Lucent Technologies to Offer Complete Unified Messaging Solution to Service Providers Under the Convenience of a Single Contract - Company Business and Marketing

Cambridge Telcom Report, Oct 18, 1999

Monday at the Telecom 99 Conference, Lucent Technologies announced that it will provide a new unified messaging solution to service providers based on Microsoft Exchange and Lucent's Unified Messenger systems. The solution, which will be sold to service providers and marketed to businesses, brings together a company's complete voice mail, e-mail and fax capabilities into a single system.

As a result of the agreement, Lucent becomes the first company licensed to resell Microsoft Exchange to global service providers and will offer a complete unified messaging solution to service providers -- hardware, software, services and support -- under a single contract. The new solution is called Unified Messenger for Service Providers.

Service providers will be able to offer unified messaging services to businesses in two ways: first, as a hosted application where the hardware and software reside on the service provider's network; second, as an on-premise managed service, where the equipment is located at the business's location and the service provider manages and maintains the equipment remotely.

Unified messaging services is a rapidly growing market. In fact, Ovum, an independent research firm based in London, estimates that unified messaging services revenues worldwide were $10 million in 1998 and are expected to grow to $31 billion in year 2006 -- a compound annual growth rate of 173 percent.

"The market for managed services, including applications hosting, is exploding, and Lucent's expanded relationship with Microsoft will help accelerate unified messaging revenues for service providers," said Bill O'Shea, president, Lucent Business Communications Systems. "By combining our market-leading products into a single offer, we're making it easy for service providers to deliver the converged communications solutions their business customers want."

Unified Messenger for Service Providers combines all voice, e-mail and fax messages into a single mailbox and features a single directory. It integrates with both the telephone and data networks and allows users to access, create and manage all of their messages from a personal computer or telephone, anywhere, at any time. Microsoft Exchange provides the e-mail component for Unified Messenger.

"Telecommunications service providers have an amazing opportunity to help businesses increase productivity and convenience by offering unified access to all types of information including voice mail, email and faxes," said Steve Ballmer, president, Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT). "With Lucent offering Microsoft Exchange, service providers can now provide a complete unified messaging solution for their business customers."

Telstra, a leading service provider in Australia, has been offering Unified Messenger for Microsoft Exchange to its business and government customers as part of its advanced Managed Service offering.

"The service fits well into our Managed Service concept, enhancing employee productivity while at the same time reducing operating costs," said Chris Gundy, general manager of Services Marketing for Telstra Business Solutions he said. "By implementing Unified Messenger as part of Telstra's managed communication environment, our customers obtain maximum flexibility without having to fund the initial capital outlay for purchase of new equipment."

Unified Messenger for Service Providers will be demonstrated in Lucent's booth # 4021 and in Microsoft's booth # 7095. The solution will be available from Lucent in Canada and the United States in the first quarter of 2000; and in Australia, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the United Kingdom in the second quarter of 2000.

Lucent will offer Unified Messenger and Microsoft Exchange client licenses to wireline, Internet Service Providers and Application Service Providers on a monthly basis. Additionally, Lucent will work with its partners worldwide to supply hardware, installation and support services.

Lucent Technologies, headquartered in Murray Hill, N.J., USA, designs, builds and delivers a wide range of public and private networks, communications systems and software, data networking systems, business telephone systems and microelectronic components. Bell Laboratories is the research and development arm for the company. For more information on Lucent Technologies, visit its web site at http://www.lucent.com .