Cornered! is a blog devoted, most of the time anyway, to telecommunications: local and global issues, technology, people and trends from the perspective of someone who's been reporting, analysing and commenting on the industry since the dark ages (BC - before competition). Sometimes serious, sometimes flippant, sometimes frivolous. Controversial, analytical, informative, amusing, but never boring; a vehicle for examinations of important issues and observations on my encounters and experiences in an industry where polarised views and hyperbole are the norm.
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Cornered! Microsoft, Cisco and competitive collaboration
Cornered! Microsoft, Cisco and competitive collaboration | Microsoft, Cisco and competitive collaboration |
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| by Stuart Corner | |
| Friday, 16 March 2007 | |
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Page 1 of 2 Traditional telephony systems makers like Avaya and Nortel have evolved into today's enterprise communications market from making key systems and PABXes: the backbone of business telephone systems for more than half a century. Data networking equipment vendors like Cisco have come at it from different direction and now these three and a handful of others dominate the market for IP based telephony systems. They are leveraging their strength in this market into the new markets of unified communications and collaboration. Today the office telephone is just one of many enterprise communication tools: there is email, voicemail, instant messaging, audio and videoconferencing; and there is presence. Also playing in this space is Microsoft, but starting from a different position: from the desktop communication and collaboration tools that are part of teh Windows ecosystem. Microsoft has made no secret of its ambitions. Last June it unveiled an ambitious plan to integrate all forms of communication in the enterprise and roped in some of these players to help it realise its ambitions. In July announced an advanced communications alliance with Nortel. However despite appearing to favour one player it is partnering with most of them." |
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