A new end-to-end unified communications and collaboration solution is cooking, courtesy of Microsoft and HP. The Redmond company announced that it had inked a partnership with Hewlett-Packard spanning a total of four years and a variety of enterprise communication-related aspects from messaging, to video and even voice. The two companies plan to make connected applications and devices an integral part of the upcoming offering. Interop Las Vegas 2009 was the stage where the pair announced their strategic global partnership, which will see up to $180 million in additional investments. The duo emphasized that the partnership covered areas such as product development and integration, professional services and marketing and sales.

“Together, we are offering the extensive breadth of capabilities of our respective technologies to deliver a truly unified communications and collaboration solution to help our customers improve business productivity,” promised Stephen Elop, president, Microsoft Business Division, Microsoft. “This means one click to communicate, one click to conference, one click to collaborate.”

An end-to-end unified solution focused on communications and collaboration in enterprise environments means for Microsoft and HP a combination of hardware, networking, software and services. In this regard, the alliance will deal with solutions such as Office SharePoint Server, Exchange Server and Office Communications Server, and HP ProCurve. In addition, HP will make sure to get Microsoft Unified Communications qualification for IP desk phones, a number of smartphones and the HP dx9000 TouchSmart Business PC.

On top of this, HP will have its Business Technology Optimization (BTO) solution offer support for Microsoft Office Communications Server. At the same time, Microsoft and HP indicated that customers would be able to benefit from a high degree of interoperability between HP Halo Telepresence Solutions and Microsoft Office Communications Server.

“Customers can lower costs and rapidly enhance employee productivity with unified communications and collaboration from HP and Microsoft,” added Ann Livermore, executive vice president, Technology Solutions Group, HP. “We provide customers with solutions that are rich, intuitive and accessible from anywhere on nearly any device.”