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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 potential cost savings with ICP is significant. Equally important is reducing the time to respond to user requirements. Typically, rolling out a new application requires a significant amount of testing and network preparation. With ICP, that process can be completed in minutes.
Service pricing has not been released and enterprise-class security and compliance issues remain an open question. It's also not clear whether Verizon will offer centralized logging for IM, a requirement for many enterprises that need to keep IM records for regulatory compliance or legal reasons. Even if such logging is offered, Verizon will also need to address questions about the protection and securing of that logged IM data.
David Greenfield
NWC Editor

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.

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