The last few weeks, it seems like the Microsoft sales and product teams have been pretty busy in the telecom world. Today, we’ll highlight three announcements of Microsoft partnerships with tier-one telecommunications players.

In the first announcement, BellSouth and Microsoft announced that BellSouth has started technology trials using Microsoft’s IPTV software. This progress puts BellSouth in line with SBC and Verizon, which have been dribbling announcements about their own fiber deployments and their intent to provide video and entertainment services. BellSouth will also continue its fiber-to-the-curb rollout and increase its local-loop bandwidth capabilities with ADSL2+ copper pair bonding.

In the second announcement, Siemens deepened its relationship with Microsoft to include a joint sales and marketing alliance around Microsoft’s 2005 Office edition, codenamed “Istanbul.” In a statement, the companies disclosed additional integration between the Siemens OpenScape products and the Istanbul products, between “Microsoft Office Live Meeting and the complete presence-enabled collaboration portal HiPath OpenScape as well as other real-time communication and collaboration products as they are developed.”

Not to be outdone by Siemens, Alcatel also announced its own integration with the Microsoft “Istanbul” suite. Alcatel will integrate the Microsoft products with its advanced PBX products, and will also integrate Istanbul with its Genesys Enterprise Telephony Software for contact centers.

Looks like neighbors on both sides of the fence are starting to tear down traditional divisions.

Steve Taylor is president of Distributed Networking Associates and publisher/editor-in-chief of Webtorials. Larry Hettick is a principal analyst at Current Analysis.