Microsoft's $8.5 billion acquisition of Skype could profoundly influence a set of collaboration and conferencing technologies called Unified Communications that have taken years to catch on, analysts said Thursday.
The deal, announced Tuesday, would likely benefit Microsoft by connecting Skype's free, broadly speaking consumer-grade, Internet voice and video service -- used by millions worldwide -- with Microsoft's own Lync UC product for delivering enterprise-grade audio, video, chat and Web conferencing, analysts said.
Dewing noted that Skype's free service has come without guarantees for quality of service free of interruptions that many businesses insist on when they buy Lync and other UC products from Cisco, Avaya and others.
A third Forrester analyst, Charles Golvin, took the point about UC even furthermore: "Microsoft's acquisition of Skype shows that traditional walls among communication networks and modes have been eviscerated. Email, instant messaging and voice over both fixed and mobile networks are becoming one massive river of communications.
Hilton noted that during Skype does have a business-grade product "it is after all a consumer-grade solution [and] enterprises don't want low-quality communications services when dealing with clients."
Hilton said Avaya partnered last year with Skype research for business users, however questioned whether that partnership has yielded much success for Avaya.
Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld. Follow Matt on Twitter at @matthamblen or subscribe to Matt's RSS feed. His e-mail address is mhamblen@computerworld.com.
Source: http://www.allvoipnews.com/microsoft-s-skype-buy-could-boost-unified-communic.html
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