Microsoft-Nortel Announce New Unified Communications Products

The Innovative Communications Alliance between Microsoft and Nortel has produced four new unified communications solutions, including a hosted solution aimed at SMBs.The new products incorporate Microsoft Office Communication Server 2007 (OCS) features into Nortel networking gear. According to Ruchi Prasad, Nortel's vice president and general manager of the Alliance, the new products offer an "end-to-end unified communications portfolio to enable and de-risk the deployment of unified communications."

One of the products, the Nortel Converged Office, integrates the voice functionality of Nortel's Communications Server 1000 IP-PBX or CS 2100 IP-PBX with Microsoft's OCS. Another product is a branch office solution that mixes OCS with Nortel's Secure Router 4134. Nortel Multimedia Conferencing 5.0 for Office is an enhanced audio conferencing solution for OCS that supports desktop clients as well as analog, digital and IP phones.

Last is the Carrier Hosted Unified Communications Solution, which will enable communications service providers to offer SMBs a hosted solution for instant messaging, VoIP, click-to-call, video conferencing and other rich media applications through Microsoft Office Communicator 2007, Microsoft's unified communications client.ChannelWeb, Market Wire via Reuters