Thursday, December 4, 2008
A Snapshot of Whys and Hows of Video
Posted by Eric Krapf | Dec 4, 2008
The latest VoiceCon Webinar covered the topic of performance management for voice and video; the sponsor, Psytechnics, is moving more heavily into video performance management, which is a story in itself that I'll discuss in a future post--presumably, this performance management company, which has focused on voice quality up to now, sees a market opportunity in the belief that enterprises will start to see video performance as a critical factor. But for this post, I want to just take a look at the audience polls we ran during the webinar (which you can replay by going here).
UC "A Long Way Off"
Posted by Eric Krapf | Dec 4, 2008
I got this email in response to my recent post/newsletter, from Richard Snow, VP & Research Director at UK-based Venta Research, and I wanted to pass along Richard's comments:
At Your Service
Posted by Eric Krapf | Dec 3, 2008
We've got a pretty cool one-two punch in the Features column over to the right: Our old friend Hank Levine of the law firm Levine, Blaszak, Block & Boothby recently sent an article on ways that the carriers will try to get you to spend more money during the economic downturn; and I recently posted an article written by Byron Battles, longtime consultant and one of the heroes of the epic VoiceCon blizzard of 2003. Byron's writing about one of the carrier offerings you've been hearing more about recently: Hosted IP communications services.
Roll the Truck
Posted by Matt Brunk, Telecomworx | Dec 3, 2008
Think back to the time of VoiceCon 2003 that was held in Washington, D.C., and for the last time. Snow caused the slowing down of traffic, disrupted schedules and delayed commercial passenger travel. Still, there were three specific take-aways from VoiceCon that year for me.
Classify Video Based on Trust
Posted by John Bartlett, NetForecast | Dec 2, 2008
Network administrators want to be fully in control of their networks. And rightfully so, as they are responsible for keeping a big complex beast running like a Swiss watch. So their preference is to decide for themselves which packet streams should get high priority, and which should be constantly relegated to the lower classes. But this doesn’t work very well for video conferencing.
Alcatel-Lucent: Delivering the Dynamic Enterprise
Posted by Sheila McGee-Smith, McGee-Smith Analytics | Dec 2, 2008
With corporate headquarters in Paris, it may not have occurred to Alcatel-Lucent that Thanksgiving week may not be the best time to announce a host of new enterprise communications capabilities. (Or maybe it was just me, too busy shopping for and preparing the turkey, eggnog cake and all the other accoutrements to give this announcement its due.) Whatever the reason, it's not too late to highlight one of the interesting capabilities ALU is delivering with what they call their Corporate Communications offer.
New Feature: Hosted IP and Centrex
Posted by Eric Krapf | Dec 1, 2008
A lot of people are talking up Hosted IP Communications, formerly known as IP Centrex, as a cure for the capex blues. Byron Battles, a veteran consultant, takes a look at the business and technology issues in a new feature in the right-hand column.
Five Ways to Save Money with Unified Communications Now!
Posted by Irwin Lazar, Nemertes Research | Nov 30, 2008
Given present economic realities, most IT executives we talk with these days are far more interested in ways to achieve short term cost savings via unified communications then they are in the promise of UC to improve productivity, or even to apply UC to improve business processes for top line revenue improvement. Sure it's still fun to talk about things like communications enabled business processes, and long-term, things like CEBP should provide significant return on investment, but when budgets are frozen or declining, IT managers are often forced to think tactically rather than strategically.
Open Letter to Santa 2008
Posted by Matt Brunk, Telecomworx | Nov 30, 2008
Thank you for sending the NEC DT330 Bluetooth enabled handsets that eliminate those nasty tangled handset cords from desk telephones. Customers don’t like tangled handset cords! Remember when I asked for this back in January 2007? I realize your elves are very busy, but come on Santa, I found out later about all that cool technology you deployed with NORAD, remember?
Advice for Consultant Liaison Programs
Posted by Allan Sulkin | Nov 30, 2008
The 3rd annual TEQConsult Group survey of Society of Telecommunications Consultants and Canadian Telecommunications Consultant Association members is now being compiled and its findings will be reported and analyzed in a No Jitter feature article later this month. Some of the initial results are surprising to this writer, because more than one system supplier received lower product evaluation ratings from the consultant sample than the facts warranted, in more than one category. The survey results also demonstrate that the financial resources plowed into a consultant liaison program (CLP) do not always positively correlate with the end results.
