HP & Alca-Lu sign 10-year deal, will jointly develop IP telephony products

Alcatel-Lucent and Hewlett Packard announced a 10-year global alliance Thursday that aims to bring customers converged telecommunications and IT equipment. The companies will jointly market any resulting products, which will include Alca-Lu IP telephony and unified communications products combined with HP IT solutions. The companies said they would target these offerings at the mid to large-size enterprises and public sector companies.

This is HP's second major announcement on unified communications products in less than a month, as HP and Microsoft announced a $180 million UC partnership [1] on May 19.

HP and Alca-Lu want to create a "one-stop shop" for service providers to transform their IT and telecom infrastructures, as well as "truly integrated communication environments," according to the release.

"We expect customers will be able to create new business opportunities and greater efficiencies from this alliance," said Mark Hurd, HP chairman and chief executive officer, in a release. "By combining our deep expertise in IT and communications, HP and Alcatel-Lucent will help customers transform their technology needs into a competitive edge."

For more:
- see the joint press release here [2]