Microsoft steps up VoIP efforts

Microsoft is starting to make more noise with its VoIP ambitions says IDC, pointing to partnerships that the company formed with major IP-PBX vendors, such as Siemens and Alcatel, and those in development with carriers like British Telecom and MCI. The efforts are centered on SIP-based collaborative applications being developed for the Microsoft Office Live Communications Server (LCS) 2005 product line (See Fan Farber’s take). 

"VoIP has become a lightning rod for a new competitive dynamic between IT and telecom vendors," said Tom Valovic IDC’s program director for VoIP Infrastructure in a press release.  "A battle for the enterprise desktop is looming between major IT and telecom vendors, and at the center of it are innovative types of user-defined communications and the marriage of telecom-based convergence and IT-based desktop collaboration."