Ozzie sets out Microsoft's vision of convergence

Stuart Corner
Sunday, 30 July 2006 04:24

Opinion and Analysis

At Microsoft's annual analyst briefing, chief software architect Ray Ozzie spelt out the company's vision of putting the Internet and hosted services at the centre of its universe. It has much in common with the converged communications vision that the telecoms sector has been touting for some time.
For several years now the world's leading telecommunications equipment vendors, the likes of Alcatel, Lucent and Motorola have been envisioning convergence under a variety of different names: 'seamless mobility', 'user-centric broadband'.

The vision is that the user (business or consumer) should be able to gain access to whatever service and information they want across a network wherever they are by whatever network is available and whatever device they choose to use without having to worry about the complexities involved.

A few years ago while some very impressive demonstrations could be staged any similar commercial services would have been largely impractical because of dependence on an end-to-end network using the demonstrating vendors' technology.

The emergence of the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) as a standardised architecture defining the functional units of such a converged network and how they communicate with each other has almost overnight made this vision much more achievable by enabling such a network to be built from different vendors' equipment so long as this is IMS compliant. http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/3263/127/

What is perhaps surprising is that while companies such as Microsoft have been intimately involved in specific components of this vision - such as IPTV where Microsoft is a major player both in middleware and end user software. - there has been little talk of a parallel paradigm shift in the computing world.

That has now changed with Microsoft's newly appointed chief software architect, Ray Ozzie, laying out the new mantra at the company's annual analysts' briefing.

There has bee plenty of talk in recent months of software being provided as a hosted service rather than as applications loaded onto and running on a personal computer, and signs that Microsoft has embraced this shift  but Ozzie's address went way beyond this.

He was reported saying that Microsoft's goal is to create seamless Web, desktop and mobile experience for all activities relevant to users and customers in all of its markets.

"We frame the question, 'How can we best accomplish the experience we want, taking advantage of the ability of centralised services to enable seamless end-to-end experiences for the user?'

Reuters reported his speech by saying: "Microsoft's strategy is to connect a wide range of devices onto various networks to allow consumers to enjoy the same information and entertainment not only on their computers but also via mobile phones, televisions and gaming systems." - Exactly the convergence vision of the communications vendors.

Ozzie said the company plans to accomplish this through Windows Live acting as the "experience hub" to unite users with the PC, browser and mobile device as the delivery mechanisms.

If will not be able to achieve this alone: it will need to work with the communications technology companies that are already pursuing their own versions of this vision.

Microsoft's recent unified communications announcement  and the associated alliances with numerous communications technology companies, in particular with Nortel,  is the application of this approach to one specific aspect of the vision. There are likely to be more as the company moves to execute on its new vision.