Greg Galitzine : Greg Galitzine's VoIP Authority Blog
Greg Galitzine

IP Communications

Enterprise IM Survey Results

April 8, 2008

The most recent survey results are up. In our ongoing partnership with Intellicom Analytics, we have been exploring a number of enterprise communications related topics.   This week’s survey addresses the value businesses derive from Instant Messaging (IM).   With more than 700 responses coming in from all Global Regions, the findings show that 68% of North American businesses, are utilizing IM. In other global regions the number rises to 77% of enterprises reporting use of IM for business purposes.   Of the respondents that are utilizing Instant Messaging, use of Enterprise-grade IM heavily outstrips use of Public IM services by a 3-to-1 margin.   Make sure to check out the full analysis here.  

Interop: XO Expands US Footprint

May 1, 2008

XO Communications announced today that they have significantly expanded their nationwide Ethernet services footprint.   In a briefing at Interop today, I spoke with XO’s Brad Boddicker, regional vice president for the company’s Western region, and he told me that XO is now capable of empowering over half a million business locations in 75 major metropolitan areas across the United States with next-generation Ethernet services.   Boddicker also mentioned that XO can deliver via a number of different vehicles as well, including fiber, Ethernet over copper, and fixed broadband wireless capabilities.   The company has been doing a number of interesting things lately, including the launch in April of XO Anywhere, a service designed to improve worker productivity with mobility and unified communications features. The service enables employees to use any device as their XO office phone, which is a real benefit for companies with large mobile and distributed workforces.  

Interop: Shunra Makes News

May 1, 2008

I had some more good meetings today at Interop, among them a chat with Shunra Software’s Rhoan Morgan and David Berg. Check out this article on Shunra’s newest announcement regarding version 5.30 of the Shunra Virtual Enterprise (VE) Suite

Foundry at Interop: New Modules, Green Award

May 1, 2008

I had the opportunity to meet with Foundry Networks at Interop this week, to discuss their latest offerings, a pair of high-density interface modules to its data center switching and routing product lines, the BigIron RX Series switches and the NetIron MLX Series routers.   The new modules will reportedly allow the BigIron RX Series switches and the NetIron MLX Series routers to deliver the industry’s highest 10 gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) and gigabit Ethernet (GbE) density of up to 512 ports of 10GbE and 1,536 ports of GbE in a single system.       The news of the new modules came on the heels of Foundry’s announcement of a new vision for advancing the data center based upon four key pillars: performance, virtualization, convergence and efficiency.   Foundry also was awarded the first-ever Interop Green Award. According to a release on Foundry’s site, the company was “…singled out for its ability to deliver industry-leading performance while minimizing power, space and cooling consumption in its switching, routing and application delivery controller (ADC) product set and solutions.

Martin to Comcast: You're Punished!

July 11, 2008

Looks like Kevin Martin is ready to drop the hammer on Comcast.
        FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said Thursday that he will recommend that Comcast -- the nation's largest cable company -- be penalized for violating the FCC's principles that are designed to guarantee access to the Internet. This would be the first such penalty levied in defense of the agency's open access rules.   It's expected that the two democratic appointees to the Commission will side with Martin.  

  The Washington Post is reporting the following corrective measures will be recommended:
  • Comcast will have to stop its practice of blocking
  • Comcast will need to provide details to the Commission on the extent and manner in which the practice was been used; and
  • Comcast will have to disclose to consumers details on future plans for managing its network going forward.
 




Brocade Buys Foundry for $3 Billion

July 22, 2008

Brocade Communications Systems Inc. is shelling out $3 billion to buy data equipment maker Foundry Networks Inc.   The move is receiving generally positive reviews as a move that will not only strengthen Brocade's product offering but will also allow it to more effectively compete with Cisco Systems.   The combination of Brocade's storage switches and Foundry's data networking switches could have a significant impact on the combined company's ability to offer a complete solution through an enhanced channel strategy.   Brocade, agreed to pay $18.50 in cash plus 0.0907 Brocade share for each Foundry share, valuing the company at $19.25 per share.   Back in May Foundry announced a pair of modules that reportedly allow their BigIron RX Series switches and the NetIron MLX Series routers to deliver the industry's highest 10 gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) and gigabit Ethernet (GbE) density of up to 512 ports of 10GbE and 1,536 ports of GbE in a single system.

Cisco Goes Pure for Home Networking

July 23, 2008


Cisco announced earlier today that it is acquiring Pure Networks, a developer of home-networking software.
  The acquisition will help Cisco to grow its solution set as the home networking market continues to grow more complex as home users continue to add new devices and services that connect to computers and to each other.   Pure Networks' home networking-management solution is designed to enable users to easily set up and manage their home network and connect a range of devices, applications and services.   Their flagship offering, Network Magic is billed as being the solution that helps stop users from wasting hours wading through manuals and confusing instructions or waiting on hold for technical support. The solution also promises to make it easy to:  
  • Set up their network in minutes
  • Print from any computer and share files
  • Securely connect to a wireless network and prevent intruders from accessing the home wireless network; and more.
  As Kurt Scherf, Vice President and Principal Analyst at Parks Associates, points out in the company's Analyst Blog,   Pure Networks and Cisco were no strangers to each other. Pure Networks' software was already a key element in the Linksys Easy Link Advisor (LELA) solution aimed at simplifying the setup and management of wireless networks.   Cisco will pay $120 million for Pure Networks, and they expect the acquisition to be completed in Cisco's first quarter of fiscal year 2009.  

Dallas is Sizzling!

July 28, 2008

Rich Tehrani is not the only TMC editorial voice in Dallas this week.
  I'm here as well visiting clients and dropping in to see what's going on at IP Sizzles.   So far today, I've had some interesting meetings with NEC and Fujitsu. More to come later, but suffice it to say there is a lot of interesting stuff going on here in Texas.   NEC is working on new platforms and new terminals (phones) and new applications to address their bread and butter Enterprise market, including some interesting applications targeting verticals such as healthcare, hospitality and higher education.   Fujitsu continues to build on their success in the optical market. The highlight of the visit today was a tour of their manufacturing facility in Richardson, TX. As I said, I'll cover this more in depth later on, but I just wanted to thank Traci King and Danna Melcher for their time and for arranging such an interesting tour of the facility.   Now it's off to IP Sizzles...

NEC Visit -- Dallas, TX

August 1, 2008

While I was down in the Dallas metropolitan area this week, I had the opportunity to meet with a number of companies including Irving-based NEC.   My colleagues and I were treated to a wonderful tour of the NEC Executive Briefing Center, which features many of NEC's offerings that are available to enterprises today.

  There were several new and unexpected items on the tour; these products will be announced in the coming weeks. But of course the tour showcased much of NEC's product line including their latest endpoints, a small form factor, thin-client PC, their new storage solution, and the various productivity enhancing applications that the company is well known for.

  The tour also brought us 'round to two demonstration areas focusing on NEC solutions as applied to a pair of specific vertical markets: Hospitality and Healthcare. As expected these demo rooms were outfitted with the latest devices and applications designed to improve the experience for patients and medical staff in the case of the healthcare demo, and hotel guests and the staff that services them in the hospitality demo.   Regarding what's coming down the pike, all I can say right now is that NEC is partnering with a well known networking company to provide a product that will help enable remote workers to be more productive.   Their channel will have the product in hand by mid-August and will start reselling the solution, so we have to wait a bit longer for official word of the new solution.   NEC also showed us a prototype of the next version of an enterprise communications server that's still in customer trials and should be announced by the mid-to-end of August. The solution is designed as a pure IP play, supporting all existing applications such as voice, mobility, and unified communications.   The product will offer a smooth migration path for existing customers who wish to move to an all-IP infrastructure.   Lastly, NEC officials told us to watch out for several new solutions spanning the following areas: speech, video voice mail, and some new things from the Sphere acquisition of one year ago.   The NEC folks told me that, in terms of trends, they're seeing healthy activity in the hospitality and healthcare markets.



Action-Packed Week (Part 1)

August 22, 2008

Long day today.   Fitting end (almost) to a busy week, replete with travel.   Monday was Boston and the Channel Partners Conference.   Tuesday was Manhattan and SpeechTek.   Wednesday was an opportunity to catch up back in the office in Norwalk, CT.   And today was a travel/meeting/dinner day in Huntsville, Alabama.   ...via Nashville.   Let's see if my memory is up to the task this evening...   On Monday we met with Michael Storella, Director of U.S. Business Development for IP phone maker snom. Among the things we discussed were the company's new initiatives, including an OCS related solution, which according to Storella should help snom open up some opportunities in the large enterprise market. As he said, the initiative "...opens up conversations with Fortune 500-types, where we generally hadn't had these contacts before.
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