The announcement yesterday that tier one computer vendor Dell was entering the VoIP market sent shudders through the VoIP vendor industry, traditionally dominated by Cisco, Avaya, Nortel, Microsoft and Alcatel-Lucent. Microsoft is most affected, as it has been targeting the SMB sector, especially since Bill Gates announced last year the software giant's determination to build a third party vendor ecosystem around its communication server product. 

Dell is targeting a sector it traditionally dominates as a desktop supplier and is teaming up with open-source VoIP provider Fonality and Nortel to target small and medium business. Fonality uses the Asterisk VoIP platform and has a modest, but solid, small business client base; using Dell boxes will be offering a turnkey, plug-and-play proposition. Nortel's infrastructure is more focused at mid-business levels. 

But, while Dell brings obvious channel strength, the move into mission critical functionality is a significant shift from what best could be described as Dell's traditional sell-and-forget strategy. VoIP is anything but a set-and-forget technology, and if there is a consistent refrain from those who have made the IP leap it is that any deployment is a major step and requires significant planning and oversight, especially if an enterprise wants to exploit the IP functionality beyond the one-off savings from lower call costs.  

Go to complaints.com [1] and you will find a litany of complaints about what users call "Dell Hell," as customers struggle with Dell's bureaucratic, slow moving, rule-bound outsourced calls centers. Pity the first enterprise with any problems beyond the norm because, in my experience, that is where Dell is at its worst. The Dell model is all about systematizing processes to bring costs down and tragically you get what you pay for.

So while the expected $750-a-seat cost will look attractive to the CFO, compared with say $2,000 for a Cisco deployment, it will be the IT department (or the office tech) who will be left with the heartburn and angst of having to deal with the Texan consumer behemoth. It is almost impossible to talk to a real Dell person--as opposed to an offshore call center--when things do go awry. Dell's service culture will struggle to deal with the vagaries of a simple VoIP deployment, but is utterly not ready to support any enterprise that wants to push the edge of its IP boundary to move to real time  networking. And while Fonality is handling the VoIP part of the business the whole system will be driven and marketed by Dell.  

For More:
- Ironically Dell tags its VoIP play at its blog [2] under "customer experience"
- Dell Thinks Small Biz is Big Biz for VoIP Article [3]
- Cisco look out below Article [4]
- Fonality chief takes fire at the big vendors at his own blog [5]

Related articles:
Asterisk was listed among our Top 10 leaders for 2007 [5] 
Dell jumps on the Microsoft UC bandwagon Report [5]