July 24, 2006
The WEEK IN VON -- JULY 24
The Week in VON, July 24
Summer partnerships: Microsoft/Nortel, MetroFi and AT&T
Story links:
MetroFi Teams With AT&T for Muni WiFi (GigaOM)
Microsoft, Nortel do the VoIP dance (Computerworld)
Posted by paul at 08:43 PM | Comments (0)
July 19, 2006
Asterisk -- the dark horse in Microsoft-Cisco phone tilt
While most coverage of yesterday's Microsoft/Nortel VoIP-plus alliance included the cursory "analysis" of Redmond now being in pitched battle with Cisco, I haven't yet seen one report that mentions the telecom dark horse -- open-source PBXer Asterisk -- as even being in the race. At the very least, Asterisk deserves a seat at the table.
Maybe it was too easy for most observers to paint the battle as one between two behemoths, with one (Cisco) selling IP phones like crazy and the other (Microsoft/Nortel) bringing the desktop software leader together with a wounded but still market-leading provider of telephony gear.
And sure, there's meat to carve at that food fight. But might it not be similar to those who thought IBM and DEC (and maybe Microsoft!) might divvy up all the server-software spoils, while ignoring the march of the penguins? While I'm not privy to any solid market stats, the background buzz I keep hearing about Asterisk at events, talking to sources, etc., many who are "just putting in an Asterisk box," reminds me of the early days of NetWare -- and remembering that "cheap, open, easy and it works" are often pretty good selling points.
While I'm not quite as pessimistic about Microsoft/Nortel as Russell Shaw -- remember, M'soft has quite a VoIP market already with its XBox live service -- I do think there's much more to this story than which big beast will carve up the prize. Watch out for those penguins. They can be sneaky.
[Full disclosure: Though Digium/Asterisk is often a big exhibitor and sponsor of VON events, I have no financial relationship with the company and do not participate in any VON show marketing deals.]
Posted by paul at 05:12 PM | Comments (0)