Nortel also promoted Tandberg to Developer Partner level

Tandberg and Nortel have signed an agreement to integrate Tandberg’s video products with Nortel’s telephony offerings. As part of the deal, Nortel has named Tandberg as a Developer Partner in its Enterprise Video Programme.

James Shore, director for strategic alliances in EMEA at Tandberg, told CRN: “Through the collaboration we have integrated our videoconferencing [VC] solutions with Nortel’s products. We have got similar partnerships with Cisco, IBM and Microsoft. So with the addition of Nortel, we can bring VC to virtually all network environments.”

Asked what the partnership means for Tandberg’s VARs, Shore said: “It allows them to better deliver converged solutions to customers. It also offers them new opportunities, because we are now offering telephony in a converged environment.”

Tara Hannon, Nortel’s EMEA developer programme manager, said: “The Developer Programme has been up and running for about seven years. We realised video was becoming more mainstream, and we recently launched a video segment in the Developer Programme. For our VARs, the partnership with Tandberg means we can now offer a complementary video offering.

Nortel told CRN it was also hoping to attract other VC vendors to become Nortel Developer Partners.

Rob Bamforth, principal analyst at Quocirca, said: “Tandberg has become aware of the fact that VC on its own is not what people want. Instead, it’s about how VC can be integrated with other communication devices that is important.”