HP & MICROSOFT FORGE $180Mil ALLIANCE

[Anonymous]

http://www.crn.com/networking/217500729;jsessionid=Q4SC452B35DHUQSNDLOSKHSCJUNN2JVN
HP, Microsoft Forge $180 Million UC Alliance
Hewlett-Packard
and Microsoft have unveiled a four-year, $180 million global initiative
to work together to deliver integrated unified communications (UC) and
collaboration solutions.Unveiled Tuesday at Interop Las Vegas 2009, the
two powerhouses said the deal is an extension of their 20-plus-year
Frontline Partnership, through which the two companies collaborate for
enterprise offerings.The $180 million investment will go toward product
development, professional services and joint sales and marketing. All
products and services that stem from the pairing will be available
through each company’s channel organizations, HP and Microsoft
said.Manfred Arndt, distinguished technologist of unified
communications solutions for HP’s ProCurve Networking division, said
the combined HP-Microsoft offerings will span software, hardware,
networking and services to help companies capitalize on collaborative
tools to boost productivity and ultimately reduce travel,
telecommunications and IT operating costs by streamlining
communications across messaging, video and voice with connected
application and devices. The end result will be solutions that
facilitate and deliver VoIP, video, conferencing and a host of other
collaborative applications.”Unified communications is not a point
product,” Arndt said. “It is a vision and a strategy.”Jeana Jorgensen,
Microsoft  director of marketing for unified communications, added that
the goal of the integration is to make the PC the endpoint for
communications and collaboration.”At the end of the day, it’s about
customer choice,” she said. “We want you to be able to compute wherever
you are in the same exact manner you’re used to.”

The pairing
comes as UC and collaboration solutions are poised for explosive
growth. According to a recent report from Forrester Research, 84
percent of enterprises in North America and Europe are evaluating,
piloting or implementing UC and collaborative solutions. That market is
expected to grow at a rate of 35.9 percent through 2015.

The
initiative ties together HP and Microsoft’s visions and best practices
for building productivity solutions on open software-based platforms
that work with applications and systems people commonly use. The
pairing will spawn solutions that are accessible from nearly any
device, Arndt said.

The two companies will form joint teams to
collaborate on products and services development across Microsoft’s
Office SharePoint Server, Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Office
Communications Server (OCS), as well as HP’s ProCurve networking gear.
Additionally, HP will certify the HP dx9000 TouchSmart Business PC and
select smartphones for Microsoft unified communications software, like
Office Communicator. HP will also deliver new IP desk phones certified
for Microsoft OCS and other unified communications tools.

HP and
Microsoft will also offer end-point interoperability with HP Halo
Telepresence Solutions and OCS-based unified conferencing to enable
remote participation at any OCS-enabled PC to join telepresence
conferences. Meanwhile, HP also announced that Halo will now be part of
HP’s ProCurve division.

On the professional services side, the
two companies will launch a full set of business productivity services
including assessment, architecture planning and design, implementation,
monitoring, management and support for software, hardware, network,
server, storage and infrastructure components. HP will also dedicate a
global team of service professionals to support the joint solutions.
Both companies will also target communications service providers and
offer them the same technologies and services to enable hosted UC and
collaboration services to SMBs.HP and Microsoft will also provide
services for customers who seek to run their technology on-premise,
fully outsource or a hybrid combination of the two, while also working
together to address real-time collaboration needs through HP Halo
Managed Services and HP ProCurve products.The two companies will assign
dedicated sales teams to their joint solutions and train thousands of
technical and delivery personnel. They will also showcase the joint
offerings in Microsoft Technology Centers and HP Customer Briefing
Centers worldwide.

HP is also expected to launch financing and
trade-in programs through HP Financial Services to accelerate the
adoption of the joint solutions.Arndt added that the HP-Microsoft
mash-up is an alternative choice to other UC and collaboration
solutions on the market and will help customers and the channel offer
solutions tailored to organizations’ specific business needs.”This will
ease the transition to unified communications,” Microsoft’s Jorgensen
said. “We’ve always communicated and we’ve always collaborated. Now
customers are looking for guidance because there’s such a variance of
definitions on what unified communications is.”

[Author]

May 19, 2009 at 12:19 PM