Nortel and Microsoft have announced four new joint unified communications products, as a result of their partnership in the UC space.
Nortel Converged Office will combine Nortel's Communication Server 1000 IP-PBX with Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007.
The Nortel UC Integrated Branch will also be integrated with Office Communications Server 2007 in order to deploy WAN routing, ethernet switching, security, and VoIP into remote sites.
The cross-platform capabilities will also be apparent in the Nortel and Microsoft Carrier Hosted UC Solution for hosting unified communications - giving small and medium-sized businesses instant messaging, VoIP, click-to-call, and video conferencing through the Microsoft Office Communicator 2007.
Nortel's Multimedia Conferencing, version 5.0 is now available for the Microsoft Communications Server 2007.
Nortel sees the partnership as providing a trusted, well-understood front-end from which to offer large and small companies their UC infrastructure products.
Innovative Communications Alliance website
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Nortel and Microsoft Innovative Communications Alliance
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Nortel is going down
NEW YORK (AP) -- Nortel Networks Corp. said Wednesday it will cut 2,100 jobs - about 6% of its work force - as it reported its fourth-quarter losses had widened, sending its shares tumbling.
The Canadian telecommunications equipment maker reported a loss of $844 million, or $1.70 per share, compared with a loss of $80 million, or 19 cents per share, a year earlier.
Analysts polled by Thomson Financial had predicted earnings of 57 cents per share, though such estimates typically exclude one-time charges, like those recorded by Nortel as it restructures.
The company took $38 million in charges associated with its restructuring programs, compared with $29 million, a year earlier. It recorded a $1.06 billion charge related to changes in its Canadian tax profile.
Nortel said it plans to cut about 2,100 jobs globally and will shift about 1,000 additional jobs to lower-cost countries in Asia and Europe. The company has just over 30,000 employees now, down from almost 100,000 before the tech bust in 2000.
Mike Zafirovski, Nortel's president and CEO, said the company faces a "challenging environment" and said the economic slowdown in the U.S. is affecting business.
"There is some concern over it's impact in the rest of the world. From our perspective, in our outlook in 2008, it's pretty flat revenue on the carrier side, which is about half of our business," Zafirovski said in a telephone interview.
