With many of the large software (e.g., Microsoft) and Internet (e.g., Google and eBay) companies assembling the elements to make a play in the voice telecom market, the established telcos like Verizon, SBC and BellSouth must emphasize and build for wireless and fiber broadband so as to capture as much of the premises and moblie business as possible.
Here's another piece about VoIP on other devices like PDAs, iPods, etc.
Verizon's purchase of MCI provides a substantial Internet backbone network on which this VoIP traffic can ride, as well as entry into a large number of large business accounts and a worldwide presence. The question is how to exploit for increased revenue from VoIP?
"One of the key services that might help Microsoft create a legacy beyond Windows in its next 30 years is Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP), an emerging market ripe for domination by a large software company, Helm said. Microsoft has been 'gradually getting the pieces in place' to provide VoIP service, a technology with the potential to be as disruptive as the Internet was ten years ago, he said.
Telecom Interests
Earlier this week Microsoft unveiled its first telecommunications customer, Qwest Communications, to develop services using its new VOIP software platform.
And in August, Microsoft acquired Teleo, a developer of services and technology that allows users to make and receive voice phone calls on their PCs via the Internet. The company plans to incorporate Teleo's VOIP technology into its own software to upgrade online services from its MSN division.
'If [Microsoft] could make the same economics of the PC apply to telephony--a small number of dominant hardware standards, a large number of hardware players and one big software company--it could yield returns [for the company] commensurate to the PC [market],' Helm said."
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