As if Microsoft doesn’t have enough great white whales to hunt, it’s adding Cisco Systems to the list right along with Google, IBM, Oracle and the software-as-a-service (SaaS) pioneers.
Microsoft’s move into what it calls “unified communications” will spark a turf war with powerful players, including PBX makers and Cisco, that will all attack the market from their relative positions of strength, partners said.
In the process, Microsoft and these players—most of which are also its partners—will square off for a bigger chunk of an estimated $40 billion worldwide market for voice/telephony software and infrastructure, partners say.
