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March 11, 2008
Microsoft, Nortel Expand Unified Communications Offer
By Greg Galitzine, Group Editorial Director
Microsoft ( News - Alert) and Nortel today announced the availability of four new joint unified communications solutions as part of their ongoing Innovative Communications Alliance (ICA) partnership.
The joint products include the Converged Office unified communications suite, Multimedia Conferencing, and solutions for branch offices and hosted service providers.
According to Nortel ( News - Alert) officials, the announcement is geared to provide enterprise users choices when selecting unified communications solutions. And while the expanding portfolio provides an ever increasing array of choices for end users, it is important to note that customers retain a single, common user experience across the portfolio.
Since the beginning of the year, Nortel and Microsoft have brought four new unified communications solutions to market:
- Nortel Converged Office, which integrates Nortel’s Communication Server (CS) 1000 IP-PBX
 or CS 2100 IP-PBX (News - Alert) with Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007;
- UC Integrated Branch, which is designed to extend unified communications to branch office and remote sites, combining Office Communications Server 2007 mediation server capabilities into the Nortel Secure Router 4134, while integrating WAN routing, Ethernet switching, security and VoIP into a single platform;
- The Nortel and Microsoft Carrier Hosted Unified Communications (News - Alert) Solution, which is geared to providing service providers the ability to offer hosted unified communications solutions to SMBs and enterprises; and
- Nortel Multimedia Conferencing 5.0 for Office Communications Server 2007, a reservationless audio conferencing solution designed to enhance Office Communications Server 2007 conferencing with dial in audio bridge capabilities, enabling external non Communications Server 2007 users to dial into a conference.
Ruchi Prasad, vice president and general manager, Innovative Communications Alliance ( News - Alert), Nortel, said, “With these solutions, enterprises can now choose to deploy unified communications via a customer premise solution, managed service solution, or hybrid of the two, helping accelerate the pace of unified communications adoption.”
The companies also announced that customer adoption continues to accelerate with more than 600 wins for the companies’ unified communications products since the formation of the alliance less than two years ago. New customers announced today include Ringier AG, Bosowa Corporation, FASA, KMITL and Sandler Travis & Rosenberg, P.A.
“Customers and partners recognize the value of joint Microsoft and Nortel solutions and we expect to continue driving the adoption of software-based unified communications solutions in 2008,” said Gurdeep Singh Pall, corporate vice president, Unified Communications Group, Microsoft. “In the coming year, we will extend the scope of our unified communications collaboration to include areas such as Contact Center integration and a mix of hybrid and fully hosted UC solutions.”
Future plans for the alliance include delivering a fully hosted unified communications offering, designed to provide the same user experience as the on-premise Converged Office solution in a fully hosted environment and a contact center solution, integrating Nortel’s Contact Center application with Office Communications Server.
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Wide Area Network (WAN) | X | | A WAN is a Wide Area Network. A LAN is a Local Area Network. A CAN is a Campus Area Network. A BAN is a Building Area Network. A MAN is a Metropolitan Area Network. Each Area Network often but not...more |
Private Branch Exchange (PBX) | X | | Originally, telephone features were provided by telephone central office switching systems, often called CENTREX.�PBX systems emerged as customers wanted to have more calling features and control over...more |
(source: http://www.tmcnet.com/tmcnet/voicecon/articles/22634-microsoft-nortel-expand-unified-communications-offer.htm)
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