Nortel this week unveiled the newest component of its alliance with Microsoft for unified communications – a desktop audio-and-video system for collaboration.

Multimedia Conferencing 5.0 eliminates third-party conference operator fees, which can range from 3 to 20 cents per minute, Nortel says. Companies can expect full payback in six to 24 months, Nortel claims.

Multimedia Conferencing 5.0 works with Nortel's Communication Server 1000 as well as Microsoft's Live Communications Server 2005 and Office Communicator 2005, which provides a single desktop environment for instant messaging, presence, audio/video conferencing and desktop communication (See Buyer’s Guide). Integration with Microsoft’s Office Communications Server 2007 is expected in the first quarter of 2008.

Multimedia Conferencing 5.0 costs $35,000.

Also this week, Nortel rolled out products custom built for the small and midsize business (SMB) market. The products include:

• Business Communications Manager (BCM) 50, Release 3.0: A software upgrade that provides SIP trunking, new conferencing and reporting features, improved applications, better platform integration and support of the new SMB-centric IP Phone 1200 Series.

• IP Phone 1200 Series: A portfolio of IP telephones pre-programmed with autodialing, conferencing and messaging, and can be customized to access more than 400 BCM features.

• Advanced Paging Productivity Pack (APP Pack): a suite of applications for BCM that provides paging and text-messaging.

• Business Series Terminal T7406E: a cordless digital telephone for Norstar and BCM customers, with range up to 1,000 feet.

Nortel also says customers of its Norstar key systems can extend up to 70% of their past investments as they migrate to IP telephony with the BCM 50.

The BCM 50 3.0 software upgrade costs approximately $600 to $750, depending on the existing version a customer has. IP Phone 1200 series sets range from $155 to $325.

APP Pack costs about $3,000 and T7406E costs about $400 for the handset. A full package including a base station costs about $600.