September 2007 Archives

Fonality's FtOCC Certification Hits the Road!

September 28, 2007 4:15 PM |

Ok, while I don’t imagine I’ll ever be voted “most likely to install an open source PBX for his cousin’s small business” I do have at least a basic appreciation of why being certified to do so might be a worthwhile endeavor.

Fresh off the heels of a successful stint at ITEXPO, Fonality is talking their trixbox training to the people. With three distinct certification tracks (administrator, engineer, and technician) under the Fonality trixbox Open Communication Certification (FtOCC) banner, there is something for everyone.

The FtOCC (pronounced “F-talk”) road show will be traveling to the following cities around the world: London, England; Boston, MA; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Toronto, Ontario; Los Angeles, CA; Miami, FL; Dallas, TX; Atlanta, GA.

To see a list of when FtOCC will be visiting a city near you, click here.

The best part is, I’m happy to offer the readers of my blog a special $50 discountif they sign up for the FtOCC training course.

So if you want to learn the ins and outs of trixbox Pro and CE, and save 50 bucks while you are at it, be sure to follow this link to register! And if anyone asks, tell them the VoIP Authority sent ya!

Here’s some more info on the FtOCC training:

FtOCC Administrator (trixbox CE & Pro)

FtOCC Administrator is a three-day course designed to teach the basics of trixbox installation and administration. Taught by Kerry Garrison, trixbox Community Director, with support from Andrew Gillis, trixbox Founder, FtOCC Admin is a great opportunity to roll up your sleeves and learn the ins and outs of trixbox Pro and CE. This course is designed for those who wish to install trixbox systems for their company or their clients, people who will have to maintain a trixbox installation, or users who are relatively new to trixbox and who want a better understanding of its capabilities. FtOCC Admin focuses on the core operations that an administrator must handle on a regular basis.

FtOCC Technician (trixbox CE, Pro and PBXtra)

FtOCC Technician is a three-day technical certification course designed to train resellers and consultants to support their clients running trixbox CE, trixbox Pro, and PBXtra systems. Taught by Fonality technical support instructors, FtOCC Technician dives deep into platform and application installation, carrier setup and integration, network configuration, echo causes and remedies, and other common issues. A requirement for Authorized and Premium Resellers, this course should be taken by Linux technicians and engineers who regularly support client installations.

FtOCC Engineer

FtOCC Engineer is a new course designed to teach engineers how to do custom application development for trixbox CE, Pro and PBXtra. Write deep CRM integration, database dips, text-to-speech, internet look-ups and more by combining the Asterisk Gateway Interface (AGI) and Asterisk Manager Interface (AMI) with a CGI, SQL database, IVR, or all three. FtOCC Engineer will give developers the skills needed to create custom phone solutions with database integration for specific business needs such as account management, appointment confirmations, ticketing systems, and billing systems. This course is taught by Fonality's lead engineers who created trixbox Pro and PBXtra and is designed for serious programmers with deep Linux knowledge. Because FtOCC Engineer is very hands in and lab oriented, attendance is capped at 10 pre-screened participants.

WSJ: 3Com to Announce Sale to Huawei, Bain Capital

September 28, 2007 8:06 AM |

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The Wall Street Journal is reporting that 3Com Corp. is set to announce its own acquisition by Bain Capital and Huawei Technologies for more than $2 billion.

According to the report, the cash deal values Marlborough, Mass.-based 3Com at more than $5 a share, the person said. Huawei Technologies, the Chinese networking giant, will take a minority stake in 3Com as part of the deal.

Digium Nabs Switchvox

September 27, 2007 7:33 AM |

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Tom Keating reports on Digium’s acquisition of Switchvox and highlights Mark Spencer’s comments that Digium plans to take some of the proprietary SwitchVox code and offer it back out to the community.

I was on the call with Tom when Spencer and Bill Miller shared the news. I see this news as underscoring Digium’s stated mission to make Asterisk easy to use and expand the company’s reach to new customers across the globe through a growing channel.

SwitchVox brings to Digium over 1,400 existing customers. These customers absolutely love the Switchvox GUI and the ability it gives them to manage their own phone systems. Switchvox, which was founded in 2003, offers a rich feature set for the SMB market or for enterprises with distributed offices.

Said Miller, “Open source is taking over the SMB world.”

Certainly with this announcement, Digium is doing their part to bring simple, functional open source telephony solutions to that market.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

Managed Services Survey Results

September 25, 2007 12:19 PM |

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A recent TMCnet/Intellicom Analytics survey explored how many enterprises are looking to engage a third party to provide managed services support in areas such as network performance optimization or configuration management.

Of the 1,734 global respondents, the overwhelming majority — 68% — are not currently using any externally provided managed services. Within this segment, more North American-headquartered businesses (72%) have chosen a non-external management approach compared to their Global Region counterparts (63%).

Judging by this data it would seem that there is a tremendous opportunity for managed services providers to fine tune their marketing efforts and make efforts to win business in this market.

Former Jasomi CEO to Lead Ditech

September 25, 2007 6:51 AM |

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Ditech Networks, Inc. has announced that Todd Simpson will be the company’s President and Chief Executive Officer going forward.

"I am excited about working closely with employees and the board to extend Ditech's position as a voice quality leader in the communications industry,” Simpson said. "I'm also eager to work with Ditech's customers and partners as we further serve mobile and VoIP markets around the world.”

Simpson came to Ditech through their acquisition of SBC-maker Jasomi Networks, Simpson served as President and CEO of Jasomi.

Is Facebook Worth $10 Billion?

September 24, 2007 4:24 PM |

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For anyone who has ever been “super poked” or had a sheep thrown at them, or wished they didn’t write on their ex-boyfriend’s wall while in the midst of a Chablis induced bad night, odds are you never wondered what Facebook is really worth.

I mean everything has a value, but sheep-throwing super pokers might not ascribe a value of $10 billion to the platform that allows them to stay in touch with their online friends.

Now if you’re Microsoft or Google, you pay more attention to thee financial matters, and virtual hugs and drinks and yes – flying poultry – might actually add up to a two-digit number followed by nine zeros.

Rich Tehrani sent me a link to the latest Wall Street Journal article discussing the potential of Microsoft buying a stake in Facebook.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Microsoft is possibly mulling an investment (reportedly up to 5%) in Facebook. What’s 5% worth? According to the article, it might be worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $300–$500 million.

Just to make things interesting Google too has reportedly expressed an interest in the social networking site.

Alas, it’s too soon to tell which potential suitor’s wall Mark Zuckerberg will post a message on.

To quote the Journal article:

The people familiar with the matter said that the discussions are still preliminary and Facebook could wind up not taking an investment from either Microsoft or Google.

Last year I wrote about Yahoo’s interest in purchasing Facebook for a cool billion.

If only the real estate market appreciated as much as the potential valuation of Facebook did this year.

Watch this space…

ITEXPO Recap Part 1

September 14, 2007 9:14 AM |

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I’m back in the office today after a long week prepping for and subsequently attending Internet Telephony Conference & EXPO and Green Technology World Conference.

The advance team hit the ground running last Saturday, and it seems we didn’t stop ‘til we got back to JFK Thursday afternoon, and even then a quick scan of the accumulated e-mail showed there was more to do. As concerns e-mail, there’s ALWAYS more to do.

My overall impressions of the event (I’m sorry I don’t do impressions…

) are as follows:

Exhibit Hall: The exhibit hall was abuzz from beginning to end. There was a constant flow of attendees, and my informal polling of exhibitors showed that they were happy with the number as well as the quality of leads they were receiving.

Anecdotal evidence suggests the hall was full of service provider attendees, but I heard exhibitors talking up the end user community as well as resellers who were in attendance. As expected, there was a bit of something for everyone who attended and for those who came to showcase their wares.

Conferences: The quality of the sessions was high. I want to take this moment to thank the speakers who gave generously of their time to help us educate the conference attendees. As one of the organizers of the conference program, I am truly grateful that you took the time to join us in Los Angeles this past week, and I look forward to seeing many of you again in Miami, in January.

The attendance at the conferences was steady, and my personal observation was that in addition to the Trixbox certification/training and SIP trunking seminar, some of the more popular areas of the conference were the Service Provider, SIP, Unified Communications, and Essential Issues sessions.

I was also impressed by the level of questions the attendees asked, and it was gratifying to see just about every session end with compelling Q&A that escalated into a follow-on conversation in the hallways. It appears that the people, they hunger for knowledge.

Events: There were a few notable events taking place outside of the exhibit hall, including a poolside reception hosted by Fonality, a poolside party on the roof of the Standard Hotel hosted by Global Touch Telecom... And I didn’t fall into the pool at either event, so that’s a positive takeaway! :)

Green: While there was always an available seat to be had in the inaugural Green Technology conference sessions, the quality of the presenters and the content in general was amazing. And the attendees were some of the most dedicated conference-goers I’ve seen in quite a while, with questions always at the ready and a real serious interest in pushing the greening of technology. I enjoyed moderating two panel discussions at the event and I guess the mark of a good panel is that I learned a lot from my position behind the podium, and you’re likely to see the results in a series of upcoming articles on the Green Technology World Web site.

There are so many angles to the green initiatives sweeping every nook of our industry, and it’s important that the vendors and the media covering the greening of technology stop and take the time to listen to end users to ensure we’re all in tune with what the needs of the marketplace truly are.

I want to thank all those who participated in this first-ever Green Technology World Conference: speakers and attendees alike. I, for one see a huge opportunity ahead. Being at the first "anything" certainly has it's own merits, and I want to reiterate my gratitude to everyone involved.

Travel: Aside from a single bad experience at the check-in line at LAX — is it really necessary to travel with TWO small dogs, who feel the need to communicate... at 5am? — the trip in and out was smooth. I splurged a bit and cashed in some upgrade points and was able to enjoy the “front of the plane” experience, so that was certainly a plus. For all the wonderful restaurants LA has to offer, the challenging schedule of producing a trade show does not always lend itself to eating well. Evenings at Ciudad and Dodger Stadium produced the best meals. I can’t possibly recommend the bar menu at the Wilshire Grand. For a native New Yorker, I just don’t understand how you can serve flavorless pizza. You think it’s the safe choice, but… Maybe they just don’t know how to do Italian, because the following night’s chicken parm in the hotel’s “Italian” restaurant (again, how tough is it to do chicken breast smothered in cheese and sauce?) would have been better if it came in a box labeled Hot Pockets.

That’s it for my first run-through of impressions. I’ll have a more vendor-specific “what did I see at the show” entry later. It’s bagel day at TMC today, so I’m enjoying some breakfast.

Later!

The Greening of the Datacenter

September 12, 2007 1:21 PM |

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I moderated a panel yesterday afternoon called “The Greening of the Data Center,” at the Green Technology World Conference. The panelists were all excellent, with a thorough knowledge of the challenges and opportunities facing data center administrators as well as the market conditions in general.

The speakers were Jim Smith, vice president of engineering at Digital Realty Trust, Bill Ryan, product marketing manager, high-end and service provider systems business unit at Foundry Networks, Bob Wooley, director of technical quality management at Lee Technologies, an APC partner, and Lawrence Vertal, senior strategist at AMD.

The conversation ranged from what administrators and managers of data centers need to know in order to be more efficient to government regulation to the hottest products to the future of the industry.

In the end the panel agreed that the trend towards greening the datacenter is unstoppable. The financial benefits are too compelling to be ignored and the benefits to the environment are huge.

TMC has taken up a leadership role online and launched a Web site dedicated to covering next-generation, environmentally friendly technology in telecom and beyond. Bookmark Green Technology World and keep an eye out for much more on the subject of the trend towards green technology.

ABP at ITEXPO

September 12, 2007 12:58 PM |

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ABP Technologies is a distributor of IP Communications products and services. I stopped by the ABP booth at ITEXPO to speak with Robert Messer, president of the company, about the products and companies that were on display on the exhibit hall floor in Los Angeles this week.

Messer was very excited by the recent addition of the Mobotix SIP-based surveillance camera to the ABP stable. He described the IP endpoint as having “state-of-the-art monitoring software that interfaces with the new Asterisk-based appliance from Digium. The camera has audio capabilities, and can pick up audio signals, and can even use event-based triggers to start recording. One of the more exciting features according to Messer is the ability to use an IP videophone to monitor various situations. The cameras are deployable in unlimited scale, he told me.

Messer also showed me the Exinda bandwidth management solution. He explained that such tools allow users to determine which applications are going to affect bandwidth and subsequently affect quality. The Exinda device helps enterprise users allocate and manage their bandwidth, and can be used by hosted service providers managing businesses with 10 to 500 users.

Another company showcasing their solution in ABP's pavilion was Third Lane. Third Lane has developed a commercial graphical user interface for Asterisk-based PBX deployments. The solution is available on an ISO disk and can cover installations for up to 50-200 lines. The service is also available in a multi-tenant version.

Messer also pointed out the new phones from Aastra that were on display, including the 5i series high-end business phone. Among the interesting features is a paperless extension pad on the LCD. Messer also told me about the new DECT phones as well as a lower-end 51i series phone coming from Aastra.

ABP has carried snom phones for years. The newest addition to the line is the snom 370 with snomHQ, the company’s high-quality sound solution. The device comes with a high-resolution graphical screen, which would allow a user to view pictures or moving images, and can work in conjunction with the aforementioned Mobotix SIP-based surveillance camera.

Of note, the snom 370 will be available with power over Ethernet (PoE), which would essentially make the complete line of phones from snom available with PoE.

Messer believes in IP communications and understands that sometimes that means solutions that go beyond mere voice. Some of the other products on display in the ABP booth included Cyberdata’s IP-based public address and paging solution, Pirelli’s dual-mode WiFi phone that works on Windows Mobile, ClearOne’s conference room speaker/system as well as several other devices.

The Future is Video

September 12, 2007 12:47 PM |

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I attended the session entitled Future Trends at ITEXPO. Seeing as it was the dreaded “early session” I wasn’t sure what to expect in terms of audience numbers, but I was happy to find a session room with lotsof eager attendees filling the room. The session was moderated by Matt Clark of Deloitte Financial Advisory Services and featured Richard Birckbichler of Solacom, Aron Rosenberg of SightSpeed, and Jim McLoughlin of Worldgate, makers of the Ojo video phone.

The general feeling among all the panelists was that video was the key application that will dominate the future landscape of communications.

Before jumping in to talk about video, Solacom’s Birckbichler spoke at length about the evolution of the communications lifestyle and his belief in the future of voice over instant messenger (VoIM).

“Voice over IM should be considered a major element going forward,” he said.

He noted that there are up to 11 million VoIP users and somewhere from 850 million to 1 billion IM users today. And regarding VoIM, it’s taken only 18 months to cross the 100 million user threshold.

Birckbichler also touted WiMAX as a technology to watch, being driven by the CLEC market.

Rosenberg spoke next and he gave a brief background of SightSpeed, explaining that they offer consumer-based IP-based video and voice services available to anyone, anywhere.

He spoke about the trend that live video is already creeping in to television and media today. He mentioned examples such as Nickelodeon’s MeTV, and MTV’s Total Request Live, which features a “webcam wall” that allows viewers to participate in the show via “webcam wall” and how this is breaking down another barrier and bring in the end users into the programming.

Rosenberg discussed the fact that quality is paramount.

McLoughlin anchored the conversation and agreed that video telephony is a true revolution in communication, and that societal forces are at work, changing the behavior of the consumer to be more willing to see the person they are speaking to via video.

He discussed some market trends, telling the audience that residential VoIP will continue to grow over next few years, and that we are witnessing an increase in video phone sales as well. According to McLoughlin, today’s market potential is at about 4 million video phones, but that the market is expected to ramp up quickly to over ten million by 2010.

Overseas is quicker to adopt this type of technology, he said.

He discussed several reasons for the increased interest in video phone technology, including:

The advent of broadband;
Increase in processing power;
Lower component cost;
Newer more efficient codecs (H.264); and the
Opportunity to begin peering, to keep the calls on the Internet, and avoid paying termination costs to the carriers.

YouTube and MySpace have made personal video more important than it used to be, and generational changes are at work as well. Creating/generating your own content is much more important to the next generation.

So according to today’s panelists the future is all about video communications.

Trends in Dual Mode

September 11, 2007 10:39 AM |

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I moderated the session entitled Trends in Dual Mode, but for all the preparation, I can only lay claim to managing the time. The speakers were all so well prepared and so thoroughly professional; I had only to help field and direct questions from the audience.

The speakers were Alan Johnson, vice president of business development at HelloSoft; Shahadat Khan, CTO of Eyeball Networks; and Peter Thornycroft, VoWLAN Product Director, at Aruba Networks.

Alan Johnson began by listing his David Letterman-style Top 5 list of trends in dual mode.

Number 5: “Retiring the Holster” — this trend is all about the shrinking of the handset and the changing ergonomics of handheld devices.

Number 4: FMC Deployment — major operators are increasingly offering dual mode services. Handset choices have increased, just look to new offerings from Nokia, Samsung, Motorola, LG, HTC, and others. There’s a long list of major trials completed.

Number 4B: Enterprise is the first deployment arena. The business case for enterprise is sound. The real driver behind enterprise FMC is taking off is not price, or having one address book, but extensive new functionality, such as four-digit dialing, full PBX features, Unified Communications + contextual intelligence surrounding ones calls).

Number 3: Applications Explosion. See iPhone; open development platforms inviting application developers to write many new solutions.

Number 2: Price/Performance. Handset prices are dropping while we’re seeing significant performance enhancements. Battery life problems are being solved and still better performance is on its way.

Number 1: Volume and variety of handsets shipping today presages the future success of the market. The WiFi alliance certified over 100 handsets at beginning of 2007, with another 100 handsets set for certification this year. iPhone sold 1million units within 74 days of launch.

Shahadat Khan spoke about some more trends driving the market.

Dual mode handset reference design has reached a sub 100 dollar price point
Growth rate is exploding (1,300 % — WiFi handsets; 198% dual mode handsets; 26% mobile handset annual, for four years)

IP brings better availability quality, and satisfaction, he said. Coupled with the aforementioned growth rates, the future of dual mode is definitely bright. Phone calls should just work, but one of the biggest challenges to using a WiFi-based phone is the NAT Traversal issue. At home you connect through a WiFi access point. From work or at a hotspot you need to get through a firewall.

The challenge, according to Khan, you need to make VoIP plug and play.

In summing up his thoughts, Khan laid out the following:

Dual mode and single mode VoIP phones are high growth engines;
NAT and firewall traversal is a critical barrier to widespread adoption; and
The industry needs to work together to develop a comprehensive solution.

Peter Thornycroft brought a different point of view to the panel. His company, Aruba Networks, builds WiFi infrastructure for the enterprise, and he believes that user-centric networks foster mobility. Mobility is an irreversible trend, he told the audience.

The amount of new multimedia devices connecting to enterprise networks signals a significant market disruption. “At Aruba,” Thornycroft said, “the question is how do we build a system around these trends and help users do something useful around it?”

The panel then fielded a number of questions from the audience.

I’d like to thank Alan, Shahadat, and Peter for taking time out of their respective schedules to help educate the Internet Telephony Conference and EXPO attendees.

Digium's Mark Spencer on Growing Up

September 11, 2007 10:08 AM |

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Mark Spencer is founder of Digium and creator of Asterisk.

Spencer delivered a keynote speech last night entitled, Mysterious Keynote, in which he spoke about the changes at Digium, and how Digium is growing up.

He cited major changes such as new management team, a new facility, and a new focus on broader customers and increasing the channel.

Of course, Spencer being Spencer, he quickly dismissed Digium’s transition to “adulthood” with an “Okay. But not completely.”

Truth be told, Spencer did come across as a more serious, more mature business leader than the quirky offbeat open source evangelist that he’s better known as.

He spoke about Unified Communications as a hot trend.

“Amazingly,” he said “it seems that people think it’s all new, but as most people understand it, UC has been around for a long time.”

Spencer believes UC encompasses how one could use communication to change people’s business process.

Spencer cited an interesting example of an outfit called Botanicalls. This NYU project essentially devised a system whereby your plants can call you when they need water or if they’ve been over watered, etc… He mentioned an initiative called QueueGames, which is essentially a trivia game callers can play while on hold. The point Spencer was driving home is that even silly concepts such as these serve to get people thinking about the possibilities of communications. Initiatives such as this serve to expand the definition of UC.

He mentioned the evolution in the open source world, where things have gone from a simple “good versus evil” debate (open source vs. proprietary) to a complicated new world where we find open source (good) fake open source (bad) proprietary open source (evil), and even proprietary hybrid hosted (really evil).

Among the new challenges Spencer says Digium faces are the need to bring Asterisk to new markets, and the entry of new “scary” players like Microsoft into the telecom world.

The response to these new challenges he told the crowd is to write more code, package Asterisk better, educate resellers and users on the different products available in the marketplace, and most importantly, to be educated by users and resellers on whattheir needs and desires may be.

As Mark Spencer told the audience, “I’m here at ITEXPO looking to understand what I can do better to help you use Asterisk to win more business.”

The New Mitel: Stout Delivers ITEXPO Keynote

September 10, 2007 7:15 PM |

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Norman Stout is the CEO of Mitel US, the company formerly known as Inter-Tel. Norman delivered a keynote address at ITEXPO during Monday’s evening session in Petree Hall in the Los Angeles Convention Center.

The speech, entitled The New Force in Business Communication, A Look at the New Mitel explained the thought process behind this summer’s merger of Ottawa-based Mitel and Inter-Tel, the Phoenix, AZ-based enterprise communications solutions provider.

Stout addressed the state of the business communications market today, and characterized the industry as “primed for upheaval.”

Whether you are a business, or a vendor or an analyst it’s a very exciting market today.

“Technology has been commoditized,” he said, “and resellers are facing reduced margins. The market is ever shifting, with new players poised to enter the market and legacy provides looking to force-feed enterprise solutions to SMBs.”

“Customers are demanding more than technology,” Stout said. “Technology — ten years ago — sold itself. Customers want several things. They want to increase revenue. They want to streamline operations. They want to enhance customer service. And of course we all want more with less. Businesses always want to control costs. More than just technology, businesses want solutions to fundamental business challenges.”

“Cookie cutter approaches no longer work,” Stout added. “Customers demand value and a quantifiable return on investment.”

Stout discussed some current trends. SMBs are now the dominant market he told the crowd, with companies employing 500 people or less making up an astounding 95% of North American businesses. Increasingly these SMBs are looking more like their larger enterprise counterparts with distributed offices, and a global viewpoint.

“And these SMBs are just as sophisticated and demanding.”

Businesses are confused and frustrated with the solutions providers are offering today, replete with techno-jargon, an overly strong focus on features and functions, and a lack of clear solutions.

“When you’re going to the customer, don’t just sell technology. Try to fit the solution to that customer’s specific needs, Stout said.”

SMBs want more than just technology from their vendors — they want the vendor to understand their specific requirements; they want some level of customization for the solution to be tailored to their needs; they want a single point of contact, a strong history of product migration, and a tangible return on investment.

Stout underscored the new Mitel. He told the crowd that by bringing together the resources of two great companies with a history of serving the sector, The New Mitel delivers what SMBs want:

Choice
Relationship
Total Solutions
Competitive pricing
Vertical market knowledge and trusted advice
Simplicity, flexibility and agility
Financial strength

“The New Mitel is large enough to compete globally… and small enough to understand local needs.”

Stout cited the combined strengths of the two companies:

Mitel

Scalable, standards-based portfolio
Global reach
Multi-site networking
Channel-oriented
Applications strength
IP Leader
Vertical market focus

Inter-Tel

Competitive small business solutions
Native rich media applications
National Support coverage
“One Inter-Tel” go to market model
End to end managed services offer
Large direct distribution presence
In House data network and carrier services provisioning

Stout cited research from Infotech stating that the combined Mitel would be a leader in the growing SMB market with 19% market share, ahead of competitors Cisco (13.5%), Nortel (13.1%), Toshiba (13.)%) and others including Avaya and NEC (9.6% respectively).

Stout finished by reiterating that the New Mitel is “…positioned to be a New Force in Business Communications.”

“Global in scale and local in focus, Mitel brings to market the unparalleled ability to deliver value, not commodity.”

Things To Consider Before Deploying UC

September 10, 2007 3:43 PM |

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This morning, I attended the session Things to Consider before Deploying Unified Communications, moderated by Jim Burton. The session featured three speakers: Jeff Ridley of ShoreTel, Inc., Bud Walder of Dialogic, and Lior Moyal of AudioCodes.

The speakers spoke about the various considerations one needs to look at when deciding whether or not to deploy a unified communications solution.

First up was Jeff Ridley, who defined unified communications as the convergence of rich communications media and presence with a company’s business information and processes.

His presentation focused on the top five things users need to look at when selecting UC:

Your overall user and business objectives
Open systems for business integration
Capabilities, features (collaboration, mobility), end user ease of use
Manageability and training requirements
Network infrastructure requirements

Bud Walder of Dialogic asked if UC is an all or nothing proposition (his answer was no) and how closely does a UC solution need to be tied into VoIP Infrastructure (not necessarily tied in).

Walder explained that unified communications is a set of applications coming together in a much better, more integrated fashion than ever before. And while VoIP infrastructure can help enable that, it’s not necessarily a must have.

Burton added that infrastructure is an enabling part of the equation. In fact, he said the hardware might even be irrelevant. It’s all about voice enabling the application and the business process as opposed to buying a specific piece of hardware.

AudioCodes’ Moyal offered up a wish list of enterprises including the unification of real time communications (voice, instant messaging, conferencing); unification of experience across multiple devices (desk phone, laptop/desktop, mobile phone); and unification of messaging types (voice mail, e-mail, fax, calendar, contacts).

Infrastructure is an important consideration, he said, even if it’s “all about the apps”

Lior discussed some of the more basic decisions that need to be considered when selecting the infrastructure components.

He mentioned that speech enablement is a requirement, as is the ability to deploy your hardware components in a distributed fashion across multiple locations, wit centralized management capability. Another consideration is planning ahead for a smooth and gradual migration path.

Moderating The State of SIP

September 10, 2007 1:25 PM |

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I just finished moderating a session on the session initiation protocol, entitled “The State of SIP.” Joining me as panelists for this speaking engagement were Simon Millard, Head of Professional Services at Aculab, Jon Young, vice president of software engineering at Inter-Tel, and Cullen Jennings, Distinguished Engineer, Voice Technology Group at Cisco.

Together the three speakers answered questions — from me as well as from the audience — and spoke at length on a variety of subjects related to SIP, including security, presence, interoperability, and the future of SIP.

The audience was made up of attendees who had differing levels of SIP knowledge and the speakers did a great job of addressing their comments to folks across the spectrum. Indeed the group fielded questions from people who were brand-new to SIP, who needed a basic overview, to tech-savvy individuals who were wrestling with their own SIP deployments. One thing is for certain: The learning curve never ends, and the questions from all these attendees were compelling and drove the conversation in this interesting session.

One question that I had for the panel was about the future of SIP. Ten years ago, many readers of this blog will remember that H.323was all the rage. But the standard became bloated and SIP was born to a market ready for alternatives.

I asked the panel if there were any other standards waiting in the wings that threatened to take the momentum from SIP, and how concerned should I be about future proofing my decision to purchase SIP-based solutions today. They all agreed that while no single standard will be around forever, SIP is still ramping up, and there appear to be no major threats waiting in the wings. At the end of the day, the prognosis for SIP is a good one, and no next-gen communications decision making process would be complete without looking at and implementing SIP.

I’d like to thank Simon, Jon and Cullen for taking time out of their respective schedules to help educate the Internet Telephony Conference attendees.

ITEXPO Starts in 10 hours!

September 10, 2007 12:54 AM |

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I’m really looking forward to the kickoff of ITEXPO tomorrow morning.

Among the highlights on the schedule for Monday…

Keynotes from Digium’s Mark Spencer and Inter-Tel’s Norman Stout
The IPTV Evolution track, in partnership with our friends at FierceMarkets
Reseller Solutions Day
The SIP Trunking seminar
The opening of the ITEXPO Exhibit Hall at 4:15pm
The networking reception in the exhibit hall

I’ll be checking in regularly throughout the event, so if you’re not lucky enough to be in LA for the next 3 days, be sure to check my blog often for a taste of what’s going on.

Of course feel free to log on to TMCnet to keep up with the stream of all the news announcements coming out this week.

And if you happen to be at ITEXPO feel free to stop by and say hello.

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Greg Galitzine's VoIP Authority Blog

VoIP and IMS News and Views
from the Editor of Internet Telephony Magazine...

September 2007 Archives

Fonality's FtOCC Certification Hits the Road!

WSJ: 3Com to Announce Sale to Huawei, Bain Capital

Digium Nabs Switchvox

Managed Services Survey Results

Former Jasomi CEO to Lead Ditech

Is Facebook Worth $10 Billion?

ITEXPO Recap Part 1

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