Lost in space
Richard Stastny ponders one of the mysteries of voice telephony: given Microsoft holds such a strong hand, how come they haven’t come to dominate consumer real-time communications. Or in Richard’s own words:
There is only one big question mark: Microsoft. Basically nobody understands why MS is not able to really play a role here: they have the [Real Time Communicator], they had the MS messenger, they have direct access to enterprises via MS Exchange, they have the Active Directory, but they do not seem to be able to get these assets on track. Maybe voice communication is incompatible with MS, as it was with daddy IBM.
Here’s my thought. They made a mistake with .NET.
Windows XP should have been the distribution mechanism to ensure ubiquity of adoption.
There are scattered elements of this around, but eBay-Skype is now much closer to the prize than anyone else outside the mobile carriers. Billing is the crux for obvious reasons. But the mobile carriers are getting lost in IMS land, when they should be opening up their network and business platforms with Parlay-like technology and gathering a developer community.
With all the sad media tales of Microsoft’s stagnation around its 30th birthday celebrations, it would be nice to have more than one good news story of highly customer-valued innovation from Redmond.
Are an alpha-blended user interface, faster boot-up and slicker printer handling really the most urgent and pressing problem of Windows users? Or the tying together of their data islands and making their personal communications richer and more productive?
It smacks of a missed opportunity resulting from “train track” linear thinking: because technology platforms made us rich last time, more technology platforms are needed to keep making us richer. They aren’t capable of directional change at the structural level. This isn’t a new problem, and many forests have been felled to print the Harvard Business Reviews and business books to document the phenomenon across many industries.
Their recent re-org bundles the “operational” MSN back in with “static” Windows and Office. It’s too early to say whether the result will be an improvement in their strategic direction, but I can’t say I’m too hopeful.
Comments
Look at Microsoft as an enterprise softwrae company, not a "services" or "operations" company capable of providing real time communications services. They want to sell their "software platforms", such as LCS, into enteprises who will then use them to provide the appropriate communications services. Basically they count on their enterprise customers to provide the operations logistics. Thus, you see LCS sold into telcos, such as Allstream/MTS, where the telco operates the service and sells it through their enteprrise sales organizations. The key to seeing if there is a change in thinking is to see what Microsoft does with recent services acquisitions such as Teleo and Live Meeting. But, on the other hand, do they want to compete with their (telco) channel customers?
Posted by: Jim Courtney | September 28, 2005 01:17 AM
By Parlay-like, I hope you mean 'a little like Parlay' but not actually like Parlay. Do we want IN-like services to survive??
Posted by: Paul Jardine | September 29, 2005 10:07 AM
Perhaps, it's just a matter of fear of anti-trust trials, etc. ? In UE, MS has to (or is about to have to) sell Windows without WMPlayer. I think govs, MS'competitors or individuals would never have let MS spread its own VOIP platform so easily. It's just my opinion.
Posted by: Michel Szybist | September 29, 2005 10:55 AM