Nortel's liquidation could cripple Microsoft UC relationship
Nortel's liquidation of its assets could possibly gut the 3-year-old unified communications partnership the company has with Microsoft.
Nortel's liquidation of its assets could possibly gut the 3-year-old unified communications partnership the company has with Microsoft.
Telecommunications equipment manufacturer Alcatel-Lucent and IT vendor Hewlett-Packard plan to jointly market their products to businesses looking for converged IT and communications systems.
Avaya and IBM have overcome difficulties presenting joint unified communications proposals to customers and have launched a coordinated sales and marketing programme and agreed to conduct technical development together.
Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard have expanded their partnership to develop and sell a common platform for delivering voice, video and messaging services.
In a much-anticipated announcement, Cisco Systems Monday launched its Unified Computing System, comprising virtualization technology, services and blade servers aimed at helping enterprises develop and manage what it calls "next-generation data centers."
Virtual growth
New Zealand-based unified communications software provider IPFX is pushing into the UK mid-market with its partner BT.
Amir Hameed and Jack Shemavon have been the tag team for converged communications applications for the past few weeks.
HP has a local team of 20 to promote its new unified communications offering with Microsoft, which had its New Zealand launch in Auckland yesterday.
Microsoft will release Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, Office Communicator 2007 and Office Live Meeting via a public webcast October 16, which will be co-hosted by Chairman Bill Gates and Microsoft Business Division President Jeff Raikes.
Microsoft and Cisco are both making serious moves into what is clearly seen as the next big thing in telecommunications: the unified communications business.
Businesses say they are interested in unified communications but still face some of the same obstacles that prevented them from adopting VoIP a few years ago, according to a study by Nemertes Research.
Auckland-based Unified Communications hopes the sale of its four-way messaging system, Communiporte, to Hong Kong mobile data services provider IBS will lead it into China.