 can also handle traditional or Internet calls. In addition, it can be integrated into existing Microsoft software, such as Office and Exchange.

In addition to the core server software, Microsoft also launched a desktop product Office Communicator and the new Live Meeting video conferencing software. In addition, Microsoft also launched a RoundTable video conferencing device.

Gates stressed the benefits of cost reduction and productivity improvement due to telephone processing on computer networks. At this meeting, Gates said that by using industry-standard servers to transfer the phone function to the Internet, our call method will bring about huge changes.

According to a study conducted by Forrester Research, customers typically save $5 every time they invest $1 in Microsoft products. Of course, the premise is that they use Microsoft technology to transfer the telephone system from the traditional network to the Internet.

Microsoft regards Unified Communication as the most important opportunity to increase the revenue of its business department. In an interview in February, Lycos said that, in all fairness, this is our greatest opportunity.

Microsoft still follows the old strategy, saying that the partner is the key to its success. At the conference on Tuesday, Microsoft introduced 15 new telephones and equipment that can be used with its software, support services from software vendors such as HP and Dell, and SAP. Beijing Telecom released several new products using Microsoft server software.

Lycos said that the current telephone market is very similar to the server market in the 1990 s. Like the server and PC market, Microsoft wants to develop its own core software and rely on other companies to make hardware, spare parts, and other software.

Not only Microsoft wants to enter the unified communications market. Cisco is also stepping into the unified communications market and has launched a large number of related products. However, Microsoft regards software as the basis of its Unified Communication Strategy, while Cisco's Unified Communication Strategy is based on the network.

Forrester analyst Henry said the unified communications market can fully accommodate the next two companies. He said Cisco may handle more telephone control functions, and Microsoft's technology will be used as an application on desktop systems. Henry pointed out that in the next 5-10 years, Unified Communication will be a chaotic market, Microsoft will dominate the desktop system, Cisco's advantage is network infrastructure.

Henry found that the two companies are working together, rather than they want to cooperate, but they must cooperate. Even with Office Communications Server 2007, I don't think Microsoft can provide a complete solution. Currently, Cisco cannot provide a complete solution. Because customers prefer to use the products of the two companies together and develop complete solutions, the two companies will have to work closely together to ensure that their products can be interconnected.

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