March 8th, 2005
Microsoft pushes real-time collaboration
Microsoft’s announcements today for its real-time communications products demonstrated the company’s real strength: persistence. For the last several years, Microsoft has been working on a suite of enterprise-class collaboration tools that can be integrated into Office. Now it looks like they have something to sell.
Bill Gates hosted the event, and boiled down what he called a big milestone to one major idea: "The big thing is simplification, taking all the interfaces you have to learn and bringing it all together." Making communications and collaboration seamless has long been an Achilles’ heel for Microsoft. The term "seamless" is way overused, but making software that deftly handles complex human interactions in cyberspace consistently and coherently across applications–even just Microsoft’s–is the only way to get people to use (and buy) the features.
Microsoft Live Communications Server 2005 has been upgraded with new features, such as connectivity to AOL, Yahoo and MSN instant messengers (IM); federated IM with external partners and customers; and integration with SharePoint and improved management and administrative tool support. Microsoft can also extract a nice annual fee in addition to server licensing revenue. A client access license (CAL) is required, starting at $31 per user or device accessing the server. The public IM connection is about $13 to $16 per user per year.
The highlight of the announcement was the client piece, Microsoft Office Communicator 2005, which ties together communications capabilities, such as IM, presence awareness, notifications, voice, video and VoIP with productivity applications. Communicator is integrated with Outlook and Exchange Server, and via a PBX or PSTN gateway allows users to control their office phone and, based on preferences, to route calls to their cell phones or other destinations.
Communicator is due by the end of June, but pricing is not yet available. Corporate VP for the real-time collaboration group at Microsoft Anook Gupta said Communicator is the company’s "preferred" client, but developers can build their own clients within the walled garden on top of Live Communications Server. Enabling applications with the presence capability is only a few lines of scripting code, Gupta said.
Microsoft Office Live Meeting 2005 is a major update for the Web conferencing software. New features include initiating a conference from within other Office applications, VoIP integration, audio conference call controls, a document viewer, and improved support for PowerPoint.
Gates and Gupta showed off the products, which included a lame Live Meeting 2005 video conference with Survivor and Apprentice creator Mark Burnett and a couple of Apprentice winners. After the demo, Gates quipped, "We got a chance to learn about some great TV shows–great stuff." Sure, Bill, we believe you.
Gates also said that Microsoft saved over $40 million in travel costs using the Web conferencing software. Microsoft didn’t exactly need Live Meeting to save a sizable amount on travel expenditures. Several other companies have Web conference services that are more popular and feature-rich than Microsoft’s current product, Live Meeting 2003. Immediately after the Microsoft event, I received the following e-mail from Raindance Communications, which offers a competing product to Live Meeting:
Microsoft today announced their real-time collaboration offerings designed for the enterprise, however virtually none of the advances to their web conferencing tool (Microsoft Live Meeting) were new to the industry. Raindance, a premier provider of integrated web and audio conferencing services, has been a leader in the exploding popularity of web conferencing and collaboration and is flattered to see their advances mimic those of Raindance Meeting Edition.
As you will notice, Microsoft has yet to offer full-time tech support or event services assistance, both of which Raindance has been proud to offer for over 5 years. In addition, Microsoft is proud to offer Outlook meeting invitations for web conferences and integrated telephony that allows a meeting to call out to participants - both of these offerings have been included in Raindance Meeting Edition for over a year.
WebEx, which has a dominant share of market and announced that it will integrate with the new Microsoft Communicator, and other hosted Web conferencing providers can make the same claims. It’s not always about being first, however. Microsoft rarely is first, but when the company zeroes in on a target, it can be very persistent and has the budget to keep iterating. Microsoft has decided to put identity, presence, and real-time communications at the center of its application suite. For competitors, the game just got tougher. For users, the game just got better…
Dan Farber, editor-in-chief of CNET News.com, has more than 20 years of experience as an editor and journalist covering technology. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
