Nortel Bolsters Unified Communications Solutions with Innovative Applications, Services

Richer Collaboration Accelerates Business Communications

SEATTLE – New capabilities introduced today by Nortel* [TSX: NT, OTC: NRTLQ] to complement Microsoft Office Communications Server unified communications solutions significantly improve the ability for enterprises to serve their customers in a more comprehensive fashion more quickly, providing critical competitive advantage. The new capabilities were unveiled at the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Release 2 virtual launch **.

“The combination of Office Communications Server 2007 Release 2 and Nortel’s applications and services provides a powerful new way for people to collaborate and offers customers a rich and integrated communications experience,” said Eric Swift, senior director of the Microsoft Unified Communications Group at Microsoft Corp. “Nortel’s applications and services are adding significant value to enterprise communications and enabling businesses to better connect people, information and business processes.”

The solution set is based on the integration with Office Communications Server 2007 R2. Nortel’s industry-leading unified communications application development capabilities, coupled with Nortel Unified Communications Services, bring real-time communications capabilities to the integrated suite and enterprise applications.

“These solutions are transforming the enterprise - they are revolutionizing the way people communicate. Integrating communications with business applications brings the power of instant collaboration, minimizing latency from human interaction in the business process,” said Joel Hackney, president, Enterprise Solutions, Nortel.

“We are seeing uptake from all over the world with more than 1,000 customers for these Microsoft and Nortel Innovative Communications Alliance solutions. Enterprises are reaping the profound benefits of deploying unified communications and the productivity gains our customers are seeing run, on average, about 18 percent. We are continuing to innovate and deliver the technology that drives savings in terms of time and total cost of ownership that pays for itself in as little as six months,” Hackney said.

As an early adopter of Office Communications Server 2007 R2, Nortel ramped up its services practice for the new release. Office Communications Server 2007 R2 offers new collaboration features, including audio conferencing dial-in, desktop sharing, and the ability to participate in live group discussions that persist over time.

Integration of Nortel Contact Center with Office Communications Server 2007 R2 will provide unified presence of experts to call center agents, and allows new ways for customers to reach call centers that ensure customer resolution is reached quickly and efficiently on first contact. For example, customers can reach the contact center by phone or IM, and agents can escalate an IM to an audio or a video session. This is just one way that Nortel is able to take advantage of Office Communications Server 2007 R2 to help companies improve their interactions with customers.

Key capabilities include the availability of new context to enable richer collaboration capabilities such as location and presence features that enable people to know if the person they seek is available and by what means by which they would like to be contacted, all from a simple interface. This also makes business applications more efficient.

Nortel has enhanced its services practice to provide Office Communications Server 2007 R2 network assessment, design and deployment capability. With more than 160 trained and certified Office Communications Server professionals, Nortel is well-positioned to meet the increasing demand of the Office Communication Server 2007 R2 in the market place.

With the availability of new application programming interfaces in Office Communications Server 2007 R2, Nortel Services is creating new, high-value, custom capabilities that embed communications into business applications. For example, Nortel has developed an application and service to link Office Communications Server 2007 R2 with user and device location and presence features, which can have tremendous value in solving real-life business problems.

Gartner Inc, the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company, has positioned both Microsoft and Nortel in the Leaders quadrant in the September 2008 ’Unified Communications Magic Quadrant’ report. To view Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications, 2008 click here .

About Nortel

Nortel is a recognized leader in delivering communications capabilities that make the promise of Business Made Simple a reality for our customers. Our next-generation technologies, for both service provider and enterprise networks, support multimedia and business-critical applications. Nortel’s technologies are designed to help eliminate today’s barriers to efficiency, speed and performance by simplifying networks and connecting people to the information they need, when they need it. Nortel does business in more than 150 countries around the world. For more information, visit Nortel on the Web at www.nortel.com . For the latest Nortel news, visit www.nortel.com/news .

Certain statements in this press release may contain words such as “could”, “expects”, “may”, “anticipates”, “believes”, “intends”, “estimates”, “targets”, “envisions”, “seeks” and other similar language and are considered forward-looking statements or information under applicable securities legislation. These statements are based on Nortel’s current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections about the operating environment, economies and markets in which Nortel operates. These statements are subject to important assumptions, risks and uncertainties, which are difficult to predict and the actual outcome may be materially different from those contemplated in forward-looking statements. For additional information with respect to certain of these and other factors, see Nortel’s Annual Report on Form10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and other securities filings with the SEC. Unless otherwise required by applicable securities laws, Nortel disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

*Nortel, the Nortel logo and the Globemark are trademarks of Nortel Networks.
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The Magic Quadrant is copyrighted 2008 by Gartner, Inc. and is reused with permission. The Magic Quadrant is a graphical representation of a marketplace at and for a specific time period. It depicts Gartner’s analysis of how certain vendors measure against criteria for that marketplace, as defined by Gartner. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in the Magic Quadrant, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors placed in the “Leaders” quadrant. The Magic Quadrant is intended solely as a research tool, and is not meant to be a specific guide to action. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.