Art Rosenberg on Wireless and Mobile UC
In response to my most recent blog on Wireless and Mobility, Art Rosenberg writes:
Executing on Unified Communications
In keeping with Matt's excellent post focusing on how to deal with the economic crisis, I want to come back to the subject of execution. If the plan is to justify Unified Communications or IP telephony investments as a cost-cutting measure, it's obviously critical that the deployment of these technologies actually be carried out in a way that really does save money--without the kind of missteps or misdirected efforts and investments that can torpedo even a solid business case.
The Election and UC--Redux
The first UC eWeekly I wrote two years ago was entitled "The Election and UC--What Do They Have in Common," and I thought it would be appropriate to revisit this topic since the election is less than a month away (the earlier article can be found here. Hopefully my political leanings and bias won't taint this analysis, so let's just have fun with this timely comparison.
Nortel Rolls out BCM450 Release 1 for the SMB Market
This morning Nortel announced Release 1 of the BCM450 for the SMB market. During the analyst call here is what I gleaned to be good about this announcement: It smoothes out their product offerings for the SMB market because it's scalable, provides up to 70% investment protection with any previous product such as Norstar, it's energy efficient, and continues to help pave the way for the migration to IP. This new offering also has feature parity with the BCM50.
The Role of Wireless in Budgets and Planning
In the past two VoiceCon Webinars that I've moderated, we received a question that was repeated almost identically, with only very minor variations in wording, from a different attendee in each session. Essentially, each person said: Folks in my enterprise want to know why, as our Mobile Unified Communications strategy, we can't just give everyone Blackberries and call it a day?
Sounds simple, doesn't it?
Banging the Drum for Interactive Intelligence
You might think that the title here is figurative. In fact, it is quite literal. At the opening session of their 10th Annual Partner Meeting in Indianapolis today, I found myself one of hundreds of partners, consultants and analysts participating in an interactive drumming event.
Apple iPhone Applications
It’s been over a year since I wrote iMania and discussed the launch of AppLists that only took 3 days for Apple’s iPhones. Today, there are over 3,000 applications for the iPhones, spanning the spectrum from games to utilities. Whether or not you agree on their platform of “Apple, Apple, or Apple as the choice” as one reader wrote – still, you do have a choice of what you can do with the iPhone such as teasing those Microsoft users feeling blue with – this song’s for you.
SBC Securely Moves Video Past the Firewall
I recently described the difficulties in getting video conferencing past firewalls, and last week I wrote about H.460, which uses tunneling to pass video traffic through the firewall to an external server. The alternate approach is to use a Session Border Controller (SBC). The SBC is a device that is specifically designed to understand the H.323 and SIP protocols and act as a security gateway to allow video (and voice) traffic in and out of the enterprise network. But the SBC has additional capabilities that support alias-based dialing, like E.164 numbers, that can take a disparate enterprise and tie together the dialing plan to make connections easy.
Aculab Leverages Its Prosody X Technology
This post was written by Bob Emmerson, No Jitter Contributing Editor for Europe.
Aculab goes back to 1990 when Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) was being hyped to the hilt. At that time, the company was a serious player at the OEM/board level and the key product was a media-processing card known as Prosody. Since those early CTI days, Aculab's expertise and experience has facilitated the development of products that enable the transition to hybrid VoIP/TDM telephony environments. And along the way they developed Prosody X technology, which has been widely deployed by the developers of VoIP and PSTN telephony solutions. However, outside that community this award-winning OEM technology is less well known.
A Peek Behind Cisco UC System 7.0
I’m not sure about you, but Cisco’s big UC announcement last week left me scratching my head a bit. Eric drafted a nice overview of some of the Web 2.0 aspects of it, but there was a lot more to it. There was all that stuff about the Collaboration portfolio, which seemed to be marketing more than anything else: Cisco’s telephony and UC solutions are now one of four product lines grouped under the new Collaboration umbrella. Then there’s Unified Communications System 7.0 – the system that’s not a system but a portfolio of existing, newly enhanced communications products. System 7.0 is also a way for Cisco to better coordinate and test upgrades of its increasingly large communications system and software portfolio.
Evolving the Organization for Unified Communications
I'm starting to read through the presentations for VoiceCon San Francisco (early bird registration ends tomorrow--go here to sign up), and the thing that's jumped out at me so far is the increasing sophistication with which users and consultants are starting to approach the organizational challenges that UC presents.
Nokia Sinks Intellisync
Here’s something that took me off guard this week. "Nokia announced that it plans to cease developing or marketing its own behind-the-firewall business mobility solutions." As it turns out, the “behind the firewall” solution in question is Intellisync, a Nokia product that provides mobile email, device management, file and application synchronization and--most interesting to folks in this forum – dual-mode telephony capabilities for a number of business communications solutions on the market. Nokia says it will continue supporting existing Intellisync customers for the next couple years … and the company will continue developing its line of dual-mode handsets. But apparently Intellisync product development has effectively ended. Well, sort of …
Santa’s Bag of Cell Phones
As we enter the ramp up to the Christmas buying season (which may not be quite as jolly this year), we are seeing a gaggle of new cell phones. The good news is that these products continue to demonstrate the creativity that has characterized the consumer electronics business. The bad new is that they are forced to operate under a business model that harkens back to the Soviet Union’s planned economy.
Siemens Enterprise Names New CEO
Siemens Enterprise Communications has named James O'Neill, the former chairman and CEO of CompuDyne and a veteran of Northrup Grumman, to be Siemens Enterprise's new CEO. In a statement, Siemens Enterprise's chairman, Mark Stone, said:
The Uncertain Effect of the Financial Crisis
As I write this, the $700 billion Wall Street bailout bill has gone down, and financial institutions around the world appear to be contracting the U.S.'s disease. Everyone expects dislocations ahead, and Bloomberg is out with an article that predicts damage to the tech sector, estimating that Microsoft and Cisco could lose $4.3 billion in orders from the financial sector next year, and featuring this quote from a Gartner analyst:
Video Tunnels Through the Firewall
There are two approaches to getting video across the corporate firewall. One uses tunneling (H.460) and the other uses a proxy or session border controller. This issue is confused a bit by the vendors, because Tandberg pushes one approach and Polycom pushes the other. In fact a reader, Mr. Nutley, posted a comment on my last approach saying the problem is solved, H.460 is the way to go. Let’s start with the H.460 tunneling and see where it makes sense to use this approach.
How Will UC Fare in a Tough Economy?
The news from the financial sector is the dominant topic this week, and just as we're all wondering what this might mean for our personal finances, there's also the question of what this might mean for Unified Communications (UC).
What’s New in the 2008 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications?
The fifth annual Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications (MQ UC) is out! Since this is widely viewed as the industry score card for year-over-year UC vendor progress, let’s see what’s happening in UC, according to Bern Elliot, Gartner’s highly-regarded VP.
Cisco's Big Collaboration Announcement: A Game Changer?
The big product news today is Cisco's announcement of a major suite of products and services aimed at the collaboration/Unified Communications/Web 2.0 space. The most significant part of the announcement is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering, WebEx Connect, that Allan Sulkin of TEQConsult Group says could be a "game changer."
Now's the Time for Microsoft to Buy Nortel
Ever since Microsoft got into the enterprise voice market, there's been speculation that it might buy one of the major players--Siemens or, more likely, Nortel, given the partnership that Microsoft and Nortel have established. It never made that much sense before, because Microsoft didn't want to be in the PBX business, and still doesn't want to be. But with Nortel stock trading near historic lows and the Canadian vendor already announcing plans to divest its Metro Ethernet unit, is it time for Microsoft to revisit the idea of acquiring Nortel's enterprise business?
Rurik Bradbury on Cisco-Jabber
Rurik Bradbury, who's chief marketing officer at Unison, which makes a UC system, sent me these thoughts about the Cisco-Jabber deal:
A Critical Eye on Productivity
You don’t have to be an economist to know that these are very troubling times, perhaps presenting the greatest economic risk since the age of the Great Depression. IT planners aren’t CFOs or policy-makers and so there’s relatively little they can do in a direct sense to deal with a financial crisis, but there are some IT and communications issues that history says are directly impacted by this kind of crisis. Facing those issues today could make a major difference in how networking, UC, and IT will look two or three years from now.
What's Your Virtualization Strategy?
Virtualization was the big topic at last week's Interop event in New York City as vendors and enterprise IT architects alike tout the ability of virtualized environments to reduce costs, improve flexibility, and enable organizations to quickly deliver new services.
Alcatel-Lucent – Unified Communications, Enterprise 2.0, and More
Summer is over and fall is officially here – no, it’s not because the weather is getting cooler and the days are getting shorter – it’s because the industry analyst conference season is getting into full gear. Alcatel-Lucent (ALU) kicked off the season with its Global Industry Analyst Conference in Orlando, where the company discussed its strategy, products, and direction. In addition to general plenary sessions (which primarily focused on the company’s carrier business), there were a variety of market plenary and breakout sessions, including those focused on the enterprise market.
Jabber, Cisco, Avaya, Siemens: The Benefits and Disruptions of an IM Acquisition
As Eric pointed out Cisco’s acquisition of Jabber is all about the company delivering a unified communications solution that can go head to head with Microsoft. With its Unified Communications Manager, Unified Presence Server, Unified Personal Communicator, and other software, Cisco has been able to deliver a UC solution with decidedly strong telephony capabilities, but comparatively weak corporate-grade instant messaging features.
Two Years Later: Alcatel-Lucent and UPMC
Many will remember the splash that Alcatel-Lucent and the University of Pittsburg Medical Center (UPMC) made when they announced a $300 million, 10-year deal. There is typically a fair amount of skepticism about such grand pronouncements of huge enterprise contacts, around whether the amount of money changing hands will ever really approach the promised levels. One of the presentations at last week’s Alcatel-Lucent Global Industry Analyst Conference, by Bill Fera, MD and Director of Medical IT Software and Solutions, provided a solid update of the progress of the agreement to date.
Cisco Continues Playing Pac Man by Acquiring Jabber
Sometimes you have to wonder about the Pac-Man-like strategy that Cisco has for acquisitions. Today’s announcement of the Jabber acquisition, I believe, is their 57th acquisition since 2001. That is a lot, even by Oracle’s standards.
Cisco Buys Jabber (updated)
Now do you believe that Cisco is positioning itself to go head to head against Microsoft? Cisco announced today that it's acquiring Jabber, the presence/IM system that's driven by the XMPP standard.
Is Tic-Tac-Toe over IP (TTToIP) the Next Big Thing?
In Tuesday morning’s keynote to Wall Street at Cisco’s financial analyst conference, John Chambers participated in a Jim Grub-led demonstration where he played Tic-Tac-Toe over Cisco’s Telepresence system. My first thought was to write a very sarcastic blog pointing out how silly this was. but then I started thinking back to a conversation I had a while back with someone about what would be the drivers for Telepresence.
Believing the UC Spin
In reading Eric’s post Is UC Inevitable?, I considered some of my clients and what their responses to a survey would be if asked. I am questioning the answers.
UC: Berkeley or Davis?
I am fortunate to live in St. Helena, CA, a little town in the heart of Napa Valley. We have great food, great wine and great weather. Every weekend there is a wine auction (or two) to support local charities. Many of the big bidders at these events are people with summer/weekend homes in the Napa Valley with their main residence in San Francisco or Silicon Valley.
Tough Day for Nortel
Nortel revised its revenue estimates down, and is selling off some key carrier lines of business, making it more enterprise focused, Light Reading reports.
UC May Be Inevitable in Some Places
Here's an Information Week article about how Monsanto is grappling with the issues I just wrote about.
Is UC Inevitable?
One of the many good questions that Wainhouse Research asked enterprises in its most recent survey was: How broadly will you deploy Unified Communications capabilities? The choices were basically:
Chambers and Telepresence
John Chambers made some big promises for telepresence today, asserting (actually, Cisco's Marthin DeBeer is quoted) that Cisco will be on an annual run rate of $1 billion in Telepresence sales by the end of next year, and that it has 200 Telepresence customers and 1,000 systems on order.
Bandwidth Management and UC
Here's an interesting announcement about IBM Lotus licensing bandwidth-management technology from Avistar to support Unified Communications. If you read this site very much at all, you see a lot of posts from John Bartlett about the bandwidth implications of videoconferencing, so I'm not surprised by an announcement like this one; in fact, I've been surprised we haven't seen bandwidth management devices/software become part of the convergence picture sooner.
Why Do Firewalls Fight with Video?
Implementing video conferencing inside the enterprise requires all the QoS stuff I have been talking about all year. But crossing the firewall to an Extranet or to the Internet often causes real headaches. Migraines! Why is this so difficult and can’t we make this easier?
UC and Contact Centers: Will They Ever Get It On?
The UCStrategies.com team recently received an "Ask the Expert" question that resurrects an issue that has long been a hot button for me. A reader wrote: What are the primary challenges Contact Centers are facing in implementing UC strategies and solutions?
Art Rosenberg on Business Issues
Art Rosenberg, always a careful observer of the discussion of business issues in UC deployment, sent me his perspective on our recent conversations about this topic:
Siemens to Offer Hosted Self Service
Siemens Enterprise Communications, Inc. today announced an extension to its OpenScape Contact Center portfolio in the form of a hosted self service solution. Siemens will be offering the services of Contact Solutions, Inc. (CSI), a privately-held Reston, VA-based firm that has been around since 2002. Certainly there are a number of vendors that already offer hosted self-service solutions. What makes this announcement from Siemens interesting?
Business Case for Unified Communications
How should you plan for investments in Unified Communications, and how will that planning be affected by the current difficult economy?
A Different Take on Intervoice and Convergys
I’ve been hearing a lot about how the Intervoice acquisition by Convergys will impact these companies and their customers from the customer contact/relationship management business point of view. What I didn’t hear as much about is Intervoice’s other business--providing platforms and applications for telcos and wireless carriers focused on messaging, voice mail, video mail, Voice SMS, Voice to MMS and other enhanced services.
Juniper Networks Looking to Acquire Aruba or Meru?
The rumor mill is buzzing that Juniper Networks has its sights on an expansion in the wireless LAN market. FT.com carried a story Monday that Juniper’s new CEO Kevin Johnson, is looking to acquire either Aruba Networks or Meru Networks to round out their product line in the wireless area and better compete with industry-leader Cisco. Mr. Johnson, who had previously headed Microsoft’s platforms and services division, replaced Scott Kriens as CEO last month. Kriens maintains the position of chairman.
Buy Cisco Stock...Then Wear Stripes?
In my previous blog about Telepresence, Presence and "Presence," I cited a talk that a gentleman named Anthony Townsend delivered to a group called the Institute for the Future. In the course of that talk, Mr. Townsend dropped this interesting little tidbit of information:
Of Telepresence, Presence and "Presence"
Here's a really interesting blog post taking on the conventional wisdom about telepresence saving on travel. The blogger, Anthony Townsend, director of the Institute for the Future, notes that if telepresence deployment did in fact reduce the incidence of travel, such a development would be a historical anomaly. (Also see here for a talk Townsend gave at the Institute for the Future last year.)
Who's Ahead in Unified Communications?
Brent Kelly and Wainhouse Research have just completed another one of their annual surveys on enterprise Unified Communications attitudes and adoption, and there’s a ton of great information there, some of which Brent has put together in the form of a No Jitter Feature article. For this post, I want to call attention to Brent’s findings when it comes to the lead UC vendors, as Wainhouse’s respondents perceive them.
Polycom's Ben Guderian on WLAN Voice and Mobile UC
If you want to know what’s happening in the voice over wireless LAN area, the one guy to ask is Ben Guderian, the Vice President for Product Marketing for WLAN voice products at Polycom. Ben has been around the WLAN voice market from the outset. Originally with SpectraLink, Ben came to Polycom when the company was acquired in 2007.
SIPxchange
One of the details overlooked in reports I’ve read about Nortel’s acquisition of Pingtel is the fact that the SIPxchange Enterprise Communications Server will no longer be actively sold and marketed to businesses. SIPxchange ECS has been Pingtel’s open source PBX software installed on a server and sold as a turnkey appliance to businesses wanting a preconfigured voice system from Pingtel itself. It’s what the company has sold to businesses that don’t want to go down the road of building their own PBX based on open source software, but still want to take advantage of the low costs associated with open source PBXs.
They Could Own Your Content: Google Chrome
Who owns the content when you use a Web browser? You think you do, not the browser developer. This would not be the case if the Google Chrome End-User License Agreement (EULA) was still in force. Imagine the complications, security and compliance issues if Google had its way.
Chickens Need the Same Power Management As L-Enterprise
This past year I’ve written a lot about power factor correction and my SMB experiences with it. I’m mindful whenever I speak to someone about their utility bills that one size doesn’t fit all. Recently, I spoke with a chicken farmer – go ahead, get a good laugh-- and we discussed her monthly utility bills.
Intervoice Solutions from Convergys
Yesterday Convergys announced the closing of its acquisition of Intervoice. The company is still refining its value proposition and product integration story but Mike Betzer, Convergys’ SVP for Relationship Technology Management and Intervoice’s former CEO Jim Milton spent some time with me yesterday discussing how the two organizations are coming together.
IBM Eyes Nortel Acquisition?
Newest acquisition rumor: A Nortel-focused blog called All About Nortel says IBM is considering a purchase of Nortel, guesstimating that you'd be looking at about a $4 billion deal.
A Few Hints About Microsoft OCS R2
This Microsoft blog has some hints about what the next release of Office Communications Server (OCS) will feature. The focus appears to be on supporting 64-bit operating systems, which aims to reduce the number of servers that an OCS implementation requires.
Cisco & Microsoft's Patch Wednesday
I don't know if Cisco's PostPath acquisition got too many tongues wagging, but Cisco and Microsoft today released a "progress report" updating last year's Ballmer-Chambers event that sought to settle customers' nerves about possible tension between the 2 companies. Since they share many of the same large customers, it's in Cisco's and Microsoft's interest to keep things patched up, as they acknowledge in today's release:
Is It the Network, Or Not?
Cisco's announcement last week that it's acquiring email vendor PostPath for $215 million put the spotlight on a technology that had begun to seem passé (see No Jitter posts here, here, and here. Microsoft accused Cisco of denigrating the importance of email in the past, while Cisco countered that it's always seen email as part of the continuum "from text to TelePresence," as Cisco's Joe Burton said last week.
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Challenging Issues in IT Equipment Purchase & Maintenance/Support Agreements
Unified Communications and Social Networking in the Enterprise
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SMBs Take IP Telephony Spotlight from Large Enterprises
Mobile UC is "So European"
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