No Jitter Weblog

Social Media and the Enterprise: Where the Intersections Lie

melanieturek@gmail.com (Melanie Turek, Frost and Sullivan) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 10:23:53 -0500

Next week at VoiceCon, I will be moderating a panel on the use of social media in the enterprise. We have a great line-up of participants, and although I will kick things off with a brief discussion of some recent research Frost & Sullivan has done in this area, the bulk of the session will be spent on discussion and Q&A.

In Between IT Green Spaces

matt_brunk@telecomworx.com (Matt Brunk, Telecomworx) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 10:02:07 -0500

In the report, How Well Do You Know...Green IT?, the WSJ published some interesting tips on where IT should focus their energy saving efforts. After completing Phase II of construction in our offices, I learned too late of a NASA development now commercially applied. Then, in my Mac server adventures (more on this later) I learned that not all enterprise server farms are headless. Headless?

VoiceCon Contact Center Preview

sheila@mcgeesmith.com (Sheila McGee-Smith, McGee-Smith Analytics) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:50:31 -0500

Here's a preview of the VoiceCon session on the Contact Center, which takes place Monday, March 22, 9:00 - 10:45 AM:

Cisco's Intercompany Media Engine

ekrapf@techweb.com (Eric Krapf, Editor) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 11:11:52 -0500

Just catching up with this announcement from last week: Cisco briefed analysts and press on a product that they'll be showing at VoiceCon, and which is, in fact, their entry in the Finals of the Best of VoiceCon awards: The Inter-Company Media Engine, or IME.

AudioCodes Debuts OCS-SIP Phone Interoperability Product

ekrapf@techweb.com (Eric Krapf, Editor) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 10:58:40 -0500

This announcement from AudioCodes is interesting on a few levels. For one thing, it shows the continuing move to an emphasis on software within the enterprise communications industry; I had a chance to talk with Alan Percy of AudioCodes about the new release, and he called it a "major change" for AudioCodes to be coming out with a pure software product. Up to now, we've all known AudioCodes for their hardware focus--gateways and phones.

Broadband Debate: Coming Soon

delphi-inc@att.net (Gary Audin, Delphi, Inc.) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 10:36:57 -0500

The FCC will present a national broadband plan to Congress soon. The plan is to provide access to broadband services to every home in the US by 2020. Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski in an interview with the Washington Post published March 3, 2010 ("FCC Chairman Genachowski Confident in Authority over Broadband, Despite Critics") believes the FCC has jurisdictional authority to control and regulate broadband service providers. His focus is on the President's plans to bring broadband Internet access to all homes in the US.

VPBX Market Blossoming

ljlisser@yahoo.com (Larry Lisser, Channel Strength) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 15:38:51 -0500

The Virtual PBX market is hot. After eight years of seeding by a handful of leading providers, the market now finds itself in a perfect storm:

Voice As An Application

sorell@unifieditsystems.com (Sorell Slaymaker, Unified IT Systems) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:08:51 -0500

As voice becomes just another application that runs on an organization�s shared IT infrastructure, it is critical that this shared IT infrastructure minimizes delay and jitter. What separates voice from other enterprise IT applications is its real-time, interactive nature that is very susceptible to milliseconds of delay and jitter. The ITU recommends that round trip delay be less than 150ms, wherever possible.

Bloom Energy Rocking Your Data Center Plans

matt_brunk@telecomworx.com (Matt Brunk, Telecomworx) — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 09:42:48 -0500

The Bloom box is no longer one of Silicon Valley's best-kept secrets. After much media fanfare and a slew of announcements, the Bloom Energy website finally came to life with information after weeks of waiting. For those charged with powering the data center, consider what General Colin Powell said to his wife, "Don't worry about a generator honey, we'll get a Bloom box for our backyard instead." This is the goal that Bloom Energy has put in its sights but for data centers today, it's tested, proven and in use.

Real-Time Communications and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI): Where Is It Today?

dcarolus@ncompass-inc.com (Doug Carolus) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:32:11 -0500

Doug's co-author on this piece is Matt Urbanowicz, sales engineer at N'Compass Solutions.

Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is the practice of bringing computing resources back into a centralized site such as a data center and providing users with these resources remotely (from "the cloud"). By eliminating the need for each user to have their own PC workstation hardware & software, VDI enables IT organizations to deliver user processing and applications as a centrally managed service--and in doing so, increase desktop security, improve manageability, enhance infrastructure utilization, offer rapid provisioning, increase processing flexibility, and build "greener" IT infrastructures.

The PBX is Dead (Or Maybe the Term is Dead)

amsulkin@aol.com (Allan Sulkin, TEQConsult Group) — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:55:50 -0500

PBXs have taken a beating for many years now, and their death has been proclaimed time and time again. Is the time finally here?

How Long Until Voice is Just Another Critical Application?

sorell@unifieditsystems.com (Sorell Slaymaker, Unified IT Systems) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:53:58 -0500

Today, voice is the most expensive application within an IT organization, consuming 6- 10% of the annual IT budget. In the future, voice will just be another critical application that runs on the shared enterprise IT infrastructure. This will cut the cost of voice services by 50% and enable easier integration with other applications. This integration will empower a business to operate more efficiently, grow top line revenue, while quickly adapting to an ever-changing global marketplace.

My DSL: Now and Forever?

delphi-inc@att.net (Gary Audin, Delphi, Inc.) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:22:37 -0500

Will I have a supported DSL service for the foreseeable future? I am skeptical. If the PSTN is to be retired, then what happens to the copper local loops that support DSL modems?

UPS: Time To Get Green

matt_brunk@telecomworx.com (Matt Brunk, Telecomworx) — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:07:48 -0500

UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) manufacturers have been given notice to submit comments to the new UPS guidelines being formulated under the Energy Star program no later than April 2, 2010.

Speaking of the Hosted vs. Premises Debate

ekrapf@techweb.com (Eric Krapf, Editor) — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:10:18 -0500

In addition to reading Melanie's post below and her work over the last year on this topic, you can also get a look at the hosted-vs-premises debate in this very cool cross-blog debate that our friend Dave Michel is conducting.