Microsoft Plans to Blend Phones With Computers - New York Times

Microsoft Plans to Blend Phones With Computers - New York Times: "'We've been far ahead of Microsoft in these technologies,' said Ken Bisconti, I.B.M.'s vice president for workplace, portal and collaboration products, speaking from Cambridge, Mass.
Microsoft is also facing a growing open-source communications software market. One project, an open-source, Internet-based PBX called Asterisk, has more than 500,000 systems now in use. 'Microsoft might have realized that there are a lot of people who have seen this idea,' said Mark Spencer, an Asterisk designer and president of Digium, a company in Huntsville, Ala., that sells a commercial version of the program. 'They want to get the message out there that they have a strategy.'"