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Communications industry players Avaya and Samsung Electronics announced a new partnership through which they will design, build and market services for enterprise customers based around Internet Protocol technologies.
Under the terms of the tie-up, classified by the firms as a strategic alliance, the companies will collaborate for both product development and eventual sales of a new package of IP-based phone services that will eventually include both wireless and landline applications.
During the first phase of the partnership, company officials said, Samsung will offer the two companies first jointly created IP communications offering in Korea; it will be marketed in other regions after completing a test period.
The companies said that they will subsequently co-develop and market voice, video and data services, and specifically highlighted their desire to offer bundled offerings that combine the three different communications platforms for use by businesses. As the market for VOIP (voice over IP) expands, the companies are hoping to create opportunities to blend various technologies into packages of integrated applications and services, executives said.
“Our joint products will be based on VOIP, but there will also be a major focus on creating new mobile technologies that tap into the larger potential of IP-based communications services,” said Micky Tsui, vice president of converged communications at Avaya. “We hope to see customers taking advantage of this opportunity and expanding their enterprise mobility strategies and systems capabilities to deliver new applications to all of their devices.”
Tsui said that the alliance will also involve co-development of technologies meant to enhance Avayas existing IP-based mobility and convergence products, which will either be co-branded or individually branded, and sold through his firms global sales channels. In addition, the companies plan to build new products for the WLAN (wireless LAN) market.
Tsui said Samsungs established position in the telecom industry, particularly in mobile technology, and Avayas IP telephony expertise will complement each other and provide customers with better choices of IP-based network services.
“Our focus will be on enterprise IP and convergence of voice and data, as well as wired and wireless, as we take advantage of each others strengths,” said Tsui. “We think that there is a lot of complementary technology that we can share moving forward.”
The partners will look to deliver their new products sometime during the second half of 2006, Tsui said, but the executive declined to speculate on what those products might be.
Samsung officials also increased the companys yearly sales forecast at a meeting in Korea, predicting that the firm will report revenues of roughly $67 billion in 2006.