Microsoft, Siemens Unite on Collaboration

Building on an existing two-year strategic product relationship,
Microsoft and Siemens AG today
announced a global development and sales agreement for real-time
collaboration solutions.

The companies said the alliance promises to
deliver a thorough product lineup of “enterprise-grade,
presence-enhanced calling, video and Web conferencing, and collaboration
solutions.”

The agreement will align the sales and market
development initiatives of the two firms on a number of Microsoft products,
including Office Live Meeting and and Office Live
Communications Server (LCS) 2005.

The partners will also market
Microsoft’s new real-time collaboration product, code-named Istanbul,
which includes instant messaging, presence awareness, telephony
integration and desktop voice and video.

Microsoft announced Istanbul
in October. The company called it the “client of choice”
replacement for Windows Messenger in LCS 2005, which was officially
released
a week after Istanbul.

The two partners will also market and sell Siemens HiPath OpenScape,
which is a presence-enabled collaboration portal. HiPath
OpenScape, which is built on top of Istanbul and LCS 2005,
improves connectivity by providing presence and device controls
across a variety of communications media including IM, e-mail and
telephony, according to Siemens.

The product’s Telephony Control Link (TCL) promises
to offer control of PBX or IP-PBX connected desktop phones.
The TCL solution will work on top of “Istanbul” and LCS 2005 and will
allow users “click-to-call” control, call notification and presence
awareness. The solution is expected to work with IP-PBX/PBX phones from
Siemens, as well as those from other vendors. TCL is expected to be
available in the first half of 2005.

Microsoft will be deploying the HiPath OpenScape solution in Redmond
and Siemens will deploy LCS 2005 and Live Meeting in its enterprise.

“Siemens and Microsoft have agreed on an aligned roadmap of
presence-based, real-time communication objectives to help erase the
communication gaps that remain between the personal computer and the
office telephone,” said Bernd Kuhlin, president of Enterprise Networks
Systems at Siemens Communications, in a statement.

“Together we’ve aligned
Live Communications Server 2005, Istanbul and the HiPath OpenScape
product family to deliver a shared vision of communication tools that are
standards-based and presence-enabled so that enterprises can gain
strategic advantages from real-time collaboration,” he continued. “Now we’re cooperating
closely in the field to bring the benefits of that shared vision to
customers.”


Siemens isn’t the only company to join Microsoft’s Istanbul party. Radvision
showed off
its software-based multipoint control unit (MCU), which was
Istanbul-ready.

Get the Free Newsletter!

Subscribe to our newsletter.

Subscribe to Daily Tech Insider for top news, trends & analysis

News Around the Web