By Johna Till Johnson, President, Nemertes Research Inc.
July 20, 2006

The recently announced partnership between Nortel Networks (NYSE:NT,http://www.nortel.com/) and Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT
http://www.microsoft.com/) dramatically illustrates the convergence between communications and applications that Nemertes has predicted for the past three years. The deal, which includes shared product development and sales activities around unified-communications technology seeks to provide the following benefits:

* To Microsoft: much-needed expertise (and credibility) in communications, particularly in key areas such as security and reliability.
* To Nortel: access to Microsoft's channels and sales partners, as well as an estimated $1 billion in professional services revenue, specifically around providing convergence-integration services.

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