Biggies go in on VoIP

Big guys Intel Corporation and Siemens Communications today announced the establishment of a technology relationship between the two companies that includes an agreement to collaboratively create open unified communications solutions based on voiceover internet protocol.

Under terms of the agreement, Intel and Siemens will jointly fund and cooperatively conduct research focused on secure wireless networks. In the longer term, the mission statement calls for the firms to “create comprehensive vertical industry collaboration solutions to drive business process optimization for key market segments such as telecommunications service providers, financial services and digital healthcare.”

Additional bits of the agreement call for the two companies to establish joint market development efforts focusing on the enterprise and service provider sectors.

Nothing terribly specific was announced, but Intel dual-core technology and carrier-class Rack Mounted Servers from Intel and the HiPath 8000 and OpenScape from Siemens were confirmed as open for development.

Reportedly, step one will be to demonstrate the OpenScape platform running applications such as Personal Portal; unified communications; video and voice conferencing; and Mobile Clients. Intel and Siemens have stated that findings and “the first wave of technology solutions” from the Intel lab will be revealed by year’s end.

The Intel lab will also reportedly act as a center for the optimization and integration of products from independent software vendors and third-party systems to work with the new VoIP technologies.