Compaq Computer Corp and Lucent Technologies Inc yesterday announced a partnership to deliver unified messaging systems, based on Lucent software and Compaq hardware, to enterprise customers and service providers. Under the partnership, Lucent will integrate and sell its Octel Unified Messenger on Compaq’s ProLiant and AlphaServer platforms. The system provides combined email, fax and voice capabilities using Microsoft’s Exchange Server as the messaging platform. In addition, Compaq will resell Octel Unified Messenger.
Also under the alliance, Lucent will acquire technology from Compaq to provide future enhancements to Octel Unified Messenger, and Compaq will provide engineering support to help develop enhancements.
The combined solution will be available from both Compaq and Lucent, and their respective sales channels, as of June this year. It will be sold to carriers, ISPs, common local exchange carriers (CLECs) and enterprise customers. The news comes just weeks after Compaq announced a wide-ranging agreement with Lucent rival, Northern Telecom Ltd. Under their partnership, the two said they would work together to deliver unified networking products and services and as part of the alliance they will also deliver unified messaging solutions to enterprises and service providers.
According to Vinnie Deschampes, general manager for unified messaging systems at Lucent the partnership with Compaq represents the coming together of two of the biggest players in the email and voice messaging market. You couldn’t find any other relationships of this size in the market. Compaq has a 60% share of the Microsoft Exchange Server market and Lucent has nearly fifty percent of the voice messaging market, Deschampes told ComputerWire, the next largest vendor, Nortel, only has 20% of the market.
Octel Unified Messenger works by integrating with both traditional telephony and IP networks to allow users to create, access and manage all of their voice, email and fax messages from a personal computer or telephone from any place at any time. As part of the agreement, Compaq Services will create a portfolio of support services for Octel Unified Messenger-based solutions and the companies will work together to port Octel Unified Messenger to Compaq’s Network Equipment Building Standards (NEBS) – compliant AlphaServer system. The latter is a standard to which PC and server vendors must comply if they intend to link their hardware into telephony networks.
Deschampes says Compaq inherited a NEBS-compliant system – the only one currently available on the market he claims – through its acquisition of Digital Equipment Corp in 1997. The plan is to port Lucent’s messaging software to the platform within the next six months, but in the meantime it will only be available on Intel-based servers.
The companies will also carry out joint sales and marketing activities to help customers and channel partners simplify planning, deployment, and operation of the messaging software on Compaq platforms. Pricing, which is available at launch, will be based on the number of users. For example, a 150-user Compaq ProLiant system with a Pentium II processor will cost around $31,000, the companies said.
