Alcatel-Lucent Opens UC Platform

21 Nov 2011

Alcatel-Lucent has recently released its OpenTouch communications platform, which will enable businesses to offer communications capabilities and multimedia support on any device. It was first announced in April, and launched in early November with three packages.

The OpenTouch suite of technologies lets enterprise users take advantage of the variety of means for communication over a variety of devices, expanding their ability to communicate. It uses Alcatel-Lucent's OmniPCX Enterprise communications server and carrier technologies, as well as Genesys' Session Initiation Protocol solutions, creating a SIP-based conversation layer between the applications and server layers. The resulting offering lets users move between devices and methods of communications without any interruption.

The unified management capabilities are drawn from Alcatel-Lucent's OmniVista 8770 Network Management System. This removes the multiple management systems usually needed to run several unified communications and collaborations offerings.

The OpenTouch platform comes in three packages, and is a software add-on that supports existing Alcatel-Lucent OmniPCX Enterprise communications servers. It leverages the currently installed technology while enabling them to adopt future technologies.

"Like everyone else in the legacy telephony industry, Alcatel-Lucent is moving quickly to change its infrastructure technology to accommodate UC capabilities beyond just voice connections to multimodal and transmodal communications," says Art Rosenberg, UC Expert for UCStrategies. "They have come with a 'conversational layering' approach based upon SIP connectivity, that enables all forms of contact to be more easily integrated, centralized, and managed remotely. They are targeting midmarket businesses to replace traditional telephone systems with a single server, as well as a blade server version for managed and hosted service providers. Their software add-on option is a practical step for migrating existing communication technologies to new UC capabilities."

Rosenberg adds, "While Alcatel-Lucent is initially targeting UC business users for internal person-to-person contacts, the fact that UC capabilities must also be available to mobile end users outside of the organization (partners, customers), may require additional capabilities not mentioned, like CEBP, 'open' federation, and 'UC Contact Center' facilities, to support all users involved in a business process."

For more information, visit Alcatel-Lucent.

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