Some merger news could change how the Unified Communications (News - Alert) market shapes in the future.

Avaya and Cisco are archrivals for enterprise including contact center voice/data communications systems. Cisco (News - Alert) and HP, reported Benjamin Pimentel, MarketWatch in March are battling out for supplying gear to the hot cloud-based data center market.

Now HP is partnering with Avaya (News - Alert). Enemy of my enemy is my friend?

Before the marriage there is the dating and the activities together. HP and Avaya are doing just that by announcing what they say is "the delivery of flexible, cost-effective solutions that enable clients to extend advanced business communications into their networks and systems."

As part of a three-year strategic agreement, the companies are adding elements of Avaya's Unified Communications (UC) and contact center products to the HP Unified Communications and Collaboration (UC&C) services portfolio for enterprises. This solution set is to be sold and delivered by HP.

TechCrunch has taken issue with a Tweet by the FCC (News - Alert).

Last week the FCC posted a series of articles on its blog for its "Wireless World Travel Week," which featured tips and pointers for those who would be traveling overseas who still wanted to be connected through technology.

The series, posted by Mindel DeLaTorre, chief of the International Bureau for the FCC, was pushed on the FCC Twitter feed, which contained what Jack McKenna of TechCrunch called an endorsement of Skype  in the June 24 posting. The post reads, "Use VoIP, like @skype, to avoid excess international charges on your cell phone bill. For more http://bit.ly/bDXABN."

Siemens Enterprise Communications (News - Alert) (Best of Show winner at this spring's VoiceCon Orlando 2010) leverages the potential of virtualization to consolidate IT infrastructure. Siemens' OpenScape UC Server 2010 portfolio is now available on the virtualized VMware vSphere 4 server platform, even though two of the applications in the portfolio, OpenScape Video and OpenScape Mobility, are hardware-oriented and do not support virtualization. Unlike some of the other early adopters of voice virtualization packaged with a specific server, Siemens has designed its solution to be hardware-agnostic, calling it a "Virtual Appliance" model.

 Siemens is also planning to support other virtualization platforms going forward and is evaluating both KVM and Xen, depending on customer demand and performance. Read more about Siemens OpenScape UC Server 2010 below and visit www.telecomtactics.com for more on the enterprise telephony market.