Lucent Technologies Inc. announced it is expanding its growing managed services business again, adding hosted IP PBX and mobile extensions to its services. The company has also expanded its integrator relationships for the development and installation of hosted services for service provider customers.
Lucent further announced two new reseller relationships with ChoiceOne Communications and with PAETEC Communications Inc.
The new hosted IP PBX service, branded the Lucent Feature Server 3000, is described as “our own software suite with some BroadSoft (Inc., a leading provider of software for hosted IP voice services),” says Ashok Shah, global professional services vice president, Lucent Worldwide Services.
In addition, the company has added Mobile Extensions, a new feature set that replicates the features of an office PBX on mobile phones, such as sharing the same phone number, four-digit extension dialing and a single voice mailbox.
The services are packaged with Lucent network gateways and gateway controllers, as well as a provisioning system and Lucent’s network management suite, called Vital Suite. The services further are bundled with Lucent’s own managed security service.
The services will be offered on a white-label basis to other service providers and large enterprise customers, much as Lucent’s managed security and hosted messaging are now, Shah says.
Another part of the Lucent Hosted Solution Suite is Hosted MiLife, a collection of outsourced applications, including iLocator for location-based services, SurePay for prepaid and postpaid charging and MiRingBack for ring-back tone service.
The delivery of hosted services is not simply to sell a service and leave the service provider reseller responsible for the infrastructure to deliver it. “We not only provide the hosted infrastructure,” says Jim Ames, vice president, hosted applications and managed security offers, Lucent Worldwide Services, “but also a suite of professional services to assess the ability of the network to offer service. We even do ROI analysis, all the things that a service provider can use with customers to make customers ready to buy.”
Besides the basic service, other issues need to be resolved, says Shah, such as the security of the deployment, its scalability and the hosting services needed.
Lucent has partnered with Capgemini, an integrator experienced with large service provider deployments, to deliver the hosted services. Under the agreement, Lucent and Capgemini will develop, market and deliver Lucent’s network integration services and Capgemini’s expertise in consulting and managed services. The two companies will promote service offerings using their sales resources and market presences.
An initial focus will be what Lucent terms “high-growth areas in enterprise networking” such as converged services, managed services and security in North America.
In May the two companies had announced a $187 million contract with Capgemini Energy to provide a suite of network management services for TXU Corp., an energy company based in Dallas.
