Larry, interesting note on MSFT follows:
Microsoft Seeks Bigger Role In Telecom Market
(12/20/97; 12:28 p.m. EST)
By Margie Semilof, Computer Reseller News <Picture>While the U.S. Department of Justice is busy fretting over Microsoft's domination of the browser business, the software giant is quietly starting to eat into an arena that is much larger -- the worldwide telecommunications market.
Microsoft has made no secret it wants a bite of this industry, which is estimated to be close to $1 trillion for 1997, according to the Multimedia Telecommunications Association, a Washington, D.C., trade group. And though the company is dwarfed by more powerful players in this industry, telecom initiatives are appearing across Microsoft's entire product line.
According to Bill Anderson, director of marketing for Microsoft's Telecommunications Solutions unit, telecom platforms represent the biggest opportunity for his division for the next few years. "It's not a market historically catered to from a large number of ISVs<Picture>, and now they are all coming out of the woodwork," Anderson said.
Some of its newest innovations will come in the form of handheld devices. In the spring of 1998, Microsoft will start adding Web phone functions to its Windows CE sub-PC operating system, a technology it is building with Navitel Communications, a Menlo Park, Calif., start-up the Redmond, Wash., giant took a stake in last summer.
Microsoft executives declined to comment on new communications features for CE, but one source familiar with the company's plans said a complete wireless telephony strategy is coming.
Also due in 1998, purportedly with NT 5.0, is an NT-based interactive voice response (IVR) product. The software will compete against LAN-based IVR mainstays such as Active Voice and Callware Technologies, a source said.
Further, Microsoft last week introduced Virtual Private Network software, and, separately, it also said it would ramp up its Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Loop trials with GTE during the next few weeks.
And on the high end, Microsoft continues its effort to sell NT to the carriers. This space used to be strictly a Unix world. But as carriers look to reduce the time to develop new applications, Microsoft is working hard to crack this market.
The goals of Microsoft's Telecommunications Solutions unit are twofold. First, it is trying to put Microsoft software on switches and servers. To this end, one Microsoft partner, DGM&S Telecom, in Mt. Laurel, N.J., will release in early 1998 a beta version of its Signaling System 7 network platform on NT. A slew of other SS7 platform developers are expected to follow.
With reliability so important to the carriers, Microsoft and NT still have a lot to prove, said Hilary Mine, senior vice president at Probe Research, a Cedar Knoll, N.J., consultancy.
Another goal is to help carriers deploy high-bandwidth communication on the local loop. This portion of the network is still, at best, 56 kilobits per second. Microsoft last June pumped $1 billion into Comcast, the nation's fourth largest cable operator.
"As long as there are low-bandwidth user connections, products like NetMeeting and WebTV won't succeed," said Bob Harbison, chief technology officer at Starvox, a San Jose, Calif., start-up developing an IP telephony gateway for NT due in early 1998.
But not every Microsoft effort has met with great success. The business of adding telephony to Win applications, the cornerstone of which is the Telephony Application Program Interface, has seen slow acceptance.
Some VARs selling computer telephony software written for Windows said Microsoft's work in computer telephony amounts to a lot of chest thumping because TAPI<Picture> is still missing key features.
"Microsoft markets CT heavily, but it has yet to provide a robust product," said Michael Carpenter, president at CT Source, a Marblehead, Mass., VAR.
For many devices, the likely communication application will be Microsoft's NetMeeting. NetMeeting is a client that includes standards-based videoconferencing, Internet telephony, and multipoint data conferencing.
The fact that Internet telephony is built into NetMeeting could steal away the market from developing Internet phone companies such as VocalTec. VocalTec's product has many strengths over NetMeeting, and Microsoft continues to pitch NetMeeting as a platform, VocalTec executives said.
Regardless, Northvale, N.J.-based VocalTec is watching its back.
"Anyone who isn't nervous about what Microsoft is doing is crazy," said Scott Wharton, product manager for Internet phones at VocalTec. |
