Nortel Establishes New Model for Simple, Open Unified Communications

Delivers Best in Ease of Use, Capabilities, and Openness with New-to-Market Software Communication System

TORONTO - Prompted by strong demand from customers and partners, Nortel* [TSX: NT | OTC: NRTLQ] is expanding its Software Communication System (SCS) solution to accommodate enterprises beyond small and medium-size businesses. SCS brings solution simplicity, new applications, further plug-and-play interoperability and more opportunities for third-party development communities. A recognized leader in unified communications (UC), Nortel supports customers’ evolutionary and transformational paths to UC with telephony UC solutions such as Communication Server 1000 and native UC solutions such as SCS.

“The UC market is in a transition from hardware to software, and for vendors this transition requires conviction to software openness. IP-only vendors will find this transition much more difficult. The winners in this market will be vendors who embrace open, software based solutions and who make software look like another application in the network,” said Zeus Kerravala, senior vice president, Yankee Group. “With SCS, Nortel is delivering a truly open, truly simple UC software solution.”

Many corporate communications systems are strained to support businesses in today’s global economy. The number of touch-points, stakeholder communities, and the speed required for making decisions is greater than ever. Traditional lines between communications functions and IT are also blending and offering new opportunities to improve productivity and better serve customers.

Responding to this trend, many businesses are departing from traditional systems and turning to SCS, a native UC software solution, based on Session Initiation Protocol, the standard for universal communications and interoperability. With SCS, businesses can converge all of their communications into a centralized, easy-to-install, -manage and -use solution that can integrate seamlessly into an existing IT environment with open Web-based interfaces.

“Many of our customers are moving to open standards based, software solutions and away from traditional proprietary systems. Having choices in the components they can use helps them to maintain vendor independence and prevents them from being locked into higher-priced proprietary configurations,” said Gary Scroggs, managing partner, Innovational IP Solutions **, a Nortel partner and Washington state-based company specializing in the development of low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) VoIP solutions.

Release 3.0 of SCS now extends support to industry-standard platforms from IBM, Dell and HP, including IBM Power Systems and System i, Dell Optiplex, and HP Proliant DL360, as well as the recently announced IBM x3350 and Dell PowerEdge R300 systems. In addition to the supported platform expansion, the rapidly growing Nortel SCS Developer Program also offers dozens of interoperable third-party products such as desktop phones, soft phones, gateways, IP consoles, applications like call recording and call accounting, wireless mobility solutions, and much more.

Release 3.0 has also evolved to scale from small and medium-size businesses all the way up to large, distributed enterprise networks. Installation, use and administration remain simple to help businesses avoid outsourcing expenses by enabling them to add new users and make other changes in-house.

“The ability to customize Nortel SCS quickly and cost effectively has allowed us to dramatically improve our customer service,” says Joshua Van Buskirk, Technology Evangelist, PFW Systems Corporation **, a leading provider of Dealership Management Systems throughout North America. PFW is both a Nortel SCS partner and customer.

Van Buskirk added, “We’ve developed an application (PFW VoIPLink) to integrate with Nortel SCS so our dealership customers have all the relevant details on their customers before a representative even answers the call. We believe in the benefits provided by VoIPLink, so we also use it internally to better serve our own customers - the Dealers themselves.”

SCS also offers transparent pricing with an ’all-in-one’ approach. A base user license includes all applications like voicemail and unified messaging, integrated voice conferencing, secure presence and instant messaging, desktop-based video conferencing, single number reachability, an ’informal’ call center, and integration with Microsoft Outlook, IBM Lotus Notes and IBM Lotus Sametime.

“Nortel SCS had the best solution with an inclusive pricing approach that was cost effective, easy to understand and provided the best overall value. Even though other vendors had what they called ’open-standard’ solutions, they weren’t nearly as open as the Nortel SCS solution,” said George Kupka, director, Information Technology, Easter Seals-Goodwill Northern Rocky Mountain, Inc. **, a leading non-profit provider.

By using SCS, businesses can further reduce costs and see compelling return on their investment (ROI) as it allows them to eliminate or cut back on the expenses related to outsourced conferencing fees, calling card and second line costs for teleworkers, real estate, and legacy PBX maintenance charges.

“We did our homework, and Nortel SCS was simply the best return on our investment,” said Erick Wentlandt, director, Information Technologies, Tax Technologies Inc. **, a New Jersey-based provider of solutions for corporate tax departments. “We’re saving close to $40,000 per year with an ROI of less than 13 months.”

Further, recent research by Info-Tech Research Group has found that the three-year TCO of Nortel’s SCS solution is lower than similar offerings from competitors.

Nortel SCS was named a TMC 2008 Communications Solutions Product of the Year ** Award. SCS was also a recipient of the 2008 Product of the Year Award ** from Unified Communications Magazine.

SCS was developed in collaboration with Nortel and the open source community SIPfoundry ( www.sipfoundry.org **). Nortel continues to support the SIPfoundry sipXecs IP PBX open source initiative as the primary developer, and maintains a close relationship with developers and end users to evolve the SCS solution to better meet our customer needs.

For more information on Nortel SCS, please visit www.nortel.com/scs .

About Nortel

Nortel delivers 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. For more information, visit Nortel on the Web at www.nortel.com . For the latest Nortel news, visit www.nortel.com/news .

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