Microsoft and HP today announced a $180 million four year strategic global initiative for end-to-end unified communication and collaboration solutions.
The announcement was made at Interop Las Vegas 2009, according to a press release.
As part of their frontline partnership, the two companies will invest in product development, professional services, as well as joint sales and marketing, to help organizations lower costs and improve productivity, the release said.
The solution, which is planned to span software, hardware, networking and services, would enable customers to improve business output and reduce travel, telecom and IT operating costs. The companies will streamline communications across messaging, video and voice with connected applications and devices.
The two companies will form joint teams to collaborate on products and services development across Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft Office Communications Server, as well as HP ProCurve networking products.
HP will obtain Microsoft Unified Communications qualification for the HP dx9000 TouchSmart Business PC and select smartphones.
HP will obtain Microsoft Unified Communications qualification for new IP desk phones.
HP Business Technology Optimization (BTO) software will provide additional support for Microsoft Office Communications Server, including the ability to provide real-time quality of service metrics for the voice and video network over the IP infrastructure.
The two companies will provide end point interoperability with HP Halo Telepresence Solutions and Microsoft Office Communications Server-based unified conferencing, enabling remote participants at any Microsoft Office Communication Server-enabled PC to join telepresence conferences.
Customers can lower costs and rapidly enhance employee productivity with unified communications and collaboration from HP and Microsoft, said Ann Livermore, executive vice president, Technology Solutions Group, HP. We provide customers with solutions that are rich, intuitive and accessible from anywhere on nearly any device.
HP and Microsoft share a vision for business productivity solutions built on open, software-based platforms that work with the applications and systems people know and use today.
Together, we are offering the extensive breadth of capabilities of our respective technologies to deliver a truly unified communications and collaboration solution to help our customers improve business productivity, said Stephen Elop, president, Microsoft Business Division, Microsoft. This means one click to communicate, one click to conference, one click to collaborate.
Microsoft s approach to unified communications and collaboration solutions, combined with HP s global technology and services, will help us drive innovation and growth in our business, the release quoted Tina Atkinson, program sponsor, New Ways of Working, Cathay Pacific Airways as saying. Cathay Pacific Airways followed a detailed tender process and chose Microsoft and HP because they best met our requirements for a flexible and comprehensive approach to unified communications and collaboration, tailored to our needs.
The two companies will offer a full set of business productivity services ranging from assessment, architecture planning and design to implementation, monitoring, management and support for software, hardware, network, server, storage and infrastructure components in the shared portfolio.
