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BT Demonstrates 'Finder' Application on Microsoft's Unified Communications Platform

Posted on: Wednesday, 1 April 2009, 09:00 CDT

Finder shifts the burdens of 'presence' and 'preference' to the system, not the user

ORLANDO, Fla., April 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- BT today demonstrated a new unified communications application it has developed on Microsoft's unified communications platform. The demonstration took place at VoiceCon Orlando 2009 during Microsoft Corp.'s keynote address today.

BT's Finder application, which is currently used internally at BT, is one of many applications the company is developing on Microsoft's unified communications platform to enable its customers to increase their operating efficiency and effectiveness. BT is helping its customers understand how to integrate Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 Release 2 functionality into their other systems and platforms to add innovative capabilities to their existing business processes.

Finder enables users to determine how and when essential messages reach them. For example, a traveling executive can establish parameters within Finder's settings to ensure that communications on critical topics are sent to specific team members for handling. In turn, critical emails from team members to the executive can be converted from text to speech and sent to the executive's mobile phone. In this way, Finder accelerates delivery of critical information to the right person at the right time. It allows users to focus on business issues while the system handles presence, preference and device attributes in the background.

"Finder shows how Office Communications Server 2007 R2 functionality can easily be integrated into existing business process automation initiatives to provide cost and time savings for our customers," said Randy Schrock, BT vice president of corporate alliances, during his presentation with Gurdeep Singh Pall, corporate vice president, Unified Communications Group at Microsoft. "Delivering Microsoft related unified communications services is a key strategy for BT as we help our enterprise customers maximize their return on investment in Microsoft technologies," Schrock said.

"BT is a great example of a Microsoft partner innovating and introducing new capabilities on the Microsoft unified communications platform," said Gurdeep Singh Pall. "BT's Finder solution benefits customers because it helps achieve greater efficiency, lower cost and more choice in the ways people communicate."

Through its relationship with Microsoft and other partners, BT provides solutions that help enterprise customers improve communication and collaboration. By providing a portfolio of capabilities and services, including unified communications and collaboration consultancy and professional services, BT can help customers:

• Increase flexibility to bring together dispersed project teams of employees, as well as business partners and customers
• Get more work done, better and faster, by further extending their reach into and beyond the enterprise through instantaneous and consolidated access to information and resources
• Devote their time and energy to solving business problems, with BT as the single interface across the entire technology solution
• Reduce the upfront technology investments and ongoing costs with BT's suite of IP applications that minimize the need for infrastructure investments and eliminates recurrent third party usage charges

About BT

BT is one of the world's leading providers of communications solutions and services operating in 170 countries. Its principal activities include the provision of networked IT services globally; local, national and international telecommunications services to our customers for use at home, at work and on the move; broadband and internet products and services and converged fixed/mobile products and services. BT consists principally of four lines of business: BT Global Services, Openreach, BT Retail and BT Wholesale.

In the year ended 31 March 2008, BT Group's revenue was 20,704 million pounds Sterling with profit before taxation and specific items of 2,506 million pounds.

British Telecommunications plc (BT) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BT Group plc and encompasses virtually all businesses and assets of the BT Group. BT Group plc is listed on stock exchanges in London and New York.

For more information, visit www.bt.com/aboutbt

About VoiceCon(R)

Now in its 19th year, VoiceCon(R) is the leading conference and exhibition for enterprise IP Telephony, Converged Networks and Unified Communications in North America. VoiceCon(R) brings corporate communications decision makers together with the industry's vendors, analysts and consultants to focus on the issues central to enterprise networks and communications. As the momentum toward IP Telephony and convergence has grown, VoiceCon expanded to include two yearly shows in the United States: VoiceCon Orlando, March 30-April 2 at the Gaylord Palms Hotel and VoiceCon San Francisco, November 2-5, 2009 at the Moscone North Convention Center. VoiceCon's No Jitter, (http://www.nojitter.com/), provides daily blogging and analysis of enterprise communications, and also serves the community with two weekly email newsletters -- VoiceCon eNews (http://www.voicecon.com/enews) and VoiceCon UC eWeekly (http://www.voicecon.com/unified-communications/). For more information, visit http://www.voicecon.com/.

SOURCE BT

Source: PR Newswire

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