IBM, Cisco and Unified Communications

Today IBM and Cisco issued a Press Release to Unveil Platform for Developing Unified Communications and Collaboration Solutions. Clearly this is parallel to Microsoft and Nortel’s stragegic alliance announced last July. The two announcements share a desire to reinvent enterprise communications, breaking down traditional silos of voice/video, and text/data/messaging networks and services. Clearly IBM and Microsoft account for the majority of enterprise messaging seats with their Domino/Notes/Sametime and Exchange/Outlook/LCS franchises. Cicso, Nortel and Avaya are similarly dominant in enterprise voice. Two questions spring to mind:

1) What about Avaya? Are they strategicly neutral or just left out?

2) What happens to enterprises that use Cicso for voice and Microsoft for email – or enterprises that use Nortel for voice and IBM for email? Are these configurations unsupported (clearly not – their vendors will not abandon them)? If not, then what is the benefit from the client’s perspective to being on a strategically aligned pair of vendors as opposed a pair that crosses these partnerships?

~ by lawlorg on March 7, 2007.