BT integrates Microsoft's online services into portfolio

BT is the first to integrate Microsoft's BPOS with its managed network services

BT is to deliver Microsoft's online Office services to its own customers, and plans to integrate these with its Global Onevoice service to provide unified communications in the same package.

Starting from August, the telecoms giant claimed that it will be the first IT services provider to resell Microsoft's Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) to large organisations.

Announced earlier this year, BPOS comprises hosted versions of Exchange, SharePoint, Office Live Meeting and Office Communications, which Microsoft makes available to customers individually or as a suite.

Under the agreement announced today, BT will resell the BPOS services and integrate them with other BT offerings.

While the applications will be hosted from Microsoft's datacentres, the BT service also includes integration into any existing customer helpdesks and BT services management.

The company said that, by integrating Microsoft's product suite into its 21CN network, it can ensure higher quality-of-service levels and guaranteed network performance.

"This agreement enables BT and Microsoft to provide large organisations with fully integrated cloud-based business collaboration tools, while reducing their overall networked IT and infrastructure costs," said BT vice president of global services Neil Sutton.

Later this year, BT expects to deliver integration of the hosted Microsoft services with its Global Onevoice service that provides virtual private network and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) capabilities.

The move will enable BT to work with large organisations to tailor end-to-end voice and IT services requirements, providing single-number reach, SIP trunking and premise-based audio conferencing, the company said.

Pricing for BPOS services will be consistent with Microsoft's, according to BT, but there will be incremental costs for extras such as the Global Onevoice integration.