IBM Corp. and Cisco Systems Inc. have agreed to jointly develop and sell IP (Internet Protocol) telephony systems, the companies announced Tuesday.
As part of the agreement, Cisco's voice, video and conference products will be coupled with IBM's global services offerings, the companies said in a statement.
Along with selling the IP products and services through its Global Services contracts, IBM, in Armonk, New York, and Cisco, in San Jose, California, will also offer the new and existing products to ISVs (independent software vendors) and service providers that want to serve as channel partners, the companies said.
The existing Cisco products include its CallManager call processing software, CallManager Express, its communication services Unity and Unity Express, MeetingPlace, Personal Assistant and its IP Contact Center. Those products will be integrated with IBM products such as Lotus Domino unified communications, IBM's Information Management database software and Tivoli systems management certification.
IBM will offer support for Cisco CallManager on its eServer xSeries x345 and x306 server platforms, as well as on two new Cisco media convergence servers, the MCS 7815I and the MCS 7825I, based on IBM technology, the companies said.
The agreement, for which financial details were not disclosed, builds upon an existing relationship between the two companies. IBM has implemented 20,000 Cisco IP telephones since first installing its IP telephony at IBM's Toronto software laboratory in 2001, the companies said.
Earlier this year, Cisco and IBM began a collaboration on security, allowing customers to authenticate IBM-based laptop and PC clients on Cisco-based LAN and remote-access infrastructures. As part of that effort, the companies integrated security management products such as IBM Tivoli's Identity Manager with Cisco's Access Control Server.
