Carl Weinschenk spoke with Michael Gotta, principal analyst, Burton Group.

Weinschenk: Question: What is unified communications (UC)?
Gotta: It's IM, it's Web conferencing, it's presence, it's mobile VoIP, it's unified messaging. It's not wrong to define it that way because you need the manifest of technologies for certain audiences to get their arms around it. But if you talk to business organizations, they look at it a bit differently in terms of the organization's business productivity, collaboration, etc. You don’t want to say it's all just plumbing. I try to keep it simple and say it’s the contextual integration of communications services within business activities.

Weinschenk: That's still pretty broad. Can you sharpen it?
Gotta: The bad news of that is it's still kind of, "Okay, what does that mean?" We've thrown separate tools at users: Here is an IM tool, here's a mobile phone. So we've created all of these transitions between devices and different technology. You have to go from IM to mobile if you want to use it while traveling. The disjoint between the different communications devices and different communications services is very frustrating for users. That’s why the simpler definition is the context of integration within a business activity. It could be something as simple as Microsoft including a subject line in the next version of IM. One thing that the industry is improving on in UC is trying to understand context and relevance. What's the situation around the message and how important is it? Do I have to interrupt what I am doing or can it be deflected?

Weinschenk: Moving to some specifics, are Microsoft and Cisco partners or competitors in UC?
Gotta: They are in head-to-head competition. Cisco and Microsoft have cooperation in certain areas of technology to meet customer needs. They have to maintain a certain amount of cooperation. But there are areas where they are flat out in each others' face and are going to compete. You had [Cisco Chairman and CEO John] Chambers throw the gauntlet down and say we have a three-year lead over Microsoft in unified communications. He could shape the definition to defend it. The truth is that Microsoft leads in some areas and Cisco in others.

Weinschenk: How does the sector shape up?
Gotta: Cisco, Avaya, Siemens and Nortel are traditional communications or networking vendors. They are trying to break out of a box, and UC is their market path out of this hardware-ish, increasingly commoditized business. This is what they feel they need to do to get into the world of real-time collaborative applications. When they do that, guess who's standing there? IBM, Microsoft and maybe Oracle, someday. Microsoft doesn’t want Cisco to gain a presence on the desktop. They want to own the desktop. IBM and Cisco are more natural partners. IBM doesn’t want to do what Cisco wants to do and Cisco does not necessarily want to do what IBM wants to do. That was evidenced by the Cisco/IBM "UC squared" announcement during VoiceCon in early March.

Weinschenk: What is Cisco up to?
Gotta: Cisco, with the acquisition of WebEx, not only picked up the number-one Web conferencing vendor, it also picked up WebEx's WebOffice and WebExConnect. That gives Cisco a SaaS platform and puts it in direct competition with Microsoft.

Weinschenk: So the battle is joined.
Gotta: It's joined in the sense that, assuming the WebEx acquisition goes through, Cisco is positioned in hosted Web conferencing. At this point, it's more about positioning the pieces. Microsoft's OCS [Office Communications Server] is in beta and the next version of Cisco's MeetingPlace is due out this summer. Cisco is putting its ante into the game with WebEx and the next version of MeetingPlace and it is getting more aggressive in mobility and presence.

Weinschenk: Does each of these companies "get it?"
Gotta: They get it in different ways. Microsoft understands application enablement. They understand the user experience. They understand VoIP. Microsoft is trying to make UC broadly horizontal. They want to make voice a part of application development and the user experience as much as all the other applications they have. So Microsoft wants to broadly generalize it. Cisco is trying very hard to make this a network-centric discussion, that UC is all a part of the network. They've made some moves in Web 2.0 and social networking. Cisco is trying to position themselves by saying UC is about the network, and we're the best company about the network. We're just moving up the stack of what the network is about.

Weinschenk: So which approach is best?
Gotta: I think there really isn't a right or a wrong. Cisco needs to become a software company, and there is not a lot of good history of hardware companies becoming software companies. I think Microsoft has an advantage in the developer community and partner channel. The Achilles' heel for Microsoft is interoperability with other vendors. How will these other vendors interoperate with Microsoft OCS? With Cisco, people are asking if they can really be reliable. With Microsoft, they are asking if they're going to be a good steward of the technology. Are they going to open the platform up to support the business model of its technology partners?

Weinschenk: It would seem that there is room for deeper cooperation than what you described. Is there?
Gotta: Cisco sees this as a breakout move, while Microsoft doesn't want it to have any presence on the desktop. I don’t want to oversimplify and say it's the next desktop battle, but Microsoft doesn’t want to cede the user experience around communication to Cisco. The question is not whether there will be some level of integration and interoperability. There will be, but it will be minimal, as little as each vendor can do to satisfy customers.

Weinschenk: Who is ahead now?
Gotta: I'd give Cisco the lead in some of the video conferencing applications, and telepresence technology. It has a proven track record with CallManager. … In those traditional communications areas, Cisco has a proven track record. Microsoft does well when it comes to real-time collaboration such as IM, presence, e-mail and that sort of thing. Microsoft has a lot of leverage with Exchange … a lot of people are anxiously awaiting OCS and want see how it connects to Office and SharePoint. Microsoft has more market presence that it can leverage.