IBM and Nortel have reached new milestones in helping telecom carriers drive network convergence. It will give their subscribers a seamless voice, data and video communications experience across a wide range of devices and accessed from any network - wireline, wireless or DSL/cable broadband. This includes fostering an expanded ecosystem for third parties to develop and test new converged applications, joint innovation centers, and Nortel integrating with IBM's industry leading WebSphere software. In addition, the agreement facilitates the inclusion of Nortel Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) applications in IBM carrier solutions.

This new agreement builds on an existing relationship that has led to successful IP Multimedia Subsystems (IMS) carrier customer trials across the globe. As part of the new agreement IBM and Nortel will use each of their current IMS developer and interoperability testing programs to accelerate and enable telecom application providers and carriers to bring new multimedia services to market, such as: presence capabilities, IP security/surveillance, child tracking, "find-your-buddy," video dating, and enterprise business applications with click-to-call capabilities.

"IBM and Nortel are extending our market leading offerings to give carriers an enhanced and interoperable service execution environment," said Tim Greisinger, vice president, communications industry, IBM Software. "Further, we are enabling a global ecosystem of third party independent software vendors (ISVs) to deliver next generation telecom services leveraging IBM's open, IMS and SOA standards-based service delivery platform."

"By combining the strengths of Nortel and IBM, we are simplifying communications and giving our carrier customers the tools they need to deploy new services and applications quickly and cost effectively," said Alf Decardenas, general manager, Converged Multimedia Networks, Nortel. "Our partnership with IBM will give subscribers a more interactive and entertaining communications experience because they will be able to access their services from any device and roam seamlessly, with uninterrupted service, across any network."

Nortel intends to include IBM's WebSphere Presence and Group List Enabler Software as part of its industry leading IMS portfolio to offer a pre-integrated IMS solution. IBM's solutions are built on the industry leading WebSphere Application Server with its deeply integrated SIP technology for delivering a truly converged HTTP/SIP service execution platform. Nortel plans to deliver IBM's new standard compliant IMS enablers on the IBM BladeCenter family including the new IBM BladeCenter HT.

The expanded partner ecosystem will leverage IBM and Nortel IMS Developer programs offering test simulators, programming guides, and technical enablement resources to drive interoperability and convergence across wireless, wireline and cable networks. This approach will allow partners to rapidly develop and pre-test services without the requirement of a live IMS network.

IBM and Nortel will open a new IMS testing/innovation center at Nortel's Richardson campus. In addition, the companies will expand their efforts at key development sites and the existing IBM Telecom Solutions Innovation Center located in Montpellier, France. The expanded capabilities will enable carriers and development partners the ability to test and run communication services and applications on a live IMS network. The two centers will offer the latest solutions from Nortel's IMS and VoIP portfolios along with IBM's IMS service execution environment.

The combined efforts are based on service oriented architecture (SOA) principles, which enable telecom service providers and ISVs to more easily create and reuse applications or services while abstracting the execution of those services from the underlying network to more rapidly deliver revenue-generating converged services. This will empower carriers to more quickly, easily and affordably create, deploy and manage new, revenue-generating converged services.

The combined ecosystem expansion effort will benefit more than 100 existing Nortel partners and over 1,000 IBM telecom partners in the IBM PartnerWorld industry network. In addition, IBM will bring new application developers who have previously signed on to build services that leverage the open, standards-based WebSphere service execution environment. They include:

- Unified messaging and Hosted IP-PBX software providers GENBAND, Iperia and LignUp;
- Messaging, video applications and media server providers Openmind Networks and RADVISION;
- Voice enabled application providers LignUp and VoiceRite;
- Gaming network providers including Terraplay and game developer Polarbit;

IBM is also working with these partners to extend the value of their services to enterprise customers through IBM's open and extensible Unified Communications and Collaboration platform, IBM Lotus Sametime 7.5.

"RADVISION is pleased to team with IBM and Nortel to enable a wide range of appealing rich multimedia services for IMS next generation networks," says Dr. Amnon Gavish, vice president of Mobility and Service Provider Business Development, RADVISION. "RADVISION views this relationship as strategic in providing value in the market place that can be leveraged by service providers and enterprises. This joint relationship has the potential to pave the way for providing multiparty interactive visual communication services and rich content access on a standard compliant IMS core" - Nortel.