Vodafone and Microsoft forge global deal on business services

Vodafone and Microsoft have teamed up to offer a business comms and collaboration package for businesses. Microsoft Online Services is launching in the US today and will hit other markets in the first half of 2009.

Under the agreement Vodafone will offer a single package involving both fixed and mobile voice and data, customer equipment and handsets to both large and small business users.

The services themselves will be hosted by Microsoft and will comprise Microsoft Exchange for email; SharePoint for collaboration; Office Communications for instant messaging and presence; and Live Meeting for web conferencing and videoconferencing.

The offer seems to be designed to appeal to businesses looking to trim costs and rationalise their comms environments by pulling all these capabilities into a single package. As a global player with a presence in all the main developed markets, Vodafone is a natural fit for Microsoft.

The companies say they're going to grow the partnership and the capabilities available from the unified comms package to include Vodafone Voice Services (not yet included) and Virtual PBX capabilities.

Source: http://web20.telecomtv.com