Microsoft teams with Nortel to push unified comms

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 19 July 2006 01:10

IT Industry - Strategy

Microsoft and Nortel have announced a strategic alliance that they say will accelerate the availability of unified communications - a combination of e-mail, instant messaging, telephony and multimedia conferencing - and makes it easy and efficient for workers to reach colleagues, partners and customers with the devices and applications they use most. "Nortel and Microsoft have each led fundamental transformations in their own market - Nortel's digital innovation and Microsoft's software on every desktop," said Mike Zafirovski, president and CEO of Nortel. "By combining our unique strengths, Microsoft and Nortel will accelerate the delivery of unified communications - delivering to our customers a higher-quality user experience, with greater reliability and lower total cost of ownership. That's where we can make a real difference."

Zafirovski added: "From this transaction, we believe we can capture well beyond $US1 billion in new revenue, ramping up with increased momentum through 2009 via professional services, voice products and applications, as well as data pull-through in the enterprise."

The companies will enter into a four-year alliance agreement, with provisions for its extension. Nortel will be Microsoft's strategic partner for advanced unified communications solutions and systems integration and the two companies will form the Innovative Communications Alliance (http://www.innovativecommunicationsalliance.com) as a go-to-market vehicle. Microsoft and Nortel will deploy each other's technologies in their enterprise networks and Nortel will become a strategic systems integration partner for the advanced unified communications solution.

Nortel and Microsoft will form joint teams to collaborate on product development that spans enterprise, mobile and wireline carrier solutions. Both companies say they will invest substantial resources in marketing, business development and delivery. They plan to "develop a series of compelling solutions for a range of customers, including small and medium-sized business, large corporations and service providers."