Nemertes Impact Analysis:

Microsoft and HP Partnership Demonstrates Importance of UC Integration

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MFST ), and HP (NYSE: HPQ ) announced a partnership to collaborate on products and services development around Sharepoint, Exchange and Microsoft Office Communications Server, as well as HP ProCurve networking products. This move highlights growing interest in UC products and services and recognizes user demand for integration.

Nemertes finds 60% of organizations are implementing UC, up from 47% in 2008. However, integration still remains a key concern of more than half of them. Collaborating on products and services, including adding support for Microsoft's OCS in HP's Business Technology Optimization software, and providing end-point interoperability with HP Halo Telepresence and MS OCS conferencing, allows these two companies to address some of those concerns.

Impacts:

Enterprises: Product integration must be a part of your UC strategy. Evaluate vendors that integrate with a wide variety of devices.

Vendors: Integration concerns inhibit UC deployments. Expect to partner with multiple vendors to deliver end-to-end UC solutions.

Investors: The Microsoft-HP partnership underscores growth potential for UC integration services. Beneficiaries may include system integrators such as Dimension Data (LON: DDT), and IBM (NYSE: IBM).

Katherine Trost, research analyst

http://www.nemertes.com/benchmarks/nemertes_benchmark_unified_communications_applications_and_strategies_0
http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/us/en/partners/microsoft-unified-commuications-collaboration.html 

Sign Up To Receive Nemertes Impact Analysis By E-mail

Follow Nemertes Research on Twitter