Cisco has finally agreed to partner with Microsoft to create telephony systems compatible with Microsoft's real-time communications (RTC) software for businesses: Live Communications Server (LCS) 2005, Office Communicator 2005, and Communicator Mobile. This move follows on the heels of Cisco's announcement of the Unified Communication System (UCS), a new line of Voice-over-IP (VoIP) hardware and software based on the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), an Internet standard that enables session originators to locate potential participants and deliver invitations. This support is key because Microsoft's RTC products are also based on SIP. This first Cisco-Microsoft interoperability solution is expected to be ready by Aug. 2006.

Collision Looming?

Even though this agreement is important to Microsoft and adds the last outstanding large telephony vendor to a list that also includes Alcatel, Avaya, Mitel, NEC, Nortel, and Siemens, it seems likely that the relationship will be uneasy.

Cisco is among the world's largest players in the market for VoIP-based private branch exchanges (PBXs) and desktop handsets. Its CallManager hardware and software sits at the center of its solution, but until UCS it utilized Cisco's proprietary Skinny Client Control Protocol (SCCP). Although Cisco has been active on international committees that have developed standards for SIP and SIP for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions (SIMPLE), the company felt the standards were not yet mature enough for commercial use. With the release of UCS, Cisco has signaled greater confidence in those standards.

In addition to a new version of CallManager, UCS includes a new line of SIP-based handsets, Unified Presence Server, Unity (for voice mail), and the Unified Personal Communicator soft-phone client. Furthermore, various Cisco routers support interfaces to the public switched telephone network (PSTN). UCS has many options for videoconferencing, branch office connectivity, data conferencing, and more.

Even though Microsoft doesn't build telephony hardware that competes with Cisco's, its software products are a different matter. Windows and Active Directory (AD) provide security and directory services that compete with certain functions of CallManager; LCS competes directly with Unified Presence Server; Exchange 12 will compete with Unity; and the Communicator clients compete with Unified Personal Communicator.

Today, the Microsoft RTC solution can integrate with older Cisco CallManager systems to allow Communicator users to perform remote call control (i.e., control of PBX and handset functions, such as forwarding a call to a cell phone from the Communicator interface) and place VoIP calls to other PBX extensions or the PSTN, but the solution requires third-party gateway software to connect the two systems and must be installed and configured by someone skilled in both companies' product lines. Microsoft claims that the new agreement will lead to a solution that allows UCS and Microsoft RTC solutions to integrate without the need for a gateway, and Communicator users will see the presence status of Cisco IP phone extensions. However, it is not clear that the promised solutions will allow Cisco clients (VoIP phones and Personal Communicator—equipped PCs) to work with LCS rather than with Cisco Unified Presence Server. Also, no details were released on whether there would be any bidirectional synchronization between AD and CallManager.

Such extensive product overlap in a burgeoning market highly important to both companies seems like a recipe for a strained relationship. Cisco's focus on hardware and Microsoft's focus on software have allowed a reasonably peaceful relationship in the networking market, but the differences are blurred in the telephony market, and neither side is likely to yield technical leadership to the other. Clashes in sales and marketing could confuse and annoy customers.

Resources

A detailed discussion of Microsoft's products for telephony and VoIP may be found in "Taking Another Stab at Telephony" on page 9 of the Oct. 2005 Update.