azurance Helps SMBS Improve Customer Care with Nortel and Microsoft Unified Communications

Hosted Service follows success of Azurance's own unified communications implementation.

SEPTEMBER 12, 2007. HONG KONG - Azurance, a Hong Kong IT and communications outsourcing company, will help small and medium businesses (SMBs) improve customer care and increase customer loyalty by providing an advanced unified communications solution from Microsoft and Nortel* [NYSE/TSX: NT] as a hosted service.  The joint Nortel and Microsoft Innovative Communications Alliance solution will run from Azurance's two resilient data centers, with SMBs paying a monthly fee to access unified communications applications including email, instant messaging, telephony, conferencing, video, web and file sharing. Employees can use the features from anywhere, on a wide variety of devices allowing them to focus less on technology and more on providing better customer service. 

Azurancerecently implemented a joint Nortel and Microsoft unified communications platform within its own business to provide consistent management of customer contact via phone calls, the Internet, mobile phones, email, voicemail, and instant messaging. As a result of the deployment, the joint solution has enhanced Azurance's resolution of customer queries, streamlined its business processes, and improved the efficiency of everyday communications among employees, customers, suppliers and partners. 

"We selected this technology because Nortel's close alliance with Microsoft on unified communications ties Nortel's robust communications capabilities with Microsoft's strong credentials in enterprise messaging software," said Brad Pfeffer, managing director, Asia-Pacific, Azurance. "We tested solutions from various vendors and found that Nortel and Microsoft provided the most stable, mature and fully-featured equipment which is easily integrated and provides a seamless experience across products. Now that we have seen for ourselves how beneficial the solution is, we're eager to help other SMBs realize the same benefits." 

"Unified communications breaks down the barriers between voice, email, conferencing, video, and instant messaging," said David Wong, managing director, Hong Kong, Macau and South China, Nortel. "However, acquiring unified communications in-house requires a significant investment in applications and skilled staff. By offering this solution to SMBs as a hosted service, Azurance is helping businesses gain the benefits of unified communications, without the complexity of managing the services in-house." 

"Collaborating with Nortel has helped us encapsulate advanced unified communications functionality in a cost-effective solution that scales from the largest business down to the smallest," said Adam Anger, senior director, Business and Marketing Organization, Microsoft Hong Kong. "We continue to work closely with Nortel to provide Azurance and its customers with solutions that deliver competitive advantage by simplifying and transforming their business communications." 

The Innovative Communications Alliance unified communications solution is based on Microsoft Office Live Communications Server 2005 and its client application, Microsoft Office Communicator 2005. Both integrate with the Nortel Communication Server 1000E and Call Pilot to deliver full-featured telephony and unified communications capabilities. Azurance also plans to upgrade the unified communications solution that integrates with Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007. Since the formation of the Innovative Communications Alliance in July 2006, customers have purchased and deployed more than 430,000 licenses of the joint technology. More information about the Innovative Communications Alliance is available at www.innovativecommunicationsalliance.com.  

About Nortel  

Nortel is a recognized leader in delivering communications capabilities that make the promise of Business Made Simple a reality for our customers. Our next-generation technologies, for both service provider and enterprise networks, support multimedia and business-critical applications. Nortel's technologies are designed to help eliminate today's barriers to efficiency, speed and performance by simplifying networks and connecting people to the information they need, when they need it. Nortel does business in more than 150 countries around the world. For more information, visit Nortel on the Web at www.nortel.com. For the latest Nortel news, visit www.nortel.com/news. 

_{Certain statements in this press release may contain words such as "could", "expects", "may", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "targets", "envisions", "seeks" and other similar language and are considered forward-looking statements or information under applicable securities legislation. These statements are based on Nortel's current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections about the operating environment, economies and markets in which Nortel operates. These statements are subject to important assumptions, risks and uncertainties, which are difficult to predict and the actual outcome may be materially different from those contemplated in forward-looking statements. For additional information with respect to certain of these and other factors, see Nortel's Annual Report on Form10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and other securities filings with the SEC. Unless otherwise required by applicable securities laws, Nortel disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.} 

*Nortel, the Nortel logo and the Globemark are trademarks of Nortel Networks.