Nortel Networks Corp. and IBM Corp. announced they will pool their resources to develop new products, collaborate on research and development, and design new carrier servers.
“It’s a tremendous opportunity for collaboration,” said Pat Toole, IBM’s vice president of business transformation.
The companies said they would work together on a new class of IBM’s Blade servers, as well as products for end-to-end broadband, Voice over IP, multimedia services and applications, and wireless broadband offerings.
The companies formed a joint development center where personnel from each company will work on current products and further the development of future products. Ken Pecot, Nortel’s vice president of corporate strategy and development, declined to discuss what the companies would work on in the future for wireless carriers, but said Nortel and IBM have previously teamed on the development of IP Multimedia Subsystems for carriers. He said the companies’ work on IMS products is an example of what they will do in the future.
Both Pecot and Toole declined to specify how much each company would invest in the partnership, either in terms of personnel or cash. Pecot said Nortel’s investments would vary on a case-by-case basis.
“The intent is to collaborate on new product offerings,” he said.
