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Mitel and VMware Announce First Customers to Leverage Voice Virtualization

Mitel and VMware Announce First Customers to Leverage Voice Virtualization

Announces Mitel Virtual Solutions for VMware vSphere™ 4

OTTAWA, Ontario and PALO ALTO, California – February 16, 2010

News Facts:

  • Mitel®, the trusted provider of unified communications solutions, and VMware, the global leader in virtualization solutions from the desktop through the datacenter and to the cloud, today announced Virtual Mitel Communications Director (Virtual MCD), part of the new Mitel Virtual Solutions software portfolio as well as the first customers to deploy Virtual MCD.
  • Virtual MCD is the first real-time voice application designed for the VMware vSphere™ 4 platform. As a virtual appliance, Virtual MCD is a software package download that runs on VMware vSphere 4, enabling customers to seamlessly access and install Mitel’s call control software.
  • The solution leverages VMware vSphere 4 to enable customers to consolidate Mitel’s leading voice applications alongside non-voice business applications in the datacenter. This results in the potential for: capital savings due to the significant reduction in server hardware and real estate; operational savings with the reduction in power and server provisioning costs; as well as productivity improvements and resource efficiencies in datacenter management and risk mitigation for business continuity and disaster recovery plans.
  • Mitel and VMware already have a number of joint customers that have deployed Virtual MCD including Gallagher, Flynn & Company LLP, an accounting firm based in the US; Ideal Integrations, a technology integrator based in the US; Spalding University, a university in Louisville, KY; and Ashford Borough Council in the UK. These customer sites consist of users ranging from 30 to more than 2,000.
  • Virtual MCD is the latest application Mitel has introduced in the Mitel Virtual Solutions software portfolio. The next phase will include Mitel Applications Suite (MAS) and Mitel Border Gateway (MBG) as virtual appliances built using VMware Studio to be released 60 days after Virtual MCD.
  • In addition to MCD, Mitel Unified Communicator® (UC) Advanced, Mitel Contact Center Solutions and Mitel Enterprise Manager are VMware Ready™ applications. The VMware Ready Program is a VMware co-branding program for qualified partner products. VMware Ready products have passed a detailed evaluation and testing process and are ready for deployment in production environments. With the VMware Ready logo, customers can quickly identify VMware partner products and solutions that are optimized for the VMware platform.
  • Mitel and VMware will be hosting a web event on Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at 11:00 a.m. EST to provide more details. Presenters include Brent Kelly, senior analyst and partner, Wainhouse Research; Rob Neil, head of ICT and customer services, Ashford Borough Council; Parag Patel, vice president of alliances, VMware; and Stephen Beamish, vice president of business development, Mitel. Register today at: http://vmware.mitel.com/  

Multimedia:

Customer Quotes:

Gallagher, Flynn & Company LLP, an accounting firm providing tax and other services with offices in Vermont and New Hampshire, was looking for a reliable communications system, especially during tax season, and wanted to provide a more personalized experience for clients.

"Mitel and VMware are clearly industry leaders, and they've earned users' respect,” said Jim Paolicelli, IT manager, Gallagher, Flynn. “They have figured out how to do voice on a virtual host, and that lets us retire the last of our physical infrastructure. The solution gives us the kind of service continuity that's critical during the busy tax season."

Ideal Integrations, a technology integrator delivering value to customers through virtualized datacenter strategies, was looking to gain competitive advantage by offering virtualization solutions that embrace real-time voice communications.

 “Voice comes up in conversation with clients all the time,” said Christopher Fox, director of technology, Ideal Integrations. “We’ll be ahead of the pack by offering virtualization solutions that include telephony. Plus, by harmonizing disaster recovery and maintenance planning across voice and data networks means lower costs for our customers."

Spalding University, a two thousand student university in Louisville, KY, had the goal to improve services to a growing user community while streamlining resources.

“Every process we don’t virtualize means duplicate effort for maintenance, backup, and disaster recovery planning, so bringing voice inside the datacenter is a big step toward a seamless environment,” said Ezra Krumhansl, executive director of IT, Spalding University. “Since going with Mitel and VMware, the time we spend fighting fires is down dramatically. Our staff is happier, more engaged, and they have their weekends back too.”

Ashford Borough Council in the UK, with more than 112,000 constituents, was looking to provide outstanding service to the citizens of the Borough.

“We started to virtualize the data infrastructure with the VMware platform in 2008 and wanted to take it to the next level and virtualize voice running on VMware vSphere™,” said Rob Neil, head of ICT and customer services, Ashford Borough Council. “Mitel Virtual MCD software has given us the flexibility to do just that. I can confidently say that we are the only council in the UK to do this at present. I am also positive that we will start a trend for other councils to adopt this strategy when they see the compelling cost-savings and reliability benefits to do so, which cannot be ignored.”

Jan Wouter van den Doel, ICT manager, Delta Psychiatric Center & Forensic Psychiatric Center De Kijvelanden, both situated in the south of the Netherlands, said: "Reliability is crucial in our communications. We need to be on standby for all our patients 24/7, which means always being reachable and able to make and take emergency calls. Further, the more standardized the hardware and software, which is all based on VMware virtualization, the clearer and simpler the management and processes. As a result, we can run our operations more easily. With Virtual MCD being implemented on the VMware platform, we will be able to secure all our demands. The Mitel and VMware relationship can only be a good thing."

Analyst Quote:

“Combining the technology innovation of two market leaders, Mitel and VMware have extended the cost savings and efficiency gains from virtualization to the voice infrastructure. The solution—fully tested and optimized—is the first to make a virtualized voice and unified communications platform a viable option for a wide range of VMware customers, across industry segments,” said Dave Bartoletti, senior analyst, The Taneja Group.

Company Quotes:

“For some time now businesses have been moving toward datacenter virtualization and unified communications deployments on two separate planes,” said Stephen Beamish, vice-president business development, Mitel. “Up until today, businesses around the world and of all sizes have wished these two worlds would connect as the cost savings, consolidation and significant improvement in efficiencies would be extremely consequential to business operations. That is why Mitel and VMware spent more than 18 months cracking the code on making the deployment of real-time voice a virtualized application deployable like any other application in the datacenter. Our successes are now being experienced and applauded around the world as customers start executing and benefiting from the deployment of Mitel Virtual Solutions in their datacenters.”

“Virtualizing voice applications is a natural next step as customers work to consolidate more and more of their critical datacenter workloads,” said Parag Patel, vice president, alliances, VMware. “We’re excited to partner with Mitel in order to help advance the benefits of virtualization to a broader set of business applications.”

About VMware

VMware delivers solutions for business infrastructure virtualization that enable IT organizations to energize businesses of all sizes. With the industry leading virtualization platform – VMware vSphere™ – customers rely on VMware to reduce capital and operating expenses, improve agility, ensure business continuity, strengthen security and go green. With 2009 revenues of $2.9 billion, more than 170,000 customers and 25,000 partners, VMware is the leader in virtualization which consistently ranks as a top priority among CIOs. VMware is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the world and can be found online at www.vmware.com.

About Mitel

Mitel delivers flexibility and simplicity in smart unified communications solutions and applications for organizations of all sizes. Combined with a full range of managed services that include voice and data network design and traffic provisioning, custom application development, and attractive financing options, Mitel is reinventing how successful organizations gain competitive advantage by easily collaborating and communicating over distance and time with customers, colleagues and partners. Mitel's ( www.mitel.com/) US headquarters are in Phoenix, Arizona. Global headquarters are in Ottawa, Canada, with offices, partners, and resellers worldwide.

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