Once the definitive agreement has been executed, the companies will jointly market solutions and capabilities that enable end-to-end transformation for service providers and enterprises.

The companies plan to launch a global go-to-market program to transform communication networks into converged, next-generation infrastructures. As a result of this transformation, service providers will be able to efficiently deliver new, revenue-generating services. HP and Alcatel-Lucent also plan to offer services to manage the new and existing infrastructures for customers looking for flexible sourcing options.

HP and Alcatel-Lucent also plan to create a joint go-to-market initiative to provide communications solutions to mid- and large-size enterprises and public sector organizations. Alcatel-Lucent products in areas such as IP telephony, unified communications, mobility, security and contact centers will be integrated with HP IT solutions. These joint solutions are planned to be offered to enterprises through HP resellers or as managed services.

Furthermore, the alliance will create new end-to-end customer solutions that take advantage of both companies’ product portfolios for the enterprise and telecom markets.

With a binding agreement, the go-to-market program will include all required investment and will be supported by dedicated business development and sales resources. Once implemented, the program could generate multi-billion euros in net revenues for HP and Alcatel-Lucent over a 10-year period.

The companies also plan for HP to transform and manage a large part of Alcatel-Lucent’s IT infrastructure, taking advantage of HP technologies and experience in IT transformation. Alcatel-Lucent will be able to accelerate the evolution of its operations toward the highest standard of performance, quality, efficiency and costs. HP has been selected for its advanced data center technologies and its managed services leadership.

Joint market offerings
The world’s service providers and enterprises are adapting to new consumer and business requirements, new competitors and changing business models. As telecom and IT converge, many businesses are beginning to modernize or outsource their infrastructures.

Through the alignment of their offerings and common solutions, HP and Alcatel-Lucent plan to create a “one-stop shop,” relieving service providers of the burden and complexity of coordinating the transformation of IT and telecom infrastructures. Similarly, the companies plan to empower enterprises to effectively create and manage truly integrated communication environments.

For its next generation platform architecture, Alcatel-Lucent would take advantage of HP IT and telecom technologies as well as HP supply chain efficiencies. Alcatel-Lucent will be able to offer service providers sophisticated solutions that are based on common technologies for carrier-grade and IT applications. This approach will help service providers exploit the advantages of standards-based server, processor and operating system technologies.

HP managed services for Alcatel-Lucent
As part of the agreement, HP would be entrusted with a large part of Alcatel-Lucent’s IT operations. By taking advantage of HP technologies and transformation expertise, Alcatel-Lucent plans to migrate more quickly to advanced IT infrastructure and services that deliver higher performance and greater efficiency. Throughout the 10-year agreement, Alcatel-Lucent targets significant aggregate savings along with material cash-flow improvements.

Shenandoah Telecommunications Company (Shentel) and Alcatel-Lucent announced an agreement today valued at more than USD $30 million for equipment, services and software to upgrade Shenandoah Personal Communications Company’s network in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania.

The network upgrade includes the deployment of third-generation (3G) CDMA2000® 1xEV-DO Revision A (Rev. A) technology, which will enable Shenandoah Personal Communications Company, a Sprint PCS Affiliate of Sprint Nextel, to provide an enhanced mobile data customer experience. This upgrade will give Shentel’s PCS customers increased data capacity and speed for faster uploads and downloads, as well as new, enhanced mobile broadband data services, including mobile video telephony, high-quality music, and other multimedia applications. To further expand voice and data coverage and capacity throughout the network, Shentel also will deploy new cell sites in the upgraded network and increase existing cell site capacity.

“Advances in technology are moving faster than ever before, and Shentel is committed to continuing to provide customers the progressive telecommunications services they need and expect,” said Chris French, President of Shentel. “With this upgrade to our network, we will be able to give our customers access to some of the most advanced wireless technology available today, technology that will provide unequalled quality and reliability for both their voice and data communications.”

In addition, Shentel will deploy Alcatel-Lucent’s IP backhaul solution throughout their network to increase network capacity and reduce operational expenses. Installation, engineering, and network integration work will be done by Alcatel-Lucent.

“Alcatel-Lucent has been a key infrastructure provider to Shentel and this agreement underscores the confidence they have in us to help lay the groundwork for an all-IP network in the future,” said Phillip Rosenthall, vice president of sales for Alcatel-Lucent.

EV-DO Rev. A continues the evolution of CDMA2000 technology, bringing increases in efficiency, data speeds, and capacity to existing CDMA2000 1X and 1xEV-DO networks.

About Shenandoah Personal Communications Company

Shenandoah Personal Communications Company is the exclusive provider of wireless mobility communications network products and services on the 1900 MHz band from Harrisonburg, Virginia, to Harrisburg, York and Altoona, Pennsylvania. Shenandoah PCS has offered wireless service since 1995 and currently is a Sprint PCS Affiliate of Sprint Nextel.

About Shenandoah Telecommunications Company

Shenandoah Telecommunications Company (NASDAQ: SHEN) is a diversified telecommunications holding company that, through its operating subsidiaries, provides both regulated and unregulated telecommunications services to end-user customers and other communications providers in the southeastern United States. The Company offers a comprehensive suite of voice, video and data communications services based on the products and services provided by the Company’s operating subsidiaries.

About Alcatel-Lucent

Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) provides solutions that enable service providers, enterprise and governments worldwide, to deliver voice, data, and video communication services to end-users. As a leader in fixed, mobile, and converged broadband networking, IP technologies, applications and services, Alcatel-Lucent offers the end-to-end solutions that enable compelling communications services for people at home, at work, and on the move. With operations in more than 130 countries, Alcatel-Lucent is a local partner with global reach. The company has the most experienced global services team in the industry, and one of the largest research, technology, and innovation organizations in the telecommunications industry. Alcatel-Lucent achieved revenues of Euro 17.8 billion (as of today, about USD $26.2 billion) in 2007 and is incorporated in France, with executive offices located in Paris.

For more information, please visit their website: http://www.alcatel-lucent.com

Nuance Communications, Inc. announced a partnership with Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories to integrate the Genesys Voice Platform (GVP) into Nuance’s industry-leading On Demand Network.

Through this relationship, enterprises can gain access to the leading Genesys Voice Platform in a highly scalable and reliable hosted call center solution that enables their consumers to effortlessly get help, make purchases and save time. As part of the agreement between the companies, Nuance will combine the power of the Nuance On Demand carrier-grade VoiceXML hosting network with the Genesys Voice Platform as one of its preferred partners for delivering state-of-the-art self service interactions in a secure hosted environment.

Nuance’s On Demand Network is one of the world’s largest and most secure VoiceXML hosting networks, successfully processing millions of calls daily. Through this partnership, enterprises can utilize Genesys’ leading voice platform through Nuance’s On Demand Network to greatly simplify operations and achieve efficiencies such as transparent software and hardware upgrades, faster deployments, lower cost for new initiatives, seamless access to future proof technology and access to world’s largest group of speech technologies and experts. Additionally, enterprises benefit by mitigating the distraction of capacity planning, traffic spikes or systems availability, and can focus on running their business and better servicing customers.

“We’re pleased to team with Nuance to deliver this solution to enterprises wishing to leverage the power of an On Demand Call Center solution,” said David York, vice president of North American Service Provider Sales for Genesys. “Consumers are increasingly becoming more demanding of automated services, so partnering with Nuance, a recognized leader in hosted speech solutions is a natural fit.”

Hosting the Genesys platform in Nuance’s On Demand Network will help enterprises leverage their existing investment in Genesys’ comprehensive suite of Customer Interaction Management solutions while benefiting from Nuance’s powerful speech network, which is continuously tuned to successfully automate millions of diversified self-service interactions. Nuance provides flexible deployment models allowing solutions to be quickly launched in a hosted model to achieve the highest ROI and programs to migrate these successful solutions to the customer premises.

“This solution is ideal for enterprises looking to leverage their existing call center investment to simplify operations, accelerate deployment and integrate functionality from both the Nuance On Demand Network and the Genesys Voice Platform,” said Mikael Berner, president of Nuance’s On Demand business unit. “Integrating the Genesys on-premise solution into our hosting network provides their customers with an effective end-to-end call center solution geared at higher efficiencies through increased automation and call completion.”

Nuance’s On Demand Network hosted call center solution will feature:

*** Seamless integration with Genesys contact center technologies;

*** 24×7 managed, shared network-based solution with guaranteed 99.99% uptime;

*** Fully managed and monitored network with zero downtime upgrades;

*** Better speech performance through the latest state-of-the-art Nuance speech technologies;

*** Access to natural language and voice verification solutions;

*** Robust telephony solutions – TDM and native VOIP support;

*** Advanced personalization and Intelligent Offer Management (IOM) to capture up-sell and cross-sell opportunities;

*** Advanced reporting and analytics for actionable insight; and

*** Expert services available to help develop, monitor and refine application to gain maximum effectiveness.

For additional information, please visit their website: http://www.nuance.com.

About Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc.

Genesys, an Alcatel-Lucent company, is the only company that focuses 100% on software to manage customer interactions over the phone, web, and in e-mail. The Genesys software suite dynamically connects customers with the right resources – self-service or assisted-service – to fulfill customer requests, optimize customer care goals and efficiently use resources. Genesys software directs more than 100 million customer interactions every day for 4,000 companies and government agencies in 80 countries. These companies and agencies can leverage their entire organization, from the contact center to the back office, to improve the overall customer experience. As a result, Genesys helps stop customer frustration, drive efficiency, and accelerate business innovation.

For more information, please visit their website: http://www.genesyslab.com or visit the industry blog: http://www.betterinteractions.com

About Alcatel-Lucent

Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) provides solutions that enable service providers, enterprise and governments worldwide, to deliver voice, data and video communication services to end-users. As a leader in fixed, mobile and converged broadband networking, IP technologies, applications and services, Alcatel-Lucent offers the end-to-end solutions that enable compelling communications services for people at home, at work and on the move. With operations in more than 130 countries, Alcatel-Lucent is a local partner with global reach. The company has the most experienced global services team in the industry, and one of the largest research, technology and innovation organizations in the telecommunications industry. Alcatel-Lucent achieved revenues of Euro 17.8 billion (as of today, USD $27.7 billion) in 2007 and is incorporated in France, with executive offices located in Paris.

For more information, please visit their website: http://www.alcatel-lucent.com

About Nuance Communications, Inc.

Nuance is a leading provider of speech and imaging solutions for businesses and consumers around the world. Its technologies, applications and services make the user experience more compelling by transforming the way people interact with information and how they create, share, and use documents. Every day, millions of users and thousands of businesses experience Nuance’s proven applications and professional services.

For more information, please visit their website: http://www.nuance.com

A milestone in the delivery of high-quality customer care was achieved by Nuance Communications, Inc. and Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, as Genesys announced that Nuance has been recognized for their recertification as a Gold GVP Certified Partner.

Both Genesys and Nuance’s Enterprise Services team are committed to delivering the highest quality enterprise contact center solutions, and this award highlights the ongoing commitment to customers through the partnership. The Gold Partner Certification provides a framework for Genesys partners to manage Genesys Voice Platform competency and quality and be recognized for technical expertise and a superior record of customer service.

“Partnering with Nuance has created a win-win dynamic for the entire enterprise community offering individualized solutions to meet specific needs,” said Karl Holzthum, senior vice president, Worldwide Channels and Alliance , Genesys. “We’re pleased to welcome Nuance as a Gold Certified member of the Genesys Partner Program. Nuance and Genesys are helping enterprises transform their contact centers into dynamic business assets that provide excellent service and high agent productivity.”

Nuance Enterprise Services, formerly Viecore, Inc., is a leading consulting and systems integration organization specializing in enterprise-level customer interaction solutions for the contact center with deployment experience across all major vertical markets. Nuance’s services are focused on customer needs–whether business consulting services, application development, systems integration, solution optimization, or managed services. The service offerings are tailored to each customer’s requirements with end-to-end customer contact solutions that use the latest technologies, leading industry standards and platforms, and leverage the customer’s existing back-end databases and legacy systems to optimize customer interaction solutions and enhance the customer experience.

Organizations that are committed to delivering high-quality, differentiated customer care trust Nuance Enterprise Services to:

*** Maximize Contact Center Performance in order to get the most out of their contact center technology investments, whether the goal is to optimize self-service usage, route calls more effectively, or improve agent productivity;

*** Provide Complete Solution Delivery that mitigates risk and facilitates the ease and convenience of working with a single trusted provider to meet end-to-end customer interaction solution delivery needs for the contact center– from strategic planning through integration and optimization; and

*** Employ a Comprehensive Customer Experience Focus, which provides unique levels of caller insight and extensive contact center technology understanding to deliver solutions that optimize the complete customer experience while meeting business goals.

“Nuance is committed to providing enterprise customers with solutions that meet their individual needs, and our long-standing partnership with Genesys enables us to further deliver on this commitment bringing innovative solutions driven from industry best practices to our customers,” said Tom Chisholm, senior vice president, Nuance Enterprise Services. “The investment associated with evolving, building, or generally deploying call center solutions is a significant undertaking, and with the combined forces of Nuance and Genesys, enterprises will be able to leverage their existing investments to accelerate deployments and time to market.”

The Genesys Gold Certification initiative is key to the foundation of the Genesys Partner Program. Genesys launched the certification program in 2005 to meet the needs of its growing customer community by enhancing Genesys skills available through its ecosystem of partners. To qualify for Gold Certification status, a partner must meet the following criteria:

*** A proven history of customer implementations within the past two years;

*** High customer satisfaction – customers are surveyed;

*** A full lab system in place for all Genesys products certified and supported;

*** Extensive employee training for all Genesys products certified and supported;

*** Professional services methodologies and best practices in place and adhered to; and

*** Technical support infrastructure, personnel and practices in place.

About Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc.

Genesys is the only company that focuses 100% on software to manage customer interactions over the phone, web, and in e-mail. The Genesys software suite dynamically connects customers with the right resources – self-service or assisted-service – to fulfill customer requests, optimize customer care goals and efficiently use resources. Genesys software directs more than 100 million customer interactions every day for 4,000 companies and government agencies in 80 countries. These companies and agencies can leverage their entire organization, from the contact center to the back office, to improve the overall customer experience. As a result, Genesys helps stop customer frustration, drive efficiency, and accelerate business innovation.

For more information, please visit: http://www.genesyslab.com or visit the industry blog: http://www.betterinteractions.com

About Alcatel-Lucent

Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) provides solutions that enable service providers, enterprise and governments worldwide, to deliver voice, data and video communication services to end-users. As a leader in fixed, mobile and converged broadband networking, IP technologies, applications and services, Alcatel-Lucent offers the end-to-end solutions that enable compelling communications services for people at home, at work and on the move. With operations in more than 130 countries, Alcatel-Lucent is a local partner with global reach. The company has the most experienced global services team in the industry, and one of the largest research, technology and innovation organizations in the telecommunications industry. Alcatel-Lucent achieved revenues of Euro 17.8 billion (as of today, USD $27.7 billion) in 2007 and is incorporated in France, with executive offices located in Paris .

For more information, please visit their website: http://www.alcatel-lucent.com

About Nuance Communications, Inc.

Nuance, (NASDAQ: NUAN), is a leading provider of speech and imaging solutions for businesses and consumers around the world. Its technologies, applications and services make the user experience more compelling by transforming the way people interact with information and how they create, share, and use documents. Every day, millions of users and thousands of businesses experience Nuance’s proven applications and professional services.

For more information, please visit their website: http://www.nuance.com

With a user base of over 11 million GSM, 3G and mobile IP access customers, the service provider was looking to implement a different Fraud Management system in order to support its fast-growing customer base and meet the requirements of emerging next-generation IP and content services.

The contract was awarded to Subex along with its system integrator partner, Alcatel-Lucent, following a highly-competitive tender. The ability to implement a proof of concept within a short deadline was an important difference the firm had with competitors. While ensuring maximized revenues at minimized cost, the new fraud management system will help the service provider automatically deliver content based services over one IP infrastructure,

Sudeesh Yezhuvath, COO, Subex Ltd. said, “Detecting and preventing fraud is a very important issue for telecoms operators, particularly those in fast-growing deregulated markets. This implementation is a great endorsement of the Nikira product and our partnership with Alcatel-Lucent.”

Nikira uses flexible rules-based alarms and artificial-intelligence driven advanced analytics to identify likely fraudulent behavior, helping operators to detect known fraud types and patterns of unusual behavior in all telecoms environments – wireline, wireless, and across all services.

Leading service providers around the world turn to Subex to combat fraud, conduct revenue assurance, correct configuration and interconnect billing errors, and manage third-party relationships to maximize margins and adopt lean operations.

About Subex Limited

Subex Limited is a leading global provider of Operations Support Systems (OSS) that empowers communications service providers to achieve competitive advantage and deliver new service experiences to subscribers. The company pioneered the strategic concept of the Revenue Operations Center (ROC) – a centralized framework for end-to-end control of a service provider’s revenue and costs, fostering operational dexterity for sustained profitability.

Subex’s software portfolio powers the ROC and its best-in-class solutions enable new service creation, operational transformation, subscriber-centric fulfillment, provisioning automation, revenue assurance, cost management, data integrity management, fraud management and interconnect/interparty settlement.

Subex’s customers include 32 of the world’s 50 largest service providers. The company has more than 150 installations across 60 countries.

For more information please visit www.subexworld.com

Website: http://www.subexworld.com

This new joint solution strengthens an existing strategic relationship between LHS and Alcatel-Lucent. In the past, the companies worked on many postpaid customer care and billing solutions together.

The solution combines components of LHS’s iX Series Release 2 system with Alcatel-Lucent’s payment suite. It also integrates all components needed for provisioning, customer care and refilling prepaid telephone cards.

The most recent example of a customer benefiting from this successful cooperation is the Belarus mobile services provider BeST, Minsk, for whom Alcatel-Lucent implemented the BSCS iX billing and customer care system.

“With this new joint solution with LHS, network operators are offered a fully converged all-in-one system, which combines rating, billing, customer care, provisioning and Alcatel-Lucent’s integration services for prepaid and postpaid customers in real time,” said Jean Pierre Gaillat, Professional Services Managing Vice President, OSS/BSS and Software Integration at Alcatel-Lucent. “Communication service providers will benefit from LHS’ best-of-breed product BSCS iX and Alcatel-Lucent’s carrier-grade payment suite, which will help them improve customer retention overall.”

“In addition, the solution is a reaction to the increased billing demands of providers who want to harmonize all processes across prepaid and postpaid segments”, said Wolfgang Kroh, CEO of LHS. “This not only significantly reduces the running costs of telecommunications providers, but also allows them to launch innovative services much faster than before with lower initial capital expenditure.“

LHS is the preferred supplier for a billing solution sold and marketed by Alcatel-Lucent. By selecting components of the widely tested and established billing software BSCS iX of LHS, Alcatel-Lucent lowers the technology and investment risks for network operators. In addition, the integration of the total solution keeps implementation costs low, while customers benefit from the flexibility of freely choosing prepaid and postpaid options. Regardless of the payment option, they can always enjoy the full range of their network provider’s services.

The new software solution will be available in labs for customer testing throughout Alcatel-Lucent and will be introduced for the first time at TeleManagement World May 20 – 24 in Nice, France.

About Alcatel-Lucent
Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) provides solutions that enable service providers, enterprises and governments worldwide, to deliver voice, data and video communication services to end-users. As a leader in fixed, mobile and converged broadband networking, IP technologies, applications, and services, Alcatel-Lucent offers the end-to-end solutions that enable compelling communications services for people at home, at work and on the move. With operations in more than 130 countries, Alcatel-Lucent is a local partner with global reach. The company has the most experienced global services team in the industry, and one of the largest research, technology and innovation organizations in the telecommunications industry. Alcatel-Lucent achieved adjusted proforma revenues of Euro 18.3 billion in 2006 and is incorporated in France, with executive offices located in Paris. [All figures exclude impact of activities transferred to Thales]. For more information, visit Alcatel-Lucent on the Internet: http://www.alcatel-lucent.com.

About LHS
LHS is a leading provider of telecom billing and customer care systems across the wireless, wireline, and IP telecom markets worldwide.

LHS Business Support Systems offer full convergence on various levels, supporting the complete range of business models both across the mix of fixed and mobile services, as well as prepaid and postpaid services.

LHS builds innovative systems that enable our customers to introduce new services fast, helping drive revenues up, while keeping operational costs to a minimum. LHS was awarded “Best Billing or Customer Care Solution” by the GSM Association in Cannes in 2005, and won the IIR World Billing Awards for its “Overall Best Contribution to Billing” in London in 2005 and 2006.

LHS is an independent software vendor (ISV) with headquarters in Germany, and offices in Brazil, Czech Republic, France, Malaysia, Turkey, and United Arab Emirates. LHS is part of the LHS Group, and LHS Aktiengesellschaft as the Group’s Holding company is a public company listed on the Frankfurter Stock Exchange (LHS400).

For more information, please visit www.lhsgroup.com