BT has developed an enterprise-class platform in
collaboration with Microsoft to host dedicated Microsoft Lync Voice pilots in
BT’s Irving, Texas Operations Center for US-centric customers.

 

“The pilot is a further expansion of our exceptional
relationship with BT. Our goal is to work together to maximize the benefits of
converged communications to increase business growth for our customers,”
said Kirk Gregerson, general manager, Microsoft Lync, Microsoft.

 

The pilot augments BT’s existing global Managed Lync
services offering, a part of the BT One portfolio offering. Each pilot instance
can support up to 250 users, and offers a features-rich experience of this
convergent technology including IM, presence, audio/web/video conferencing, as
well as Lync’s full Enterprise Voice capabilities.

 

The environment and service is fully operational, during
the 90-day trial period, each customer will be offered the opportunity to test
a complete range of production-class Lync functions.

Key aspects of Lync features and functionality will be
modeled and tested under customer-specific conditions. A specialized team will
walk customers through implementation, planning and design, test and profile
Lync-certified audio endpoint devices, then define next steps and assist the
customer in selecting the best solution among the choice of BT’s Lync service
options.

 

The service includes on-premise Lync system integration,
on-premise Lync managed service, or hosted, managed Lync service.

 

“This pilot environment was designed to address the
unique customer requirements for a Lync-based ‘cloud’ managed service. The
company is able to introduce customers  a low-risk opportunity to evaluate
a production-class Lync environment while benefiting from substantially lower
costs and faster time-to-production of a pilot compared to a typical on-premise
systems integration project,” said Jason Cook, Chief Architect & CTO,
CPG and US & Canada, BT Global Services.

 

BT unveiled the shared pilot platform at the Microsoft
2011 Worldwide Partner Conference, where BT was chosen by the Microsoft Voice
field as 2011 Alliance Partner of the Year.

 

Recently, BT bagged two framework contracts worth up to $156 million from the European
Parliament.

 

The five year contracts cover networked IT services,
including the supply of network equipment and applications as well as all
associated professional services for the European Parliament’s
telecommunications infrastructure and systems.

 

By Telecomlead.com Team
[email protected]