As the demand for SIP trunking and voice peering connections appears to continue, IntelePeer (News - Alert) Inc., a leader in hosted on-demand rich media communications, today announced it is working with Microsoft Corp. to enable and accelerate deployment of hosted unified communications solutions delivered from “the cloud” by Microsoft’s (News - Alert) channel partners.

 

In an interview with TMCnet, Charles Studt (News - Alert), vice president of product management of IntelePeer, said the company recently underwent a certification process with Microsoft and the relationship gives both organizations a significant opportunity for growth.

 

“We’ve gone through a very rigorous certification process, that Microsoft just put into place to certify the quality and capabilities of folks offering network services to their OCS deployments and ultimately had passed with flying colors and will be able to supply all of the backend network services that OCS deployments require to be able to supply communications functionality to their deployment,” said Studt.

 

He added that Microsoft is seen as a tremendous opportunity in putting unified communications on the enterprise desktop.

 

“As organizations look to leverage not only the cost savings but also the productivity enhancements around unified communications, Microsoft has seen a large growth in the number of OCS deployments and the corresponding services behind the scenes that enable those to talk to the rest of the world are really important,” Studt said. “We are essentially providing that SIP trunking communications capability into all of those deployments and I think it’s a really great growth story both for us and for Microsoft.”

According to company officials, the IntelePeer Voice Peering Network has been qualified to provide SIP trunking for Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Release 2, offering a “seamless” connection to IntelePeer’s global carrier-grade IP network to make high-quality voice calls. IntelePeer’s Cloud-based infrastructure is directly interoperable with any Office Communications Server 2007 R2 deployment, eliminating the need for additional vendor equipment to support SIP trunking.

 

“We are excited about several aspects of working with Microsoft, who has been a great partner for us in a number of different areas already and we fully embrace the expansion in unified communications,” said Margaret Norton, general manager of IntelePeer’s AppworX Business Unit. “This gives us a great opportunity to continue to extend our capabilities and reach in that area, helps to foster the development of new applications that are going to enhance that area and gives us a very good opportunity to expand our footprint into the enterprise market as well.”

 

The qualification allows IntelePeer to provide a so-called turnkey solution, enabling Microsoft channel partners to offer a complete set of advanced voice services and to generate new revenue by hosting Office Communications Server 2007 R2 on behalf of business users. Microsoft channel partners also benefit from access to the IntelePeer AppworX Open Communications Platform, which allows partners to further enhance their Microsoft unified communications offering with advanced voice features integrated into existing business applications that optimize workflow, foster greater collaboration and accelerate marketing initiatives.

 

“IntelePeer provides our channel partners with a powerful communications solution,” said Moz Hussain, director, unified communications group at Microsoft. “The combination of IntelePeer with Office Communications Server 2007 R2 creates an innovative suite of communications services that can be quickly brought to market by our partners.”