Lucent turns to BroadSoft for app support

Lucent Technologies said it has teamed up with BroadSoft to deliver some applications as part of its voice-over-IP package. Additionally, the companies said Choice One Communications would be among the first carriers to test the joint solution.

Under terms of the deal BroadSoft will provide its BroadWorks network communications platform as part of the Lucent Accelerate VoIP solution for service providers. The Accelerate package includes most of Lucent’s VoIP gear, including its softswitch, gateways, EBS Communications Manager, VPN software and integration services.

Though BroadSoft has applications for both business and residential users, the initial benefactors of the alliance likely will be enterprise users with the first applications focusing on hosted IP PBX, IP Centrex and voice VPNs.

For Lucent, the decision to use BroadSoft came to some extent from customer feedback, said Roger Heinz, vice president of Lucent’s convergence solutions group.

"One of the things we did was we spent a fair amount of due diligence on who would be the best partner in the hosted services. We really decided that if we were going to make an investment, we were going to focus on one [vendor] and make it work really well," he said. "Some of the feedback we’ve gotten is that a lot of the solutions don’t integrate well."

Long term, Lucent will integrate BroadSoft into its element management system. However, the deal holds no exclusivity and Lucent likely will partner with other vendors depending on customer need, Heinz added. BroadSoft already has struck alliances with most major softswitch vendors.