Bill Gates Speaks Out On ...

As Microsoft began its long-awaited march into the VoIP market with the recent launch of its unified communications portfolio, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates shared his views on a number of topics related to voice market. Here's what he had to say on ...

...THE FUTURE OF THE PBX

To hear Gates tell it, the PBX's days are numbered. Whether it's a legacy PBX or one of those newfangled IP-PBX jobs, Gates says you don't need it. Sure, sure, customers right out of the gate will be reluctant to part with the PBXes they've already invested in and will plop Microsoft's Office Communications Server 2007 right down next their existing equipment. But really, the PBX is just redundant, Gates said.

"Overtime, the lowest cost structure will be to not have the PBX, to simply rely on the software and the Internet connection as the way that communications works," Gates said.

How big will open-source VoIP be? Not so much, Gates said. He balked at the idea that open-source technology in general is playing a large role in the enterprise, arguing that packaged software is just more attractive to business users. "Open-source will always be there. I'm not saying it's going away, but in terms of what's actually used in many of these categories, it's actually proven to be very, very small," Gates said.

Particularly when it comes to VoIP, Gates said users will gravitate toward features such as encryption, manageability and integration with the directory, capabilities he seemingly thinks are beyond open source. "I think this would be a category that's particularly difficult for open-source software to have an impact on," he said, adding one caveat. "You never know."

No, that's not an old-time microphone Gates is holding. It's actually RoundTable, Microsoft's new videoconferencing unit. It features a 360-degree camera, so just place it in the center of your conference room table and everyone can join in the fun. If you're still harboring doubts that business-class video has arrived, consider this: Microsoft's board uses it.

"Seeing the RoundTable [videoconferencing unit] come in has been great," said Gates. "We do our board meetings using Live Meeting because we have board members who sometimes can participate but not be in the same location, particularly our interim meetings."

If it's good enough for the world's largest software company, surely it's good enough for the rest of us.

Just because Microsoft is moving into VoIP doesn't mean it's forgotten about software as a service. Gates said a hosted offering akin to IP-Centrex is indeed in the stars for Microsoft. "We see that in the roadmap because we have this general view that anything you can run on a server, you'll also have the choice to be able to run it as a service," he said.

Which isn't to say it will be easy. Gates noted that the hosting market as a whole had high expectations four to five years ago, but that has been tempered as customers have become more realistic. Microsoft believes in the hosting model, but it will take years to get all of the pieces together, he said.

Gates had high praise for Microsoft's channel, noting that the vendor's partners have gotten much more sophisticated as they've built solutions around applications such as SharePoint and Exchange. Now the key is to get them familiar with real-time communications, Gates said. How quick Microsoft solution providers are on the draw could make or break the speedy rollout of Microsoft's unified communications push, he said, naming channel capacity as the biggest challenge the vendor faces on the VoIP front.

"Customers all have different requirements, and I think that channel capacity to really assess those customer requirements and match not just our software piece but also the applications and the hardware to what that customer needs, I think that will probably be one of the limiting factors in how quickly this rolls out," Gates said. "I think it's going to roll out very quickly, but I think that will be one of the governing factors."