Microsoft and Nortel announce broad unified communications alliance

Microsoft and Nortel this week announced an ambitious four-year strategic alliance to jointly develop, sell and roll out unified communications and VoIP technology to enterprise customers.

The plan to merge Nortel's IP telephony technology with Microsoft's messaging and collaboration platforms was outlined at a press conference this week with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Nortel CEO Mike Zafirovski, and executives from both vendors. No specific licensing or financial details on the partnership were discussed.

The four-year alliance (with an option to extend the relationship) will be named the Innovative Communications Alliance. The goal is to transform all of Nortel's VoIP features and call-control technology into software modules that will run on top of, or alongside, Microsoft unified communications servers. The companies will also develop technology to accelerate and prioritize Microsoft/Nortel unified communications traffic running on top of Nortel LAN, WAN and wireless network equipment.

The platform will be delivered by Nortel and Microsoft professional services groups and partners. The alliance will involve the cross-licensing of Microsoft and Nortel technologies for integrating existing products and creating new VoIP/messaging products. Cross-training of Microsoft and Nortel sales, channel partner and professional services organizations are also aspects of the deal.

Both companies’ CEOs said that the venture will cause a major shift in their respective approach to the enterprise IT market.

"You can squarely say that Microsoft, with Nortel, is in the business not just of unified communications, but of voice, quite clearly," said Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer. "We and Nortel share a view [that] we can use industry standard phones, computers and servers, with the right software from our two companies, to galvanize this unified communications opportunity."

While the deal officially puts Microsoft in the enterprise telephony market, for Nortel, the importance of the hook-up with Microsoft was even more critical, the company's CEO indicated.

"We wanted to change the trajectory of [Nortel's] enterprise business," said Zafirovski. "Our new relationship with Microsoft represents an opportunity to create well over $1 billion in revenue for Nortel in the next [several] years [with] the combination of [Nortel] professional services, voice products and data pull-through [sales] from our customers."

Initially, Microsoft and Nortel will create an interface between Microsoft's Live Communication Server — which provides SIP-based presence, and real-time communications such as instant messaging and video — with Nortel's Communication Server (CS) 1000 IP PBX, according to Steve Slattery president of Nortel's Enterprise Solutions Business. In this model, Microsoft servers act as the primary call processing node, and tap into features and gateway services from a Nortel box.

"[This will provide] access to the advanced telephony functionally of Nortel's CS 1000, and above and beyond, delivers PSTN access and dial plans to Microsoft's Communicator client" attached to the LCS platform, Slattery said.