 | 
Nortel Networks and Sun-Netscape Alliance Create New Service Delivery Solution for Service Providers
January 10, 2000 |
|
Will Help Enable Service Providers to Offer Customized, Packaged Solution Sets
MOUNTAIN VIEW and BOSTON -- Nortel Networks and the Sun-Netscape Alliance (Alliance) plan to jointly develop a new directory-enabled solution that will allow Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Application Service Providers (ASPs) to create new service bundles, deliver them more quickly, and manage them more efficiently. This proposed solution is expected to provide a standards-based framework for the fully-integrated delivery of next-generation applications and services. "Nortel Networks and the Sun-Netscape Alliance will use the directory as the framework for enabling service providers to deliver a whole new generation of services," said John Morency, executive vice president of Sage Research. "This is an opportunity of crucial significance," Morency said. "Directories are becoming an important part of enterprise network service delivery but, until now, haven't been practical to implement for service providers. Nortel Networks and the Sun-Netscape Alliance intend to address this issue through a simple, standards-based solution that is intended to transform the manner in which future services are both provisioned and delivered." ISPs and ASPs face significant challenges to meet customer and market demand using today's rigid and fragmented service delivery infrastructures. With no shared concept of a user, it is difficult and expensive to offer tailored packages and bring new services to market quickly. The proposed solution from Nortel Networks and the Sun-Netscape Alliance will be designed to give service providers more control over the content and delivery of their service packages so that they can attack new markets, respond more quickly and effectively to market dynamics, and offer their customers greater choice. Nortel Networks and the Sun-Netscape Alliance plan to combine infrastructure software products from Sun-Netscape with policy services from Nortel Networks to create the new service provider solution based on a common integration schema and unified view of users across the network, service applications and back-office systems. Nortel Networks and Sun-Netscape will jointly define a directory schema, which they plan to propose it as an open industry specification. Each party plans to support this proposed standard with compliant products by the second half of 2000. "Nortel Networks is committed to helping ISPs and ASPs take advantage of the e-business market, which Dataquest forecasts will grow to $US 23 Billion by 2003," said Steve Nicolle, vice president and general manager, Preside Service Ware Solutions, Nortel Networks. "This scalable, standards-based directory infrastructure will complement our recently announced Managed Applications Services Initiative and will certainly help accelerate the creation and deployment of exciting, new Internet services and business applications." "By refining their services and service level agreements from the application through the entire network stack, service providers will be able to more tightly integrate their products and compete more effectively in the Net Economy," said Mark Tolliver, president and general manager of the Sun-Netscape Alliance. "Our email, calendar, and web applications already offer a highly customizable platform for building innovative value-added services, and the Nortel Networks integration will help us further expand our strong market share in the growing ASP market." "The Sun-Netscape Alliance and Nortel Networks are charting new territory with this initiative," said Bill Willis, vice president engineering at Interpath Communications Inc. "We fully support the integration of applications and the network with a standards-based, directory-centric approach. This will address a real sore spot in our industry." "Clearly, a critical issue for ISPs and ASPs is building the appropriate infrastructure to quickly create and bring to market new eCommerce services," said Richard von Hagen, a partner with Andersen Consulting's Communications practice. "By exploiting the capability of a directory for both business applications and underlying network controls, this approach makes it easier for us to build valuable solutions for our clients." Andersen Consulting, a leading global management and technology consultancy, provides consulting services to both Nortel Networks and the Sun-Netscape alliance. Proposed applications and services to be made available under the new service provider framework include: iPlanet Directory, Web Server, Messaging, and Calendar Server products, as well as iPlanet Webtop and Delegated Administrator products from the Sun-Netscape Alliance. Also available will be Nortel Networks' Preside Policy Services, a set of policy services that work across a wide range of network technology including wireless, dial, digital subscriber loop and cable. Together, the products will offer a scalable, high-performance e-commerce infrastructure platform for address assignment, user authentication, authorization and administration, web application development, messaging, calendaring, scheduling, and quality of service management.
|
|
|
