Sprint announces new unified communications offerings

Sprint announced today the availability of its new unified communications solutions through its Business Markets Group. In promoting the new offerings, Sprint trumpeted its partnerships with Cisco, IBM, Microsoft and others and its "leadership in wireless-wireline integration."

As part of the release, Sprint announced it is can offer SIP trunking and mobile integration with Cisco's Unified Communications Manager, IBM's SameTime Unified Telephony platform, and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Release 2.

"Enabling unified communications is a cornerstone of Sprint's strategy to serve the rapidly evolving and increasing demands of the business and government market via our dependable Now Network," said Paget Alves, president of the carrier's Business Markets Group, in a release. "Our customers operate in a complex environment, but they need just the opposite in their communications experience. We are converging wireless and wireline technologies into an unprecedented user experience that is fully mobile, flexible, feature-rich, simplified and cost-efficient."

In the release, Sprint also touted the $6 million it has saved using the unified communications solutions internally.

Sprint's Business Markets Group is a significant revenue driver for the company, as the group provided almost $4 billion in revenue in the first quarter.

For more:
- see the press release here
- see the Business Markets Group earnings results release here 

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