|
|
Microsoft, Nortel CEOs expand on their VOIP alliance
2007-01-19
Nortel and Microsoft this week expanded on their Innovative Communication Alliance -- a VOIP-focused partnership announced in July 2007 -- at an event at NBC Studios in New York, where the two companies` CEOs introduced several jointly-developed products and laid out a roadmap for the next several quarters and beyond.
Jointly-developed Microsoft/Nortel VOIP products will ship by the end of 2007, including a hardware appliance for branch offices which ties together Nortel WAN and IP telephony technology with Microsoft messaging software. The companies also plan to insert parts of Nortel''s Multimedia Conferencing platform into Microsoft Office Communicator 2007. Microsoft and Nortel also said they will make their jointly developed products will be available in the second half of 2007.
Speaking from the stage that hosts Saturday Night Live, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Nortel CEO Mike Zafirovski gave an update on their respective company''s partnership to a group of 100 or so customers, as well as analysts and press on Wednesday. Products announced at the event included the Unified Communication (UC) Integrated Branch, an appliance that will package Nortel routing, firewall and IP PBX functions with Microsoft Office Communicator Server (or OCS, a presence, instant messaging and collaboration software suite), and will ship in the fourth quarter of 2007. Also, Microsoft said its Exchange Server 2007 Unified Communication server(an e-mail platform with presence and IM) will be SIP-compatible with Nortel''s Communication Server 1000 (the company''s IP PBX) by the same time as UC Integrated Branch.
Another product integration, also due by year-end, is the combination of Nortel Multimedia Conferencing -- a server product that sets up voice and video conferencing with Microsoft OCS.
The event took place six months after Microsoft and Nortel formed the Innovative Communication Alliance, a four-year deal in which both companies agreed to integrate their respective VOIP and messaging server, and desktop software. The alliance involves sharing intellectual property, research and development, support, services and sales personnel and resources.
Ballmer said this first phase of integration will involve tying together separate, standalone VOIP and messaging servers from the two companies, and presenting these applications as one system to end-users.
"First, you will get smart unified clients," which ties together Microsoft messaging, Nortel softphone and hardphone technology. "After that, we''ll deliver transformed backend. "Over the next two to three years, Ballmer said, customers of Nortel and Microsoft "can expect to go from a separate, PBX and separate server software [environments], to one where [OCS] ... and Nortel [VOIP] servers deliver the full telephony experience, with both platforms running on standard Intel architecture with common Windows software, development and management tools."
In addition to the upcoming branch office, SIP integration and conferencing moves, Nortel also said it would scale up its enterprise IP PBX platform. In the second half of 2007, Nortel will release an update to its enterprise IP PBX platform -- the CS 2000 series, which will provide greater scale than the previous CS 1000 (up to 200,000 users per system vs. 10,000).
"[This will] allow the same converged office environment for larger enterprise and carrier hosted solutions," Zafirovski said.
Energy giant Royal Dutch Shell has a long-term communication and voice strategy tying together Microsoft and Nortel technologies. The petroleum company, which has 112,000 employees in 130 companies, plans to consolidate its entire voice and messaging infrastructure using integrated Microsoft OCS and Nortel VOIP technologies over the next three to five years.
"Putting hardware into remote countries is a nightmare," said Johan Krebbers, group IT architect for the company, who spoke during the two vendor CEOs` presentation. Instead of Shell''s current model -- with hundreds of PBXs and e-mail servers distributed worldwide, all voice and messaging applications will be centrally hosted in three data centres -- Amsterdam, Houston and Kuala Lumpur -- to support oil exploration, refining and distribution operations worldwide.
"Existing sites will come on line when PBXs are written off" from depreciation, or if gear becomes obsolete or inoperable, Krebbers said.
Answering questions from the audience, Ballmer explained the difference between Microsoft/Nortel VOIP and messaging interoperability vs. others -- such as Cisco or Siemens VOIP and Microsoft OCS, or Avaya and IBM/Lotus. Examples of deeper Microsoft/Nortel integration could include the ability, in a Microsoft Excel for instance, to see presence information on the employee who created a document, and the ability to contact that person via VOIP or IM.
Another global enterprise interested in this kind of integration is International SOS, a firm that provides medical assistance and security services for client corporations with global offices.
Providing a single PC-based interface for all forms of communication could help the company`s 4,000 employees become more efficient and productive, said Todd Schoefield, CTO at International SOS, during a session with press and analysts. On the back-end, ultimately having Microsoft and Nortel running on a common hardware/software platform could also help cut IT operational costs, he added.
"Microsoft and Nortel are our legacy systems which we''ve grown up on," for voice and applications, said Schoefield. "It`s a natural fit that we tie those two [platforms] together more closely."
For Nortel and Microsoft to challenge Cisco and Avaya more aggressively, the two companies will have to show more real-world benefits of running a combined VOIP/messaging application infrastructure based on technology from the Innovative Communication Alliance, said IDC analyst Abner Germanow, who attended to the event.
"How do you buy [unified communications]? How do you install it, and how does it help your business?" he said.
The fact that Nortel is tying itself so closely to Microsoft server software and applications in a way runs counter to industry trends among enterprise VOIP vendors, who moved their IP PBX systems to hardened, closed Linux- and Unix-based systems over the last few years. This effort was to distance IP PBX products from Microsoft Windows, which some users considered not stable enough to host IP telephony, where 99.999 percent availability is often required.
"We are aware of reliability requirements in enterprises," said Anoop Gupta, corporate vice president of Microsoft`s unified communications group, speaking with press and analysts on Wednesday. "Few companies can afford to have e-mail servers down for any length of time." He said new clustering capabilities in Microsoft Windows Server and Exchange Server 2007, and R&D efforts with Nortel regarding carrier-class system resiliency and availability, should meet users` uptime and reliability requirements as the two vendors roll out joint products.
Steve Slattery, president of the Nortel`s enterprise group, reinforced this idea. He said that making Microsoft messaging applications resilient and interoperable with Nortel technology "is critical and core to every one of my product strategies across voice and data."
By Phil Hochmuth
|
|
|
|
VoIP Providers List Information |
|
|
|
If you have any constructive thoughts, creative ideas, or reasonable offers, please, contact us.
|
|
Send Email to Helen O'Neill if you have any questions either about this website, or about VoIP providers, or VoIP in general.
|
|
Send Email to our technical support if you have any technical queries.
|
About VoIP Providers List
VoIP Providers List services save time for companies searching both for information and interconnection partners, interested in voice minutes exchange, i.e. VoIP minutes termination and origination, as well as hardware and software trade. We provide information on interconnection services, VoIP hardware solutions and VoIP software , as well as overall situation in the VoIP industry.
VoIP Providers List is constantly moderated, and thus we can guarantee that any VoIP provider published in the web-based company catalogue has provided accurate details on its services and operations.
We are constantly working on improvement and development of our services. Your comments and proposals regarding the services are highly welcome. Please, do not hesitate to contact us providing with your ideas, opinion, and feed-back. We will be grateful for any information and useful links on Voice over IP, VoIP hardware, VoIP software, and VoIP Providers. |
|
|
|
|
VoIP Providers Statistics |
|
|
Providers in database: 3315
Users Online: 217
|
|
|
