A friend of the devil is a friend of mine

The company everyone loves to hate is unveiling a new product
late this month that could radically change our daily lives for the better

For those of you new to this space, and for those needing  a refresher, here are a few things you should know about me:

1. I was a “Deadhead,” (a person who followed around the Grateful Dead).

2. I am a child of the 1960s who has been accused of “never getting over it.”  The accusation may be true.  Hence, occasionally I make obscure references to cultural sources that may seem alien and/or arcane to members of generations X, Y, N, etc.

3. This column is supposed to be a delicate balance of: humor (sarcasm and political incorrectness being great sources); extraordinary insight (a characterization from a loyal following);  and controversy (also validated, but by a sometimes irate following).  Thus, my innate optimism tends to be sublimated by the requirements to stir readers’ passions.  This fact also means that I am hardly ever the bearer of “happy talk” or “good news.” 

Now you are ready for my current, monumental good news/bad news moment of the month. It will significantly affect the future fortunes of the telecommunications industry, although the service providers seem blithely unaware. Are you ready? In late October Microsoft will unveil its Microsoft Office Live Communications Server.  Yes, that’s right, Microsoft.  

This event is like the man who goes in for knee surgery and wakes up to a doctor who tells him he has both good news and bad news. When the patient chooses to hear the bad news first, the doctor says,  “Mr. Jones, the scalpel slipped in surgery and instead of cutting your knee we accidentally castrated you. We are really sorry.”

“What could possibly be the good news?” asks the man.

“It was not malignant!” the doctor responds.

In the case of the Microsoft Office Live Communications Server (formerly known as the Real-time Communications Server), here's the bad news first.

Yes, it is Microsoft.  Yes, this is all about them leveraging .NET and their control of my identity, location and availability to serve as the benevolent gateway/gatekeeper between me and the rest of the electronic world.  Yes, gateway/gatekeeper is another way of saying “toll collector.” Yes, this push is about Microsoft becoming the digital dashboard for administering how individuals and organizations get access, authorization, authentication and applications over all things “E.”  Yes, this is the ultimate end game for sucking the value out of the telecommunications industry through the disintermediation of existing business models—if our sector lets them. 

And yes, this will be done because real-time communications that is closely intertwined with desktop and business process optimization applications is a driver for convergence solutions, and a reason for users to start thinking about SIP-based NetMeeting for real-time multimedia sessions that turn service provider networks at work and home into “dumb” or even bypassed pipes.  And, don’t forget that I have not mentioned the security and possible migration issues.

Yikes!  Is there any good news?  The good news is that this is not malignant.

The good news is actually very good news for users—now and in the longer-term—if the industry, and not just Microsoft, gets this right.  In reality, SIP-enabled, presence-aware, real-time communications—always-on, always accessible and available, everywhere, every time, in precisely the right time—is the future.

It is the future because the return on investment is so easily demonstrable. Think about it: A click of a mouse or voice command can activate capabilities that tell you where your virtual team is, what they have on them and whether they are available for interaction. It really is instant multimedia conferencing.  It offers better decisions from more ad hoc conferences, no time delays for setting up conferences on urgent matters and the ability to use rich, real-time collaboration and personal portal capabilities to speed knowledge flow. This is the deconstruction of the “crisis in responsiveness” we all face on a daily basis—too many messages, too little time to filter and respond in an meaningful way.

The introduction of real-time communications into organizations and, by extension, into the hands, pockets and desktops of individuals, is truly valuable.  Indeed, it is the heart of next-generation value creation, since it the content/context mediation engine that will put parameters on the nature and value of electronic transactions ranging from simple messages to “big deals.”

Is this a tsunami ready to sweep away all that stands before it?  Of course not. There still are issues:

• uniquely Microsoft-oriented issues (to play with them or not, and how to extract value from a relationship with them);

• potential security issues regarding things like denial of service attacks, worms, viruses, etc.; 

• systems and software integration issues; 

• hooks for compliance with regulatory requirement such as HIPPA and Sarbanes-Oxley; and,

• a host of other things. 

There is also the issue of how to educate the market on all of the deliverables in this new way of relating to the network and having the network relate to work and life flow. Why I think this development is more good news than bad news—and it borders on being great news—is that it validates an emerging market that holds forth the possibility of making my life, in all of its various persona, much easier.

As the Grateful Dead sang in A Friend of the Devil, one of their early hits:

I set out running but I take my time
A friend of the Devil is a friend of mine
If I get home before daylight
I might get some sleep tonight

The telecommunications industry needs to not just take note. It needs to take action.

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Peter Bernstein is President of Infonautics Consulting Inc. He can be reached at pb111451@optonline.net.