Microsoft and Nortel announce alliance

Microsoft and Nortel announced today that they are getting together to work on what they're calling Unified Communications. Microsoft, it will not surprise you to learn, sees the PC and not the telephone as businesses' main communications tool. With an earlier announcement of a new communications server, an increased interest in hosted services and a development alliance with Nortel, expect Microsoft to make a big play in the VoIP market--starting today. The Innovative Communications Alliance, as the companies are calling it, will use platform software from Microsoft and application software from Nortel. Not a whisper about handsets.

For more information about the Innovative Communications Alliance:
- check out this press release from Microsoft