HP and Alcatel Lucent this morning announced the first offerings growing out of the alliance they concluded last year, with a focus on services and integration.Today's announcement centers not on products but on "solutions," focusing on the HP services business working together with Alcatel-Lucent on design, implementation and support of Unified Communications deployments for the enterprise. I spoke with Neal Tilley, global solutions director for Alcatel-Lucent, and Rich Skoba, director of Unified Communications and Collaboration at HP, and they talked in terms of increasing the functionality and interoperability of UC for customers, making sure enterprises get the right solutions and services for their business needs. here's what the press release says is covered in the new announcement:
* Migration from multivendor and legacy PBX to an IP voice integration layer that uses Alcatel-Lucent's open IP Telephony architecture for UC&C. HP will help clients achieve a greater return on their UC&C investments by using the Genesys Customer Interaction management Platform, UC connect solutions and the Alcatel-Lucent OmniTouch Instant Communication Suite and IP Telephony offering--the OmniPCX Enterprise.
* Automated workflow and workload within business processes reduce operational costs by increasing the effectiveness of all enterprise-wide resources and superior customer service with HP and Genesys intelligent Workload Distribution.
* Industry applications for UC&C that demonstrate a streamlined approach to reducing costs and improving efficiency, such as Digital Hospital. HP will use Alcatel-Lucent's Advanced Communication Server to provide an enhanced, open UC&C integration layer across industry domains, including healthcare, financial services, utilities and government.
* Automated workflow and workload within business processes reduce operational costs by increasing the effectiveness of all enterprise-wide resources and superior customer service with HP and Genesys intelligent Workload Distribution.
* Industry applications for UC&C that demonstrate a streamlined approach to reducing costs and improving efficiency, such as Digital Hospital. HP will use Alcatel-Lucent's Advanced Communication Server to provide an enhanced, open UC&C integration layer across industry domains, including healthcare, financial services, utilities and government.
The emphasis, then, is on the "consultative" sale, on using HP's services divisions--Enterprise Services (the former EDS) and Technology Services--working with Alcatel-Lucent experts on the ALU-centric deployments, according to Neal Tilley, Global Solutions Director for Alcatel-Lucent, and Rich Skoba, director of Unified Communications and Collaboration at HP.
Rich Skoba said HP will focus much of this effort at the business unit level, trying to bring together all the elements of the enterprise organization that touch the solution--BU leaders as well as the decision-makers in the IT organizations.
On a related note, one thing HP still isn't talking about is what it plans to do with the communications capabilities it acquired when it bought 3Com late last year. I posed the question directly to Rich Skoba, and he demurred, saying HP wasn't ready to comment on these plans.
