Unified communications labyrinth

It is just the beginning of a maze. Last year, Microsoft and Nortel signed what was presented as a strategic deal on unified communications for SMBs, while IBM and Cisco were combining forces on the same subject. There were some logic in the moves and everybody was happy to have two strong competitive offerings. Where it is a little bit more difficult to understand is a deal between Nortel and IBM on VOIP, combining IBM hardware and software with Nortel VOIP and multimedia solutions. This is in frontal competition with the IBM-Cisco deal. What is wrong? Is the deal Microsoft -Nortel working well, and what is the output of the deal IBM-Cisco? Can we see in next weeks a deal Microsoft -Cisco? What is the meaning of these “strategic deals”, which are more marketing and opportunistic than effective and with strategic goals? My understanding is bla-bla....