What keeps Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer up at night? A few years ago, the answer likely involved Linux, Red Hat, MySQL and other disruptive open source upstarts. Now fast forward to this year’s Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC10), and there’s nary a mention of open source here at the event. Why’s that? Three answers: Google, VMware and the cloud. Here’s some perspective from The VAR Guy.
Earlier this evening, The VAR Guy attended a briefing about Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) 14, a forthcoming upgrade to Microsoft’s unified communications platform. During a panel discussion, six Microsoft partners essentially dismissed competitive threats from Asterisk — the open source IP PBX. The reason: The partners claim Microsoft’s API (Application Programming Interface) and software development tools for OCS 14 easily beat alternatives in the Asterisk market.