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Recently, email hosting provider Microsoft Corp. formed a strategic global partnership with Westcon Convergence (News - Alert), a global value-added distributor of unified communications.

The main motive behind this collaboration with Westcon Convergence is to enable and drive Microsoft (News - Alert) channel partners to fully extend Microsoft Lync Unified Communication solutions to market with maturity and consolidated support from the Lync eco-system vendor partners.

Westcon Middle East powers convergence, security, networking and mobility products and services that span the Middle East, Pakistan and North Africa regions. The company works closely with customers to seamlessly integrate voice, data and video application technologies including VoIP, Internet security, wireless and mobility solutions.

 The newly inked partnership coincides with Gartner's (News - Alert) recent Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications, 2012 report, which evaluates Microsoft's current in-market technologies including Lync 2010 and Exchange 2010, which came out as strong leaders in the UC space.

Yasir Khokhar, business group lead, Microsoft Office Division, Microsoft Gulf said in a statement, "We are happy to see that the Gartner report considers Microsoft a leader in the Unified Communications (News - Alert) space, as they have for several years."

"Westcon believes that Lync will continue to play an even more important role in the business of Unified Communications as the market continues to grow and evolve," commented William Hurley, chief technology officer, Westcon Group (News - Alert). "Lync exemplifies Westcon's belief that the Unified Communications market is transitioning from a hardware oriented solution to software and services oriented solution." 

Hurley added, "Our customers continue to realize value by using Microsoft Lync for Enterprise Voice, IM/presence and Conferencing and as the Lync partner ecosystem continues to grow at a rapid pace, we are glad to announce our strategic partnership with Westcon Convergence today as we've always felt that the company shared our vision for Unified Communications," he continued.