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ShareNortel Launches Conferencing Software Developed With Microsoft
Posted by
Andy Dornan
December 06, 2007
Nortel announced today that it is shipping Multimedia Conferencing 5.0, software co-developed with Microsoft and aimed at enterprises who want to host their own audio or video conferences without necessarily migrating to Nortel's VoIP products. Bringing conferencing in-house could be a money-saver for heavy users who currently pay service providers per-minute rates for every attendee. However, the most interesting thing about the launch is that it's the first standalone product from the ICA (Innovative Communications Alliance), the partnership that Nortel and Microsoft formed in July 2006.
The two vendors have been working together on both technology integration and marketing since they formed the Alliance, announcing an ambitious roadmap in January this year. Since then, they have delivered on SIP-based unified messaging that combines email from Microsoft Exchange with telephony from Nortel's CS-1000 (Communication Server.) Other products such as a Nortel branch-office router that runs Microsoft unified communications software are slated to ship in the first quarter of next year.
Conferencing 5.0 can be used without any Microsoft products, enabling teleconferences through any kind of phone, including external and analog lines as well as SIP and PC clients. It also supports videoconferencing through any client designed for the CS-1000. Combining it with Microsoft LCS (Live Communications Server 2005) and Exchange enables it to be accessed through Microsoft's software clients and adds support for IM. However, the product does not yet integrate with OCS (Office Communications Server 2007), the replacement for LCS that Microsoft launched in October. Support for this is planned next year.
To run the software, customers need an IBM x3550 server, which could make Microsoft embarrassingly dependent on a competitor: IBM's SameTime and Domino are the main rivals to LCS/OCS and Exchange. Nortel also has a close relationship with IBM in other areas: Last month, it announced a SOA partnership with IBM that was largely focused on server-side interoperability (compared to the client-side focus of the ICA) but also included integration between SameTime and the CS-1000.
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