Its my blog and I can create rumors if I want to...

So, for those of you that paid attention to HP's annoucements last week:

http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2009/090519xa.html

It does sound like a potentially good match and certainly a hot area for HP to be investing in.  MS has the software, but no hardware.  HP vice versa.  

The key part of what I got out of the press release (and the keynote at Interop) was that HP very briefly said "ip phones".  Now...they don't have any IP phones right now.  Sure..they have many PCs that could run the OCS client.  They also have their lines of PDA/cell phones that certain could run the client... but they don't have hardware based phones. Yes..those things that most companies prefer to put on the desks of their employees.  Should they build or buy?

For that matter... HP does have telepresence...but its proprietary.  They also have a partnership with Tandberg.  

But...if you're HP and you want to accelerate your strategy and you also want to create a business that is based in the US..and maybe even specifically in one or two states where you own a lot of real estate. (HP is big in TX and CA)... you might consider buying. Who would you buy?  Tandberg?  nope...too much complexity with them being out of Norway.  Lifesize?  No... they're mostly a video company and havent been overly successful with their one ip phone.  Sony, Aethra... no.  Which leads us to Polycom.  

Think of it.  They bring:  video endpoints, an open standards telepresence, and..the big one... ip phones.  They have offices in CA & TX.  They have good ties with MS...in fact they bought Roundtable from MS a few months ago.  And...as far as I know... Polycom wants badly to be sold.  Mike & Bob have been trying to sell the company for years...and even though I was never in the "know"... from what I heard was that every deal they had in front of them...they didn't feel like the deal was rich enough. Now...I think they're tired and they want to move on.  Polycom is a rollercoaster and I think its ran out of steam.  It needs to be bought and this is the right time and the right company.

Which brings me to the next rumor I'll start... that this buy will create a round of other buys.  CSCO will then turn and buy LS.  And then some telecom provider will go buy TAA.  Maybe Nokia, maybe Avaya, maybe Siemens.   Next rumor... Sony will do something different with their Spire Global experiment.   And... Aethra... who knows... maybe a merger for them. 

This is the right time for mass consolidation and for true UC to start.