AT&T completes of the acquisition of Interwise. In parallel, AT&T launches AT&T Connect, the first in a planned series of converged AT&T-branded voice, video and web conferencing products and services that will accelerate the delivery of unified communications to companies worldwide. With the introduction of AT&T Connect, the company is advancing its focus on delivering a comprehensive, global portfolio of unified communications solutions. The demand for such services is expected to total $5.9 billion in 2007, with continued growth expected in 2008 and beyond.

AT&T is rapidly integrating its wired and wireless network assets, over which it intends to deliver a portfolio of services to help businesses integrate all of their communications applications -- wired and wireless voice services, conferencing capabilities, including VoIP, Web and video, and presence-based applications, such as instant messaging and directories.

Communications is the basic component of commerce, and collaboration has become mission-critical for today's enterprises. Businesses are using their combined software and communications networking capabilities to drive decision-making, swiftly react to their competition and use the inherent productivity and cost-savings returns of collaboration tools to invest in furthering their core capabilities.

AT&T’s enhanced solutions are designed to bring the broad benefits of collaboration to where they matter most by enhancing enterprise’s ability to compete more effectively while improving the bottom line.

AT&T’s first unified communications solution is AT&T Connect, a converged IP conferencing service that provides unlimited voice, Web and video conferencing capabilities and can be scaled for businesses of all sizes. In addition to offering on-premises and fully hosted conferencing capabilities, AT&T will now be able to offer a unique, hybrid solution that allows enterprises to receive the cost and security benefits of on-site software with the rapid startup, geographic reach and capacity protection of its hosted service.

The company intends to integrate its existing award-winning portfolio of voice, Web and video conferencing services with the capabilities it gains from the Interwise acquisition by the fourth quarter of 2008. Existing AT&T conferencing and messaging services will be key elements in AT&T’s ongoing development plans to deliver expanded unified communications solutions.

In October, the company said it would acquire Interwise for $121 million in cash. With today’s announcement, Interwise joins AT&T's existing enterprise services organization as a subsidiary of AT&T Communications Corp.