Nortel and Microsoft
This kind of sh*t pisses me off. The spirit of UAWG is open standards, not this proprietary crap. I hope they get blasted for this. Tim
Northern Telecom, Microsoft to Bundle Internet-Access Products
Brampton, Ontario, June 9 (Bloomberg) -- Northern Telecom
Ltd., the second-largest maker of phone equipment in the U.S.,
and Microsoft Corp. are expected today to announce an agreement
to sell Northern Telecom's modems with Microsoft software to
phone companies that want to provide high-speed Internet access.
Northern Telecom is also expected to select Microsoft's
Windows NT operating system as the computer ''platform'' for
running software that lets carriers provide phone calls over the
Internet.
The two companies want to be the foundation for how
consumers and businesses get next-generation high-speed Internet
access. The agreement combines the marketing power of Microsoft,
the largest independent software maker, with Northern Telecom's
long-standing relationships with phone company customers.
Northern Telecom's 1-Meg modems, which transit as much as a
million bits of information a second, will be sold with
Microsoft's NT and other operating systems as well as its Netshow
software for getting video over the Internet. That compares with
traditional modems that typically transmit 28,800 bits a second.
The companies are expected to train salespeople to sell both
products and jointly to develop future applications.
As part of the agreement, Microsoft is expected to endorse
Northern Telecom's technology for adoption by the universal ADSL
working group, the body that's working to set standards for new
asynchronous digital subscriber line, or ADSL, modems that send
information at higher speeds over copper phone lines.
The group is led by Microsoft, No. 1 PC maker Compaq
Computer Corp. and chipmaker Intel Corp. and includes several of
the largest U.S. phone companies.
Northern Telecom, in turn, would adopt Microsoft's Windows
NT as the operating system for applications used to transmit
voice calls over the Internet. That would require phone companies
to buy NT to offer the services, which include a feature that
lets an Internet user click a button on a Web site to be
connected to an operator and a call-waiting service that notifies
a user on the Web of incoming phone calls.
Shares of Brampton, Ontario-based Northern Telecom rose 5/16
to 63 9/16 yesterday. Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft fell
9/16 to 85 11/16.
--Andrew Brooks in Atlanta through the San Francisco newsroom (415)
912-2980/smw
.
c Copyright 1998, Bloomberg L.P. All Rights Reserved.
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