Microsoft Still Seems To have No Strategy In RTC Despite All Its Investments

I've always loved listening to Microsoft executives talk about strategy because it's always changing, largely due to the company's history as a fast follower. But that has never stopped Microsoft from poking holes in competitors' strategies when those opponents articulate their plans months and years before Microsoft does.

In January Microsoft announced the formation of its Real Time Collaboration Group at the same time it announced plans to acquire PlaceWare, a developer of online conferencing software that, remarkably enough, is based on Java, of all things, and runs on,you guessed it,Unix servers.

This comes just as IBM/Lotus is getting high marks from solution providers on its direction in messaging and RTC. IBM is integrating Lotus SameTime and QuickPlace conferencing capabilities into other offerings.

Some solution providers that had begun pushing Exchange over Lotus are now questioning that move.

As CRN's Barbara Darrow recently reported, it's unclear how Microsoft's realtime communication technology, code-named Greenwich, will be delivered. Before last year, Microsoft had been offering realtime collaboration capabilities based on Exchange Server, but then switched course to build analogous "standards-based" communications foundations into the server operating system. And last year the company shifted the foundation from Exchange Server to the upcoming Windows 2003 Server. But when Windows 2003 ships, it will be without RTC, which Microsoft says will follow within months and eventually will be included in the new server software.

This is all happening more than a year after Microsoft plunked down $51 million to take a stake in Ray Ozzie's Groove Networks. Ozzie, of course, was the lead developer of Lotus Notes, which launched the groupware/collaboration category. Groove offers both realtime (instant messaging) and non-realtime collaboration. The result of that investment has been an effort by Groove to more tightly integrate its technology with Microsoft's SharePoint and Outlook products.

If it can get its act together, Microsoft has an advantage in this space for one simple reason: We all use Microsoft Office. If the Redmond Warriors can tie Word, Excel and other apps into an RTC environment where users can truly collaborate in realtime, regardless of whether they are working at the same organization, the result could be one of those must-have technologies.

But it's not looking like that's going to happen anytime soon.

So in the meantime, IBM, Microsoft, Groove and others in this field are going to be slugging it out.

Microsoft apparently realizes it has been rudderless in this area. So to help set some direction, it has put Anoop Gupta, a Microsoft Research veteran, in charge of its RTC Group, which ultimately reports to the Productivity and Business Services Group headed by Group Vice President Jeff Raikes.

It seems to me, however, that Microsoft ought to leverage Ozzie more or even make Groove the lead dog here. A concerted effort to articulate a product road map while leveraging Microsoft's value-added channel would be a winning combination.

While Microsoft is trying to figure out what to do, its competitors, including Groove, ought to be driving channel programs to get their technology implemented in as many small, midsize and large customers as possible. Microsoft's struggle is an advantage to its competitors. But that advantage isn't going to last too long.

Make something happen. I can be reached at (516) 562-7812 or via e-mail at [email protected].