Mobility, not Unified Communications, top priority for businesses

Unified Communications (UC) is getting a lot of publicity in the tech media these days. But the big push by manufacturers to integrate chat and presence with existing communication systems may not drive sales as much as initially expected.

A recent Forrester survey of 2,187 North American and European companies stated there is "confusion about the value" of unified communications for their company. It seems that UC is regarded as a "nice, but not critical" application for communication systems. In fact, UC is not even the number 1 priority for corporations, mobility is. 64% of the respondents in the Forrester survey indicate that "providing more mobility support to employees is a priority", with 23% citing it as a critical priority.

Unfortunately, mobility is a trickier topic than UC for many communication systems due to the complexities of multiple cellular carriers, mobile devices, and operating systems. Getting all 3 pieces of that puzzle to work together is a daunting task. However it does generate a call to action for future investment and upgrading of communication technology. Extending the desktop to the mobile space adds many levels of value and an enhanced ROI to a communication system.

Unified Communication could find a niche spot in the marketplace riding the coat tails of mobility. As UC becomes more common, many manufacturers will begin to offer it as a standard feature and not an enhanced (think more money) add-on with true enterprise mobility becoming the featured enhancement. UC can provide a nice complement to mobility extending enterprise chat, presence, and even GPS personnel location to a mobile device.

Soon, users will have access to UC apps as easily as traditional e-mail and unified messaging (voice mail merged with e-mail). Remember, these features were once heralded as high-end cutting edge applications as well.

Somebody let me know when they merge mobility with video conferencing, that will be interesting.

Microsoft CEO: "No print media in 10 years". I say it may be sooner than that!!

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has been quoted as saying there will be, "no media consumption left in 10 years that is not delivered over an IP network." Ballmer continued to say there “will be no newspapers, no magazines that are delivered in paper form. Everything gets delivered in an electronic form.”

To this I say, duh!!!

Somebody sign me up for CEO out west and I'll shout from the mountain top obvious statements. I don't mean to be over the top here, but for many people including myself, this all digital media concept is already a reality.

Every morning, I wake up and turn on the TV (delivered via an IP network), eat breakfast, get dressed and check some news on my PDA. After that it's off to the office where a flurry of digital media is accessed via the desktop. I can browse any newspaper online, read RSS feeds from hundreds of different websites, and even watch a streaming feed of CNBC.

The fact of the matter is I already get every piece of news and media digitally, I can't even fold a newspaper very well.

I know there are many out there that don't realize this, but reality is that technology advances exponentially and in the past 5 years the proliferation of the mobile web and streaming media has been enormous. With wireless networks beefing up and PDA's, smartphones, and UMPC's getting faster and more accessible to the everyday user, this all digital future will become a reality before we know it.

Increased Travel Costs Driving Demand for Video Conferencing

It's no shocker that higher oil and energy prices are putting pressure on business travel. CNBC.com is reporting that these increased travel costs are beginning to reflect on the bottom line of technology companies that can provide video conferencing and collaboration products.

The article reports that "Manpower has ramped up use of its video conference equipment in the last couple of months" and "office furniture maker Herman Miller has encouraged employees to use video conferencing in addition to conference calls and car-pooling to cut operating costs".

Manufacturers that focus on unified communication, video conferencing and teleworking can offer businesses enhanced cost savings and increase ROI in these difficult times. However, until the recent spike in energy pricing, demand for these applications was lukewarm at best. Many IT managers looked at these features as a burden on the network and as a low priority item due to cost and difficulty to deploy.

Amazingly enough, these ROI driving features are not a terrible burden on the network, overly expensive or difficult to deploy, depending on the product of course. VoIP communication developer ShoreTel's latest software release, ShoreTel 8, provides video conferencing and teleworking functionality right out of the box. ShoreTel 8 also supports integration with Microsoft OCS to provide presence and chat functionality integrated with PBX features.

Economic predictions do not foresee travel and energy costs going down anytime soon. IT directors get ready, the CEO might be knocking on your door and asking about video conferencing sooner than you think.

ShoreTel 8 demo video

ShoreTel has posted a ShoreTel 8 demo video on YouTube and we have it for you on this site. You can check out the video in the left hand column.

We will keep the video up for a while so everyone has a chance to view it. The demo is only about 9 minutes long and showcases ShoreTel's newest features including video conferencing, presence and chat at the user desktop.

Check it out and send us your thoughts.

Is LTE the next must-have mobile broadband technology?

Credit: Networkworld.com

Long Term Evolution (LTE)-based services are garnering a lot of attention in the mobile broadband industry, despite the fact that they are at least two years away from being deployed.

LTE, considered by many analysts to be the next big wave in 4G wireless technology, is due to be launched commercially in 2010 by Verizon and AT&T, roughly two years after the Clearwire coalition’s big commercial WiMAX launch slated for later this year.

Technically speaking, LTE is a modulation technique that is the latest variation of Global Systems for Mobile Communications (GSM) technology. Its developers at the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) dubbed it “Long Term Evolution” because they view it as the natural progression of High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA), the GSM technology that is currently used by carriers such as AT&T to deliver 3G mobile broadband.

GSM is by far the dominant mobile standard worldwide, with more the 2 billion global customers. In the United States, however, the only carriers that currently use GSM are AT&T and T-Mobile. Carriers Verizon and Sprint both use the rival Code Division for Multiple Access (CDMA) technology, although Verizon is due to move over to the GSM side when it launches its own LTE network sometime in 2010.

While it is far too early to predict how successful LTE will be in the enterprise market, recent trends indicate that demand for the technology could get a significant boost as businesses demand ever-faster mobile broadband access. For instance, a recent survey conducted by market research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey reports that nearly half of all enterprises currently use 3G cellular services, and that more than one-third plan on using WiMAX technology within the next year.

The major reasons for deploying mobile enterprise applications, the survey finds, include increased employee productivity and increased employee availability, as more than 80% of corporate users list both of them as key reasons for using more mobile technologies. If demand for increased mobile broadband speeds continues to be strong, LTE could be in a good position to compete with WiMAX as a widely deployed mobile broadband standard when it comes to market in 2010.

Check out the whole article here.

The evolution of the cellphone in 3 minutes

Here's a fun look at the evolution of the cellphone industry in 3 minutes. Check out the video below and try to remember what your first cellphone looked like, it is entertaining.

BlackBerry users tie into PBX for unified communications

Credit: NetworkWorld.com

Enterprises are starting to use the BlackBerry in a new way: as a means of taking their desk phones mobile.

Research In Motion, known mainly as a mobile e-mail vendor, is making a surprising effort to leverage the voice side of the BlackBerry smartphone, positioning its server software as a way to blend cellular and corporate voice networks by linking the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) with the corporate PBX.

The result is a set of capabilities, achieved without major infrastructure changes, that many enterprises probably will find compelling. They include a single corporate telephone number that rings on a cell phone, an office phone, a business phone at home, or on a BlackBerry, extending PBX features to the BlackBerry. (Compare unified communications products.)

Fayetteville State University (FSU) in North Carolina experienced the power of RIM's Mobile Voice System (MVS) when a key storage-area network suffered a catastrophic failure, says Joseph Vittorelli, the university's director of systems and infrastructure. Within minutes, he connected to every staff member he needed -- regardless of where they were -- via the conference feature, made assignments and got the team working together on very short notice.

FSU, Dell and Chicago-based produce-wholesaler Anthony Morano Co. were panelists at this week's annual BlackBerry user conference, discussing fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) and MVS.

Another change at FSU is that voice mails -- a product of people's inability to connect -- have dropped to zero in many cases. Vittorelli recently got a call from a user who returned from lunch, found she had three voice mails and demanded to know why the calls had not reached her BlackBerry smartphone.

"Enterprises are realizing as they look at fixed-mobile convergence and unified communications that mobility is a big part of this," says David Heit, director of software product management, who focuses on MVS, server software introduced in 2007 and based on a product acquired when RIM bought Ascendent Systems.

MVS links the BES to a large number of PBX brands, forging voice- and call-control links between the BlackBerry cellular world, corporate telecom systems, and an array of carrier-base landline and wireless networks. Users get a new corporate phone number that overlays their cell-phone number. All inbound calls are made to that one number, ring on all of the user's phones, and connect on whichever phone the user answers. "I now have the concepts of call routing and call control [with the BlackBerry devices]," Heit says.

Heit demonstrates on his own BlackBerry, selecting a five-digit corporate extension at a desk in RIM's Waterloo, Ontario, headquarters and pressing a button to connect over AT&T's Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution network. For the first time, the BlackBerry becomes in effect the user's mobile desk phone, not just his mobile e-mail device.

It's all done without wading into what Heit calls the "thick soup" of the complexities of VoIP infrastructure deployments, of FMC architectures, and the like. "The trend to all-IP converged infrastructures will take years," he says.

You can see the whole article here.

Gates emphasizes PC-phone connectivity in Windows 7

Credit: Mary Jo Foley, ZDNet.com

Improved collaboration and connectivity between Windows PCs and cell phones is going to get a major shot in the arm with Windows 7, according to Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates.

During a speech for members of the Windows Digital Lifestyle Consortium in Tokyo last week, Gates referred a few times to Windows 7, the next version of Windows which Microsoft has said will ship in 2010. Gates highlighted improvements to Windows 7’s lower power and memory requirements that are in the works. But he also played up extensively during his speech the new connectivity between mobile phones and Windows which will be introduced as part of the release.

From a transcript of Gates’ remarks:

“We’re hard at work, I would say, on the next version, which we call Windows 7. I’m very excited about the work being done there. The ability to be lower power, take less memory, be more efficient, and have lots more connections up to the mobile phone, so those scenarios connect up well to make it a great platform for the best gaming that can be done, to connect up to the thing being done out on the Internet, so that, for example, if you have two personal computers, that your files automatically are synchronized between them, and so you don’t have a lot of work to move that data back and forth.”

The file synchronization capability to which Gates refers is the Live Mesh collaboration/synchronization platform/service which Microsoft recently unveiled. But Gates made it sound like there’s something beyond Mesh that could be in the works for Windows 7. Again, from the transcript:

“We’re also a participant in building software for the mobile phones, and our proposition is to build a great mobile operating system, but also to have it be the one that connects best to the Windows PCs. So we’re working hard on both of those things….

“For a customer there are going to be phones with larger screens, and PCs with smaller screens. In fact, there will be even an overlap, but I think the key for us is to drive all the applications, and let the user move easily back and forth. Our best customers are going to have a great mobile phone, and they’re going to have a great personal computer. And if we don’t make those scenarios work well together, that will hold back both of those markets.”

Gates also told the audience that Microsoft is going to deliver a “major new version of Windows” every two to three years. (A caveat: Gates also said not too long ago that Microsoft would deliver a new version of Internet Explorer every 9 to 12 months. IE 7 shipped in October 2006; we’re still only at Beta 1 for IE 8.)

What’s your take? What kinds of new features in Windows 7 — and Windows Mobile 7, allegedly due out in 2009 — might improve PC-to-mobile connectivity and what kinds of applications/services would benefit?

IT departments must prepare for $200 a barrell oil and rising demand for teleworkers

Here's an interesting article from TechRepublic blogger Bill Detwiler regarding the price of oil effecting demand for teleworking and the impact on corporate networks. As oil prices rise, businesses will take a harder look at allowing employees to work from home instead of incurring the cost of commuting on a daily basis.

Many organizations provide automobiles and pay for the cost of gas for some of their employees, which can be a large financial burden as oil prices rise. Accent has a large fleet of service vehicles and vehicles for certain office personnel that accumulate a significant fuel bill each month. Personally, my business travels amount to $100 - $125 per week in fuel. Multiply that by 20 and one can understand the reason for increased demand in teleworking

Check out the article and link to the site below.

Credit: TechRepublic.com

Admins, start your VPNs! As oil and gas prices soar, IT organizations should prepare to support more remote workers.

On Tuesday, Goldman Sachs analyst Arjun N. Murti predicted that oil prices may hit $150 or even $200 a barrel in the next six months to two years. Murti believes this “super-spike” will be driven by a lack of adequate growth in supply and could lead to demand rationing in developed nations (particularly the United States). Whether Murti’s prediction comes to fruition or not, fuel prices and transportation costs are likely to continue their steep rise for the foreseeable future–barring the unlikely discovery of new, easily-accessible oil reserves or the rapid development of alternative energy sources.

As transportation costs rise, organizations and workers will look for ways to reduce travel. For many employees, this will mean working from home to eliminate the daily commute. As I wrote in response to IBM’s prediction that the “virtual workplace will become the rule”, I’m not convinced the traditional office workplace is in immediate peril, but I believe a hybrid model will emerge. Employees will work from home a few days each week.

Today’s lesson: Start preparing now

Many IT organizations, particularly in large enterprises, already support a distributed workforce. IT leaders within this category should ensure their infrastructure has the capacity to support increased demand. IT departments not currently supporting remote users should begin exploring their options now. At the very least, you should make certain your network can support existing remote workplace technologies. Also, IT will not be immune from this trend. IT leaders must develop the skills and techniques required to manage a distributed workforce.

Here are resources that can help you support and manage remote workers:

• TechRepublic’s VPN Policy
• TechRepublic’s Remote Access Policy
• Learn the basics of virtual private networks (VPNs)
• 10 tools to help your remote workers stay in touch
• Fixed Mobile Convergence can centralize business numbers and reduce airtime
• Use special project management techniques for dispersed teams
• Unified communications: What it means to your business
• Why unified communications bring out the best in VoIP
• Unified communications terminology cheat sheet
• Presence: What is it, and why do you need it?
• Managing mobile devices the Microsoft way
• 10 things you should do before letting users take their laptops out the door
• Mobile devices are the new network perimeter: Can they be secured?
• It’s 9:00am: Do you know where your people are?

Mitel Wins Best of Interop Award 2008

PHOENIX, Arizona, April 30, 2008 — Mitel innovation was recognized by InformationWeek, the leading multimedia business technology brand, and Interop, the leading global business technology event series, today as winner of the 2008 Best of Interop Awards in the VoIP and Collaboration category during Interop Las Vegas 2008.

The Mitel Communications Suite was selected by InformationWeek's panel of expert judges and won against products from Cisco and Siemens. Each year, Best of Interop winners prove to be the key players in the continuing evolution of business technology.

Mitel Communications Suite delivers simplified system installation and management, business process improvement, and a reduction in operating costs by consolidating low-power consumption telephony and server hardware platforms for IT and unified communications applications. Mitel Communications Suite can be combined with the Sun Ray Unified IP Client powered by Mitel, which delivers a secure unified computing and communications environment fully integrated into the world-renowned Sun Ray solution. The combined solution is among the industry’s most energy efficient, providing ongoing capex and opex savings through the elimination of power-hungry desktop PCs and the reduced energy consumption of low power Mitel IP phones.

"With the increase in exhibitors this year, competition was especially tough for the Best of Interop Awards," said Lenny Heymann, Interop general manager. "We congratulate Mitel for their contributions and demonstrating how Interop is the leading business technology event to see the exciting and latest advancements in the industry."

The Mitel Communications Suite, a pre-integrated unified communications solution, allows Mitel’s flagship 3300 IP Communications Platform (ICP) software and other related unified communications applications (including mobility, unified messaging, teleworking, Mitel Live Business Gateway, and audio and web conferencing) to be integrated as a single seamless communications solution for business, resident on a standard Sun Fire X4150 server. This solution delivers the features and functionality of the advanced Mitel communications solution, while reducing deployment cost, improving the seamless integration of voice applications, and enabling organizations to roll out voice-based solutions on a Sun data infrastructure.

“The work between Sun Microsystems and Mitel blends proven technologies to create a unique value proposition for businesses looking to evolve to unified communications while reducing the number of servers; obtaining secure, centralized management; and lowering their total cost of ownership,” said Paul Butcher, president and chief operating officer, Mitel. “Sun and Mitel are planning a long and successful partnership, using unified communications applications to reshape business practices and to drive business process improvements in a collaborative, mobile world.”

ShoreTel VP discusses unified communications

Credit: NoJitter Podcast

Steve Timmerman, Vice President of Marketing, ShoreTel, discusses the growing role for desktop video in enterprise communications, mobility, and the relative importance of hardware and software in enterprise communications networking, with NoJitter Editor and Lead Blogger Eric Krapf.

Unified Communications the Next Step for VoIP

Human latency, it's an elaborate term for something that we each experience regularly, the time it takes for someone to return a communication. Whether that communication is via phone, e-mail, text or any other method, human latency costs corporations millions each year.

The latest wave in communications is designed around eliminating human latency by providing a variety of features centered around presence information and mobility features in the workplace. Leveraging existing VoIP networks, communication systems are now providing presence information, real-time chat, on-demand video communication, mobility, and document collaboration to users. These features are referred to as unified communications, every avenue to communicate with someone available at the user's fingertips.

Users can now see the corporate contacts available to speak, chat, collaborate on a project, and video conference all in one interface. Corporate connectivity can even be extended to the mobile device to provide the same information seen at the desktop. These enhancements are allowing people to communicate faster and more efficiently, eliminating the issue of human latency. Some people may look at unified communications as overdoing it, but connecting with the right person at the right time is critical to getting the job done efficiently and ensuring the bottom line.