HP and Alcatel-Lucent outline 10-year strategy

Alcatel Lucent said that the new products will help firms exploit new UC&C technologies

HP and Alcatel-Lucent have announced an agreement to provide a series of unified communication and collaboration (UC&C) tools as part of a 10-year global alliance.

The companies promise to deliver services to help organisations converge telecoms and IT systems in order to reap a range of benefits.

Gary Budzinski, senior vice president and general manager of technology services at HP, claimed that the new offerings will meet customer demands for an "open approach to services delivery that maximises their investment in UC&C ".

"The strength of Alcatel-Lucent and HP's combined portfolio provides organisations with open and highly scalable solutions that address the touch points where communication is critical," he said.

Chief among the offerings is the ability for firms to migrate from existing multi-vendor or legacy PBX systems to an IP voice system using Alcatel's IP Telephony architecture.

HP, meanwhile, will offer greater returns on UC&C investments by using the Alcatel-Lucent OmniPCX Enterprise Communication Suite and IP Telephony tool and the Genesys Customer Interaction management platform.

The partners also claimed that companies can increase the effectiveness of enterprise-wide resources and customer services by using HP's and Genesys' intelligent Workload Distribution tool that can automate workflows and workloads within business processes.

The tools will be provided alongside HP's UC&C consulting service, which offers a comprehensive approach to enterprise communications, including strategy, planning, implementation, design and education, the firm said.

Tom Burns, president of Alcatel's enterprise and strategic industries business, added that the relationship with HP will allow enterprises to "drive down costs, improve productivity and optimise experience throughout the UC& C environment".