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AT&T and Microsoft today announced an expansive five-year agreement to develop and deploy IP communications services globally, leveraging AT&T's worldwide IP backbone and Microsoft's Connected Services Framework platform.

The deal is the first strategic alliance Microsoft has announced since launching its CSF in February as the enhanced Microsoft .net platform for service providers to use in developing and integrating new services.

AT&T said it would make the Microsoft framework the centerpiece of its services-oriented architecture, creating a .net-based platform with common Web interfaces, allowing virtually any application created by Microsoft's development community to integrate easily back into AT&T's back-office systems.

The alliance will allow AT&T to deliver integrated services, initially focused on enterprise customers, that leverage its IP/MPLS backbone and doesn't require customers to invest in new hardware or systems, said AT&T Vice President Eric Shepcaro.

"The services are built right into the [network] cloud," he said, adding that chief information officers have asked for that level of service. They want IP-based applications that improve employee productivity, such as presence-based service and integrated messaging, but don't want to have to invest in new equipment and integration of separate systems and software, Shepcaro said.

The new services will be easier to administrate, via point-and-click menus, and more flexible because open application programming interfaces will allow developers or even customers themselves to design new services.

"Administrators can provide a new employee with a thin client device and then go through a menu, on a per-user basis, and click the services they want that employee to have," he said.

On the user interface side, the new voice-over-IP (VoIP) and enhanced services will be integrated into familiar Microsoft desktop applications such as Outlook and Word and easy for workers--and later consumers--to use, said Maria Martinez, corporate vice president of the communications sector for Microsoft.

Going forward, the new alliance makes AT&T a more valuable acquisition for SBC Communications, Shepcaro said.

"Clearly this leverages the next-generation IP/MPLS network we have built out and deployed, which was one of the prime assets SBC wanted," he said. "These are the kind of sticky services that attract and keep enterprise customers. The more we provide value to them, the more valuable we are to SBC."

Acquisition issues aside, Microsoft's selection of AT&T certainly gives the software giant reach. AT&T's IP network extends to almost 150 countries globally and counts among its customers most of the Fortune 1000. On the flip side, Microsoft is one of the world's premier software developers, with its Office package and other business software penetrating far into the enterprise.

The companies said they are already working in collaboration and have begun testing the applications that will be part of AT&T's VoIP services for the Microsoft framework, allowing enterprises and third-party developers to plug the IP telephony application directly into their products. The two companies will further work together to build new applications riding on the platform.