Verizon To Deliver Hosted Unified Communications

Verizon will announce later this summer a hosted integrated communications package delivered via its VoIP platform, Lorena McAllister, director of VoIP marketing for Verizon Business, disclosed in a private briefing at the VoiceCon show in Orlando.

The service, expected to launch in July, will be called Integrated Communications Package (ICP) and provide real-time call management, secure file-sharing and presence status. Users will get tools for instant messaging (IM) and personal information management (PIM) as well as a softphone for PC-based calling. A subsequent release will provide Web conferencing, videoconferencing, audio-conference and contact-center capabilities.

The service is built on a combination of homegrown technologies and IBM's Lotus SameTime collaboration software. The back-end IM and presence server will be be delivered using SameTime with a Verizon-modified client running on the desktop.Using the new hosted service, companies will be able to select the individual applications they want to deploy to the user's desktop from an administrator console. Those applications will then be activated at user desktops across the enterprise.

Verizon's ICP service is set to be available in the United States in July and internationally in the fall.