Cisco, Orange Partner on Cloud-Based Hosted UC Solution

Cisco Systems is continuing to partner with carriers as officials look to offer the company s collaboration technology as a hosted service.

Three months after announcing a beta program with Verizon, in which the carrier is offering services based on Cisco s HCS (Hosted Collaboration Suite), the networking giant is rolling out a similar program with Orange Business Services, the B2B arm of French-Telecom Orange.

Orange Business Officials announced June 27 that its Business Together as a Service program, which also is based on Cisco s HCS, is available in France, and will be expanded to all of Europe later this year and other regions in 2012. Xerox General Services and Orange Labs have already piloted the UC (unified communications) service, company officials said.

Through the service, the collaboration offerings can be delivered via the cloud to customers using a variety of devices.

Orange Business Services and Cisco are helping IT departments access collaboration and unified communications applications based on the deployment model of their choice: in the cloud, on premise or both, Eric Schoch, senior director for the Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution, said in a statement. Companies now have flexibility and choice in how they deploy these advanced and business-critical technologies to their end users.

The service also will offer businesses the greater flexibility and cost savings inherent in cloud computing, according to Paul Molinier, vice president of unified communications and collaboration for Orange Business Services.