Under the terms of a new alliance, Microsoft and Ubiquity said they will help operators address critical issues such as the integration of service delivery platform (SDP) deployments with next-generation network implementations based on the IP Multimedia Subsystem (News - Alert)(IMS) standard. The combined solutions will help operators extend the capabilities of IMS to create applications that integrate multiple Web services with real-time communications features.
As such, the deal is likely to be considerably more valuable to Microsoft, which gains from Ubiquity’s Session Initiation Protocol (News - Alert)(SIP) expertise. On the other side of the table, Microsoft’s newest U.K. partner merely gains another distribution channel through the Microsoft Connected Services Framework, which unlike the software giant’s penetration on the client side is facing considerably more challenges breaking into the vertical market for operators and carriers.
