It appears that Microsoft's attempt to redefine the VoIP landscape is being followed closely by vendor-conglomerate Siemens. View Network World's news article by Tim Greene here:

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/030308-siemens-unified-communications-server.html?page=1

So, what does this mean to the future of IP-based PBXs? The question is becoming more and more clear: are these really PBXs anymore? The terms "converged platform" and "media server" are being thrown around more and more these days, and for good reason.

In my opinion, the days of conventional switched telephony are gone. An obvious statement, right? It is, but not really. Large organizations with large investments in traditional telephony are coming to a fork in the road. Do they do something bold and move towards software-based solutions, such as the new Siemens and Microsoft platforms, leveraging existing architecture? Do they move towards an open source solution, replacing the existing architecture with SIP endpoints? Or, do they stick with the known vendors and follow their tested, albeit slow, migration plan?

Microsoft and their OCS seem to promise the world: the need to NOT rip and replace existing infrastructure, integration with Active Directory, Exchange, and the usual suite of MS products... etc. But, does this ADD complexity? It's honestly hard to believe that this integration with an existing infrastructure will be indeed seamless, especially with the addition of gateways to "translate" between the older switch and OCS. Until I see it, I'm not sure I can believe it.

So, what about Siemens, you ask? Is it a cobbled-together effort to sandbag against Microsoft? Siemens instead proclaims compatibility with OCS, delivering voice, video, and unified communications.

Finally, we must ask, at what point is their overlap? The Siemens OpenScape UCS no doubt handles voicemail, email integration, CTI, etc. But, so does OCS. Why integrate the two? Sure, I'm sure that corporate environments will have likes and dislikes with each product, and may choose to integrate the two to get the best of both worlds.

My point is this: we're getting to the point where companies will no longer buy a single box to handle telephony, and another to handle collaboration, and yet another to handle video conferencing. The convergence market is, well, converging. Is the corporate world ready for this, or are they still looking for that Definity or Meridian that does switching well?

Microsoft and Siemens are going to have to do a lot to persuade users into believing that their products are the future of converged communications. I previously wrote on the topic of licensing, and no doubt, Microsoft will want to capitalize on the per-user licensing base. Will Siemens do the same? What about Cisco?

I feel the need, in almost every post, to mention open-source. Any vendor-based solution should be weighed against an Asterisk-based solution these days. Why? The open source market promises lots of functionality, customization, and hope for customers from SMBs to large corporate environments. If anything, the open-source movement will drive large-scale vendors to reduce costs, increase innovation, and deliver new features in order to compete.