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Nortel to Develop Unique 3-D Virtual Web Tool for Online Collaboration New Incubation Solution Ideal for eCommerce, Business Meetings and Training
[August 21, 2008]

Nortel to Develop Unique 3-D Virtual Web Tool for Online Collaboration New Incubation Solution Ideal for eCommerce, Business Meetings and Training


(M2 PressWIRE Via Acquire Media NewsEdge)
RDATE:21082008

OTTAWA - A group of R&D technologists within Nortel (News - Alert)* [NYSE/TSX: NT] are
developing a prototype that will harness the power of Web 2.0 and 3-D
audio-visual virtual world technology to bring new dimensions to
business collaboration.

web.alive is being developed by a team of technologists within Nortel's
Incubation Program under the codename "Project Chainsaw." web.alive
will be a virtual world software application that provides an
immersive, interactive and web integrated world with 3-D voice and
graphics. It will help facilitate internal collaboration as well as
customer and partner interactions over the web. For example, businesses
can hold virtual web-based meetings and allow employee avatars to
interact in real-time.

WHAT DOES WEB.ALIVE LOOK LIKE AND WHO'S BEHIND THIS NORTEL INCUBATION
PROJECT?

* See a video demonstration of the new web.alive solution and interview
with Arn Hyndman, web.alive chief architect at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiYi3iEBJNM

* Visit the Project Chainsaw team's blog at www.projectchainsaw.com to
hear about the progress of web.alive development, their thoughts on
virtual worlds for business and new forms of collaboration

* Read John Roese's (News - Alert) blog post about a Global Employee session held in
web.alive

Also today, Nortel announced that it has acquired DiamondWare**, a
pioneer in high-definition, proximity-based 3D positional voice
technology that brings life-like sound to virtual web and voice
communications.

DiamondWare's (News - Alert) technology will be a key component of web.alive.

web.alive will leverage voice, HD audio, presence, identity and
corporate security technologies to bring boring conference calls to
life in a virtual world within the security of each corporation's own
network. It also eliminates call confusion over - who's speaking? What
did they say? Who else is on the call? What chart are they on? WHY 3-D
WORLDS ARE THE FUTURE OF ONLINE COLLABORATION

"Nortel's R&D and incubation teams are focused on creating
revolutionary communications experiences to improve the way businesses
interact with their employees, partners, and customers and web.alive
will be one very tangible example of that focus," said John Roese,
chief technology officer, Nortel. "web.alive will help businesses deal
with one of the major drawbacks of most communication technologies
today - the ability to give users a "real-life" experience that is more
interactive and intuitive. For example, if you're participating in a
conference call today it is difficult to have sidebar conversations, to
know who else is in the meeting, who is speaking and the relationship
or business history of all the participants. web.alive will address
those issues by pulling together the IT and telecom worlds to give each
avatar access to a wealth of information in ways we have never seen
before."

"People are no longer satisfied with existing collaboration tools or
with static web sites supported only by a telephone contact center as
the main point of interaction. They want to discuss potential purchases
with others, exchange ideas, make business proposals, and fluidly
interact with others in real-time," said Arn Hyndman, web.alive chief
architect.

"Additionally, web.alive will offer security not available with other
virtual environments today because it is integrated with corporate
enterprise systems and software." WHAT ARE SOME BUSINESS BENEFITS OF
WEB.ALIVE?

* web.alive delivers a more engaging, interactive and integrated
communications experience compared to old technology approaches like
conference calls that can be boring and less productive

* web.alive can be added to a company's external web site so that
customer avatars can not only interact with each other but also with a
company's customer service avatar to make purchases, receive a product
demonstration or resolve other issues

* Businesses can leverage web.alive to connect to corporate networks
and existing corporate programs including Customer Relationship
Management (CRM) and Project Management software

* Businesses can cut travel expenses by allowing workers to collaborate
in several virtual locations at the same time using web.alive


WATCH THE VIDEO - NORTEL TO DEVELOP VIRTUAL COLLABORATION TOOL CALLED
WEB.ALIVE

Digg del.icio.us Newsvine Technorati Tags: Nortel, Web2.0, Virtual World

About Nortel

Nortel is a recognized leader in delivering communications capabilities
that make the promise of Business Made Simple a reality for our
customers. Our next-generation technologies, for both service provider
and enterprise networks, support multimedia and business-critical
applications. Nortel's technologies are designed to help eliminate
today's barriers to efficiency, speed and performance by simplifying
networks and connecting people to the information they need, when they
need it. Nortel does business in more than 150 countries around the
world. For more information, visit Nortel on the Web at www.nortel.com.
For the latest Nortel news, visit www.nortel.com/news.

Certain statements in this press release may contain words such as
"could", "expects", "may", "anticipates", "believes", "intends",
"estimates", "targets", "envisions", "seeks" and other similar language
and are considered forward-looking statements or information under
applicable securities legislation. These statements are based on
Nortel's current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections
about the operating environment, economies and markets in which Nortel
operates. These statements are subject to important assumptions, risks
and uncertainties, which are difficult to predict and the actual
outcome may be materially different from those contemplated in
forward-looking statements. For additional information with respect to
certain of these and other factors, see Nortel's Annual Report on
Form10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and other securities filings
with the SEC (News - Alert). Unless otherwise required by applicable securities laws,
Nortel disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any
forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information,
future events or otherwise.

*Nortel, the Nortel logo and the Globemark are trademarks of Nortel
Networks.

**This is a 3rd party link as described in our Web linking practices.

CONTACT: Jamie Moody, Contact for Press and Analysts, Nortel
Tel:             +1 972 684 7167       
e-mail: [email protected]
Mohammed Nakhooda, Contact for Press and Analysts, Nortel
Tel:             +1 905 863 7407       
e-mail: [email protected]

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