Nortel Finished. What does that mean for Microsoft?

How Microsoft has moved on

The kingdom known as Nortel is falling apart. Regardless of the many conjectures as to why they failed the fact is there won't likely be a "restructured Nortel". Instead, anything desirable will be sold off to the highest bidder and the rest liquidated to cover bankruptcy obligations.

If you're a telecom geek you may have heard of the ICA. The Innovative Communications Alliance is a partnership between Microsoft and Nortel started in 2006 to partner on realtime communications solutions. While there have been a few press releases, and I honestly think Nortel's contribution helped MS ramp up OCS so quickly, not much else has come of it. With the announcements around Nortel's demise (or at least vast "restructuring") I believe it's unlikely we'll see much else out of it in the future. Microsoft might be wise to pluck a few of Nortel's top engineers to work on the OCS team. If nothing else the relationships and experience they bring would be priceless.

In the midst of Nortel falling apart, Microsoft forged a new alliance with HP. While this left a lot of people scratching their heads I see one area where is makes a lot of sense. HP Halo. The HP telepresence solution is a real competitor to Cisco's offering. Tight OCS integration could be a deciding factor when the recession recedes and companies are again exploring telepresence options. That's a big win-win for both HP and Microsoft and a large competitive advantage against Cisco.

I'm sad to see Nortel fall apart like this. And, I'm of the opinion it could have been avoided with some better strategic decisions and leadership. However, hindsight's 20/20. I wish all the best to the Nortel employees. They are some of the most passionate folks I've worked with over the years.

• Microsoft
• VoIP / Convergence
• HP
• Microsoft
• Nortel
• OCS
• Office Communications Server
• VoIP