Industry Perspective: VoIP as a Strategic Platform Play
Wednesday, January 4, 2006, 9:30am - 10:00am

This insightful presentation looks out the window at a future that’s more than a PC: it's a PDA, it's a cell phone, it’s a TV, it's a box for games. For Microsoft, VoIP is a horizontal technology spanning across all sorts of end points/clients such as PDAs, Smartphones, TV, STB, thin clients, point-of-sales (POS) systems, etc. Any device connected to an IP network can be VoIP enabled. These are all personal communications devices, but can the look and feel be normalized to the point where major vendors can bring familiarity to the new and different? How are consumers going to utilize so many items and still control the who/what/when of communication? Let's peer into the window together.

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Balz Wyss, Senior Product Manager, Microsoft Corporation

Balz Wyss is leading Microsoft’s VoIP product strategy and business development efforts. He has been with Microsoft for several years. Prior to Microsoft, Balz worked for various media and IT companies, including Knight-Ridder, Time Warner’s AOL-Netscape unit, and RealNetworks. He regularly publishes papers in US and international industry magazines and journals. Balz has a Ph.D. in Mass Media Communications from the University of Zuerich, Switzerland, and was is a research fellow at Switzerland’s Federal Institute of Technology.