| Launch of OpenTouch™ Suite for Cloud provides an efficient, collaborative experience for today’s workers, with partners in three regions already signing up to be the first to deploy the technology
Enterprise Connect 2013, Orlando, FL – March 19, 2013 – Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) today announced a new suite of solutions to help enterprises migrate to the cloud and apply more cost effective business models as they address the challenge of delivering communications services for a highly mobile, application-driven workforce.
Cloud technology offers businesses the ability to integrate secure, advanced communications and collaboration capabilities that increase employee productivity while also being cost-effective. With this in mind, Alcatel-Lucent is building on strength of its innovative, award winning OpenTouch architecture for mid-to-large enterprises and SMBs by introducing its third offer, the OpenTouch™ Suite for Cloud. This will enable such enterprises to meet the high communications expectations of today’s workplace brought on by the popularity of smartphones, tablets and the ‘Bring Your Own Device’ trend.
The new offer will contain three segmented solutions: the Enterprise Cloud, the Office Cloud and the Personal Cloud. The first from this suite, the OpenTouch Enterprise Cloud Solution, is available today and enables service providers, system integrators and channels to deliver Unified Communication as a Service (UCaaS) giving employees the collaborative experience they want. The OpenTouch Enterprise Cloud solution combines the rich conversation experience of OpenTouch with Alcatel-Lucent’s OmniPCX Enterprise success in telephony, video, instant messaging, presence, conferencing and Web collaboration to bring the ultimate collaboration experience all accessible from the cloud.
It is a software suite, is hardware agnostic and fully virtualized for easy deployment and adoption. Its architectural advantages make it possible to deploy all in the cloud or as an overlay to an existing CPE-based telephony infrastructure with minimum disruption to operations.
Alcatel-Lucent’s first three strategic partners for OpenTouch Enterprise Cloud include  Icon Voice Networks, LLC in the United States, Switch Communications in the UK, and UXC Connect in Australia. These partners will provide their customers with an innovative, cost-effective, secure solution that delivers a collaborative experience from any device. Based on an innovative yet flexible RTU (right-to-use) elastic software license, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise business partners can now offer the OpenTouch Enterprise Cloud solution in a flexible SaaS cloud model, enabling a wide range of user devices to collaborate within and beyond the enterprise.
Quotes:
Evan Kirchheimer, Enterprise Practice Leader, Ovum said: “More and more businesses are seriously considering accessing UC services from the cloud. Our research tells us that ICT decision makers are more likely to consider both private and public cloud options than unmanaged, premises-based collaboration solutions as they make new UC investments. While UCaaS remains in its infancy, there are a growing number of providers offering cloud UC solutions. We feel confident that enterprises can adopt UCaaS and know that there are a number of viable and robust solutions in the market that offer an affordable means to access advanced UC and collaboration tools.”
Michel Emelianoff, President, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, said: “Introducing the OpenTouch Enterprise Cloud solution opens new opportunities for enterprises and our partners to embrace UCaaS no matter the size of their business. This new offer is based on OpenTouch, a next generation and polymorphic architecture, which offers the same technology deployed on the premise, in the cloud or a combination of both. We see the level of excitement already generated with our partners and are working to further expansions in other markets as we speak.
Today’s announcement is only the beginning of our efforts to bring the enterprise closer to the cloud. Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise is committed to delivering solutions that enable cloud services for the enterprise from a variety of approaches, be it business driven or user driven.”
Additional information
Visitors to Enterprise Connect 2013 can find Alcatel-Lucent at Booth #1419 of the Gaylord Palms resort in Orlando, FL where the event is taking place from March 19-21 |