Alcatel Announces Availability of User-Centric Conferencing and Collaboration Solutions at VoiceCon 2005

Alcatel Announces Availability of User-Centric Conferencing and Collaboration Solutions at VoiceCon 2005

ORLANDO, Fla., Feb. 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Alcatel (NYSE: ALA; Paris: CGEP.PA) today announced the worldwide availability of new conferencing and collaboration solutions at the VoiceCon conference, taking place February 7-10 in Orlando, Fla. With a user-centric approach that leverages presence and spans multiple media and devices, Alcatel's latest solutions provide enterprise employees the ability to instantly communicate with contacts, access business intelligence and applications from any location, and collaborate with colleagues in real-time.

Leveraging the company's recent eDial acquisition, Alcatel's new enterprise communications solutions are based on a "SIP-to-the-Core" architecture, providing multimedia collaboration applications. The new offerings are ideal for companies looking to implement workgroup conferencing and collaboration to improve interactions and accelerate business processes between colleagues, customers and partners, including those in the financial services, healthcare, defense, education, telecommunication and government sectors.

"Today's announcement represents the next big advance in our software and applications strategy," said Jean-Christophe Giroux, President of Alcatel enterprise activities. "Our latest enterprise offerings will drive the adoption of instant communications and collaboration applications, helping increase the speed and efficiency of doing business."

"Multimedia conferencing and collaboration solutions can enhance individual and group productivity through better use and management of communications," said Gartner Vice President Bern Elliot. "As these types of offerings continue to emerge, they can also increase overall business productivity through integration of communications with key business processes."

The new offerings include My Teamwork, a deployment-ready application that enables knowledge sharing and workgroup collaboration through voice and data conferencing. Through a simple-to-use web interface or using the phone, users can initiate conferences, including audio, data and application sharing -- either scheduled or on-demand leveraging presence. My Teamwork is currently available as an integrated application included in the award-winning Alcatel OmniTouch Unified Communication software suite, as well in a stand-alone version -- both of which are optimized for the Alcatel OmniPCX IP communications platforms. The Alcatel OmniTouch Unified Communication suite delivers enterprise telephony, personal contact routing, unified messaging and instant conferencing.

To address enterprises with disparate networks, Alcatel will also bring to market its multi-platform Instant Collaboration System (ICS). Alcatel's ICS software is a deployment-ready application that enables enterprises and service providers to immediately deliver rich, cost-effective collaboration capabilities across any infrastructure, including multi-vendor PBX environments. Also a browser-based solution, Alcatel's ICS software provides presence-based conferencing and calling, secure instant messaging and full web conferencing. Requiring no software downloads, ICS easily deploys into networks that include a variety of desktop platforms (PCs, MACs, Unix/Linux), and supports both PSTN and Voice-over-IP calling.

Alcatel also offers Automated Message Delivery System (AMDS), providing enterprises an easy-to-use, cost-effective application for delivery of broadcast voice messages to any list of phone numbers. This software-based solution scales up or down, from large organizations to small. Enterprise and institutional uses include investment bulletins, event or emergency alerts, meeting notifications, or customer status updates.

Both the ICS and AMDS applications are delivered on Alcatel's Advanced Communications Server (ACS) platform. The ACS platform is also available as a stand-alone offering for companies wishing to develop their own workgroup- oriented, multimedia telephony and collaboration applications. ACS offers a range of industry-standard XML- and SIP-based APIs to facilitate application development and integration.

About Alcatel

Alcatel provides communications solutions to telecommunication carriers, Internet service providers and enterprises for delivery of voice, data and video applications to their customers or to their employees. Alcatel leverages its leading position in fixed and mobile broadband networks, applications and services to bring value to its customers in the framework of a broadband world. With sales of EURO 12.3 billion in 2004, Alcatel operates in more than 130 countries. For more information, visit Alcatel on the Internet: http://www.alcatel.com/ .

Photo: Newscom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20031111/ALALOGO
AP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.org/
PRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.com
Source: Alcatel

CONTACT: press, Aurelie Boutin, +33-0-1-40-76-11-79, or
aurelie.boutin@alcatel.com , or Florence Pontieux, +33-0-1-40-76-12-02, or
florence.pontieux@alcatel.com , or enterprise solutions, Tracy Dupree,
+1-818-878-4408, or Tracy.Dupree@alcatel.com , or investor relations, Pascal
Bantegnie, +33-0-1-40-76-52-20, or pascal.bantegnie@alcatel.com , or Nicolas
Leyssieux, +33-0-1-40-76-37-32, or nicolas.leyssieux@alcatel.com , or Maria
Alcon, +33-0-1-40-76-15-17, or maria.alcon@alcatel.com , or Charlotte Laurent-
Ottomane, +1-703-668-3571, or charlotte.laurent-ottomane@alcatel.com , all of
Alcatel

Web site: http://www.alcatel.com/


-------
Profile: intent