Greg Galitzine's VoIP Authority Blog - Unified Communications Archives tag:blog.tmcnet.com,2011-06-15:/blog/greg-galitzine//6 2009-04-07T14:56:59Z VoIP and IMS News and Views Attending HIMSS - Healthcare Meets IT tag:blog.tmcnet.com,2009:/blog/greg-galitzine//6.40458 2009-04-07T14:54:26Z 2009-04-07T14:56:59Z Just a quick note to say I'm in Chicago at the McCormick Center, attending the HIMSS conference, which covers IT in the Healthcare space. I prearranged a bunch of meetings and I'll be jetting from booth to booth starting in about... Greg Galitzine http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/greg-galitzine/ Just a quick note to say I'm in Chicago at the McCormick Center, attending the HIMSS conference, which covers IT in the Healthcare space.
 
I prearranged a bunch of meetings and I'll be jetting from booth to booth starting in about 15 minutes.
 
For those paying attention to all the nasty windy weather we've been experiencing (and flying in) I have to say today was a smoooooooth flight from the NY area out to O'Hare.
 
Let's hope tonight's flight back is the same.
 
Looking forward to my meetings, and I'll keep you updated as time allows.
 
In the meantime don't forget to stay up to speed on the latest healthcare and related news at our TMCnet Healthcare vertical site. If the intersection of healthcare and technology is your market - bookmark this site today!
]]> IBM Unveils Solutions and Partners Around Sametime Unified Telephony tag:blog.tmcnet.com,2009:/blog/greg-galitzine//6.40372 2009-04-01T04:01:30Z 2009-04-01T04:07:53Z IBM heralded the future of enterprise voice collaboration today with a series of announcements addressing new software, new services and an array of business partner offerings. IBM Lotus Sametime Unified Telephony lies at the center of the company's UC strategy. As more... Greg Galitzine http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/greg-galitzine/ IBM heralded the future of enterprise voice collaboration today with a series of announcements addressing new software, new services and an array of business partner offerings.
 
IBM Lotus Sametime Unified Telephony lies at the center of the company's UC strategy.
 
As more vendors look to IBM as a partner, IBM took the wraps off an interoperability validation program for the product. This program is designed for IBM and key business partners to test a product's capabilities with Sametime Unified Telephony.
 
Participants in the Sametime Unified Telephony Validation Program include, IP PBX service providers Alcatel Lucent, Avaya, Cisco, NEC, Nortel, Mitel and Siemens, media gateway vendors Dialogic and NET, and enhanced voice quality providers GN Netcom, Plantronics, Polycom and Psytechnics. Additional partners will be announced in the coming months.
 
IBM also announced the availability of IBM Converged Communications Services for Sametime Unified Telephony (SUT) a new service designed specifically to enable clients to readily reap the benefits of SUT. According to IBM, the service provides strategy, assessment, architecture, design, integration and implementation for the new solution.
 
 
 
]]> ShoreTel Upgrades Unified Communications Offer tag:blog.tmcnet.com,2009:/blog/greg-galitzine//6.40370 2009-04-01T02:42:24Z 2009-04-01T02:46:00Z   ShoreTel has released the latest version of its Unified Communications software, ShoreTel 9. Among the new features, ShoreTel 9 is targeting mobile and desktop users with enhancements designed to enable them to communicate more effectively-regardless of location-and increase individual productivity. I... Greg Galitzine http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/greg-galitzine/   ShoreTel has released the latest version of its Unified Communications software, ShoreTel 9. Among the new features, ShoreTel 9 is targeting mobile and desktop users with enhancements designed to enable them to communicate more effectively-regardless of location-and increase individual productivity.
 
I had the good fortune to meet ShoreTel Vice President of Marketing, Kevin Gavin, who shared some insights regarding the latest offering from his firm as well as the market opportunity in front of ShoreTel.

kevin_gavin.png
According to Gavin, "CIOs are still buying but they are considering more vendors and have become more price sensitive."
 
"Communications is a fundamentally strategic purchasing decision, and increasingly, UC brings hard dollar savings and CIOs are willing to spend on technology that gives a good return," he added.
 
The latest version of ShoreTel's flagship solution, offers a series of personalization features, including location-based services and individualized call handling, and enables users create custom call-routing scenarios to ensure priority callers can always reach them.
 
The solution supports integration with Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) 2007, and according to the company, when Microsoft OCS 2007 is integrated with ShoreTel 7.5 and higher, customers can use Office Communicator to manage their ShoreTel phone, view other parties' presence, and exchange instant messages with other Microsoft and ShoreTel users.
 
ShoreTel 9 scales up to support larger sized businesses, offer Active Directory integration, and takes the company's renowned distributed architecture to the next level offering N+1 reliability, however it extends N+1 across the entire system, allowing customers to save money while maintaining high levels of reliability.
 
The upgraded solution also offers security enhancements including SRTP/AES encryption, which is designed to help ensure call privacy, as well as display encrypted call status on ShorePhone IP phones and ShoreWare Call Manager displays, so users can see at a glance that the call is secure.
 
As far as mobility is concerned, ShoreTel 9 offers location-based services for GPS-enabled mobile devices, allowing users to automatically custom route calls based on the user's location, ensuring that their most important contacts can always reach them, without having to manually manage their call handling settings.
 
For a full list of enhancements and features view the press release.]]> 8x8 Launches Enterprise Scale Virtual Office IP PBX Solution tag:blog.tmcnet.com,2009:/blog/greg-galitzine//6.40320 2009-03-31T03:03:43Z 2009-03-31T03:06:04Z I recently had the opportunity to meet with 8x8's Huw Rees to discuss that company's steps to move their Virtual Office hosted IP PBX solution "upstream" to serve larger organizations in the small to medium sized business range. Well, today the... Greg Galitzine http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/greg-galitzine/ I recently had the opportunity to meet with 8x8's Huw Rees to discuss that company's steps to move their Virtual Office hosted IP PBX solution "upstream" to serve larger organizations in the small to medium sized business range.
 
Well, today the company officially announced the availability of an enterprise version of its hosted IP PBX phone service suited for deployment in larger organizations. This latest solution is designed to fit in a variety of environments, including a single building, a campus or distributed across multiple locations.
 
Positioned as the latest generation of 8x8's broadband agnostic hosted IP PBX business phone solutions, 8x8 Virtual Office Enterprise is now being positioned to offer a host of features, flexibility and the economics of hosted VoIP to enterprise environments.
 
In a briefing today, Rees explained the announcement. "It's not just the technology," he said, "we completely re-did the network architecture."
 
To meet the critical performance requirements of large corporations, the 8x8 Virtual Office Enterprise solution provides high availability, quality and redundancy. 8x8 recently upgraded its service infrastructure, which included deploying a new triple redundant architecture across three independent data centers with each center connected to redundant IP access providers.
 
As a result of this new architecture, companies that experience a failure of any software component, server, cluster or even a complete data center failure will not experience an impact on the service to the end customer.
 
Looking ahead, keep your eyes open for 8x8 to release some unified communications related news later this year. No details yet, but as the company repositions its solutions to an audience of larger businesses, it makes sense to offer this type of solution.
]]> Mitel Meeting Notes tag:blog.tmcnet.com,2009:/blog/greg-galitzine//6.40319 2009-03-31T02:35:51Z 2009-03-31T02:41:13Z I visited with Mitel today, and they showed me several solutions designed to drive productivity, enhance customer service, and simplify network management. Thanks go to Stephen Beamish, vice president of business development and strategic alliances and Danielle McNeil, public relations... Greg Galitzine http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/greg-galitzine/ I visited with Mitel today, and they showed me several solutions designed to drive productivity, enhance customer service, and simplify network management. Thanks go to Stephen Beamish, vice president of business development and strategic alliances and Danielle McNeil, public relations manager for spending the time with me to discuss the new solutions.
 
First we discussed the Mitel Business Dashboard, a management portal designed to allow enterprise and contact center management to monitor call activity and collect trend data on call volumes and times.
 
Mitel Business Dashboard.jpg.png
 
The intelligent call tracking solution is available on the Mitel 500 Communication Platform.
 
In addition to the Business Dashboard, I also received a firsthand look at Mitel's latest desktop IP Phone, the 5360.
 
The 5360 color phone with Web capabilities designed to deliver a whole series of HTML-based applications. The phone boasts a 7-inch touch-screen display, which grants access to the applications. The device also features wideband audio, embedded gigabit Ethernet, and a built-in HTML toolkit for application development.
 
And lastly, while not exactly telling me what the surprise would be, Beamish told me of an upcoming Mitel promotion scheduled for April 16th. Under the banner "One Connection - No Limits: Where You Are Should Not Dictate Where You Work," Mitel has created a Web page which apparently has received over 1,500 signups in the short time it has been public. For more on this upcoming news, visit http://pages.mitel-news.com/april16
 
It's clearly a mobile solutions play, but I'm curious to hear more on this.
 
 
]]> Dimension Data Drives Productivity, Cost Savings tag:blog.tmcnet.com,2009:/blog/greg-galitzine//6.40318 2009-03-31T02:10:33Z 2009-03-31T02:13:34Z Down at the VoiceCon show in Orlando today I had the opportunity to meet with Mark Zerbe of Dimension Data. Zerbe is vice president, Converged Communications at the IT services and solutions provider. Our discussion ranged to include a series of... Greg Galitzine http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/greg-galitzine/ Down at the VoiceCon show in Orlando today I had the opportunity to meet with Mark Zerbe of Dimension Data. Zerbe is vice president, Converged Communications at the IT services and solutions provider.
 
Our discussion ranged to include a series of topics, but the key message that Zerbe spoke to was the fact that clients today want to talk about solutions that drive productivity and cut costs.
 
Zerbe told me that he believes that integrated collaboration is the technology wave for clients to ride this economic transition, in fact, he said, "IC may turn out to be the wave that helps pull us out of this 'transition.'"
 
I asked him to explain why it seems that video collaboration solutions seem to have taken off recently, to which he responded:
 
"Cisco Telepresence + Microsoft OCS + slow economy are combining to drive the market to adopt integrated video solutions."
 
The proof of course is in what the customers think:
 
The confluence of these technologies is helping to transform organizations, and customers are saying that these solutions are driving productivity and saving them money.]]> Dallas Trip Winds Down; Sipera News tag:blog.tmcnet.com,2009:/blog/greg-galitzine//6.40040 2009-03-06T04:11:52Z 2009-03-06T04:19:34Z So my week in Dallas is finally winding down. Not that it hasn't been a great week, with interesting meetings with a number of the companies who reside astride the north Dallas Telecom corridor. In the last two days I've spent... Greg Galitzine http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/greg-galitzine/ So my week in Dallas is finally winding down. Not that it hasn't been a great week, with interesting meetings with a number of the companies who reside astride the north Dallas Telecom corridor.
 
In the last two days I've spent time in the offices of Telstrat, NEI, NEC, Fujitsu, Texas Instruments, Excel, and Apptrigger; that's in addition to the executives I interviewed from a number of companies attending the Comptel show in Grapevine this week.
 
The interviews should be online shortly, to see if they've been posted, please visit the TMCnet video library.
 
I'll be following up with posts and articles about all the companies I met with, but in the meantime I wanted to share a bit of news from Sipera that's not made the rounds of the mainstream media just yet.
 
The company has just released an IP Video sniffer called UCSniff2.0. Until now, the information has only been posted on security boards and community sites, and on the SourceForge site at http://ucsniff.sourceforge.net/
 
The UCSniff2.0 eavesdrops, captures and records video conferencing sessions and works on regular IP Telephony too. Using the tool, an IT manager can perform a man in the middle voice capture and can reconstruct the voice call, shows holes in a security policy, and enable those responsible for a site's security to fix the application.
 
The timing is good, as many industry pundits are hailing 2009-10 as the timeframe when IP video comes into its own; the solution allows an IT manager to test their environment and move quickly to address issues.
 
Sipera also told me about VideoJak, an application designed to allow an IT manager to examine any vulnerabilities with regard to system availability.
 
According to a description on the SourceForge site:
 
VideoJak is an IP Video security assessment tool that can simulate a proof of concept DoS against a targeted, user-selected video session and IP video phone. VideoJak is the first of its kind security tool that analyzes video codec standards such as H.264. VideoJak works by first capturing the RTP port used in a video conversation and analyzing the RTP packets, collecting the RTP sequence numbers and timestamp values used between the phones. Then VideoJak creates a custom video payload by changing the sequence numbers and timestamp values used in the original RTP packets between the two phones. After the user selects a targeted phone to attack in an ongoing video session, VideoJak delivers the payload over the learned RTP port against the target. This attack results in severely degraded video and audio quality.
 
I want to thank Sipera VP of Marketing Adam Boone for spending some time with me and for walking me through the new apps.
 
Watch for more exciting stuff from this Richardson-based security firm in the coming weeks.
]]> Sipera, RSA in Secure VoIP Deal tag:blog.tmcnet.com,2009:/blog/greg-galitzine//6.39880 2009-02-23T16:39:02Z 2009-02-23T16:40:13Z Sipera Systems says it's joined the RSA Secured Partner Program and RSA, The Security Division of EMC, said that it has certified interoperability between the Sipera IPCS UC security product family and the RSA SecurID two-factor authentication solution. The result is... Greg Galitzine http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/greg-galitzine/ Sipera Systems says it's joined the RSA Secured Partner Program and RSA, The Security Division of EMC, said that it has certified interoperability between the Sipera IPCS UC security product family and the RSA SecurID two-factor authentication solution.
 
The result is a simple way for users to secure their VoIP phones without the need to use any special clients or phone configuration. All users need to do is enter the RSA SecurID one-time secure password and their PIN.
 
In an era where security and privacy compliance in industries such as healthcare, financial services and others is becoming critical, this solution helps an organization achieve its overall secure information goals.
 
Just today, TMCnet columnist Kevin Coleman published his most recent column, titled $1Trillion. In his note to me he wrote: "It's bigger than the bailout!" and when you stop to think about it, it's a scary thought.
 
The trillion that Coleman is referring to is not a US Government sponsored handout, it's the estimated dollar loss for intellectual property and data theft in 2008 for businesses globally. Coleman gets his numbers from Dennis C. Blair, the Director of National Intelligence, in his Annual Threat Assessment of the Intelligence Community for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. To learn more, read the entire article.
]]> Rich on Microsoft's Response Point tag:blog.tmcnet.com,2009:/blog/greg-galitzine//6.39236 2009-01-23T19:24:03Z 2009-01-23T19:25:27Z Rich has a nice post about the opportunity for Microsoft's Response Point phone system in the coming year. Microsoft's John Frederiksen, General Manager of the Response Point group will be giving a keynote at the upcoming ITEXPO Also there will be a... Greg Galitzine http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/greg-galitzine/ Rich has a nice post about the opportunity for Microsoft's Response Point phone system in the coming year.
 
Microsoft's John Frederiksen, General Manager of the Response Point group will be giving a keynote at the upcoming ITEXPO
 
Also there will be a 2-day Microsoft Response Point Solution Seminar at ITEXPO East 2009 Best part of this (aside from the education) is that it's free.
 
Check out Rich's post for the details.
]]> Polycom Q4 Results Announced tag:blog.tmcnet.com,2009:/blog/greg-galitzine//6.39197 2009-01-21T22:10:22Z 2009-01-21T22:11:36Z Polycom announced their quarterly earnings today and the results were a mixed bag. The Pleasanton, CA-based maker of voice and video equipment announced adjusted Q4 EPS of 42 cents, which was ahead of analysts' estimates of 40 cents. The company also announced... Greg Galitzine http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/greg-galitzine/ Polycom announced their quarterly earnings today and the results were a mixed bag.
 
The Pleasanton, CA-based maker of voice and video equipment announced adjusted Q4 EPS of 42 cents, which was ahead of analysts' estimates of 40 cents.
 
The company also announced growth from its video services segment which accounted for two-thirds of consolidated net revenues at $141.7 million (this includes video communications - 54% and networks systems - 13%). The voice communications segment of the company's business accounted for 33% or $87.1 million, which is down as compared to Q407 when voice generated 37% of consolidated net revenues or $98.4 million.
 
Robert Hagerty, the firm's chairman and CEO addressed Polycom's successes in 2008 as well as the challenging economic climate and his outlook for the company into 2009:
 
We are pleased to have surpassed the $1 billion revenue mark in 2008. As the largest company in the Unified Collaboration industry, Polycom generated year-over-year growth in our Video Solutions business, illustrating the resilience of our fast-ROI video offering. With our Voice business showing more sensitivity to the economic environment, Polycom proactively took action in Q4 to reduce our operating cost structure and, as we announced earlier this month, we have implemented a restructuring plan designed to optimize our cost structure as we move into 2009
                                                 
With our rapid pace of innovation and the full breadth of our offering, we believe Polycom is the best positioned in the industry to deliver the cost-savings benefits of video adoption to our customers. Our strategic partnerships with Avaya, Cisco, IBM, Microsoft, and others enable us to provide integrated solutions that capture the full benefits of Unified Collaboration. These partnerships differentiate Polycom as the solutions provider of choice for companies who describe our collaboration solution as a strategic technology investment. In spite of the challenging economy, through our leading solutions and go-to-market strategy and, of course, our improved cost structure, we expect to continue to gain strength competitively in 2009 and to deliver solid operating results.
 
.
 
]]> It's That Time of Year... tag:blog.tmcnet.com,2008:/blog/greg-galitzine//6.38686 2008-12-08T22:11:40Z 2008-12-08T22:16:08Z As the year comes to a close, it's time again to feature that publishing staple -- the year end interview. I'm fortunate enough to work in an industry where people not only have a lot of interesting things to say, they're... Greg Galitzine http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/greg-galitzine/ As the year comes to a close, it's time again to feature that publishing staple -- the year end interview.

end of year.jpg
 
I'm fortunate enough to work in an industry where people not only have a lot of interesting things to say, they're not shy about sharing their thoughts and insights with our audience.
               
Below you'll find links to several interviews I've posted with some of the companies that operate in our space.
 
Among the threads that are tying these together (so far) is the belief that mobility holds the key to our industry's future. Mobile VoIP, mobile video, mobile UC... you get the picture.
 
I invite you to take a look at this first batch of interviews. There's more on tap, so check back often.
 
 
Jon R. Doyle, CommuniGate's vice president of business development talks about mobility...
 
Xorcom CEO Eran Gal discusses open source and the opportunity ahead...
 
Vivek Khuller, President and CEO of DiVitas Networks remains cautiously optimistic for 2009...
 
Mike Goodman, Product Marketing Manager of PROGNOSIS gives an Australian perspective...
 
 
GIPS vice president of engineering, Jan Linden previews his sessions at ITEXPO and touts mobility...
]]> Dell'Oro: Avaya Leads UC Market tag:blog.tmcnet.com,2008:/blog/greg-galitzine//6.38617 2008-12-03T17:05:46Z 2008-12-03T17:07:25Z A recently released Dell'Oro Group report on enterprise telephony finds that Basking Ridge, NJ-based Avaya led the $3.1 billion UC market in revenues for third quarter of 2008. According to the report, Avaya led in unified communications revenues 2008 with 22... Greg Galitzine http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/greg-galitzine/ A recently released Dell'Oro Group report on enterprise telephony finds that Basking Ridge, NJ-based Avaya led the $3.1 billion UC market in revenues for third quarter of 2008.
 
According to the report, Avaya led in unified communications revenues 2008 with 22 percent of the global market share, more than 3 points ahead of its nearest competitor.
 
The total market in revenues for UC in the third quarter was $3.1 billion, according to Dell'Oro Group.]]> Podcast: Interactive Intelligence & Business Process Automation tag:blog.tmcnet.com,2008:/blog/greg-galitzine//6.38471 2008-11-25T20:18:35Z 2008-11-25T20:28:42Z I recently recorded a podcast with Joe Staples, senior vice president of worldwide marketing for Interactive Intelligence, where we spoke about a new approach to business process automation. Ironically, what prompted this conversation was a white paper written by Interactive Intelligence... Greg Galitzine http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/greg-galitzine/ I recently recorded a podcast with Joe Staples, senior vice president of worldwide marketing for Interactive Intelligence, where we spoke about a new approach to business process automation. Ironically, what prompted this conversation was a white paper written by Interactive Intelligence CEO Dr. Don Brown entitled -- you guessed it -- A New Approach To Business Process Automation. The white paper is available for download here.
 
Staples gives several examples of business processes and how enterprises can really benefit by leveraging some sort of process automation strategy. In his opinion, the current trends of UC and CEBP (unified communications and communications enabled business processes, respectively) are fine as far as they go, but a new approach, one he dubs CBPA or communications-based process automation takes things to another level, offering enterprises a more efficient solution to their business needs.
 
I urge you to give the podcast a listen. It may change the way you view unified communications. If nothing else, it will prompt you to ask more questions of the vendors you plan to do business with. ]]> NEC, Premier Purchasing to Serve Healthcare Market tag:blog.tmcnet.com,2008:/blog/greg-galitzine//6.38341 2008-11-17T18:34:46Z 2008-11-17T18:36:28Z NEC Unified Solutions has announced an agreement with Premier Purchasing Partners whereby Premier will offer NEC's UNIVERGE 360 IP telephony solutions to more than 2,000 hospitals and over 50,000 healthcare provider members of the Premier healthcare alliance. NEC will leverage its... Greg Galitzine http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/greg-galitzine/ NEC Unified Solutions has announced an agreement with Premier Purchasing Partners whereby Premier will offer NEC's UNIVERGE 360 IP telephony solutions to more than 2,000 hospitals and over 50,000 healthcare provider members of the Premier healthcare alliance.
 
NEC will leverage its communications tools, applications and services to unify business communications for members of the Premier healthcare alliance.
 
Back at the end of July, when I visited NEC, they spoke to me of increased traction in the hospitality and healthcare verticals.
]]> Spracht Marries Quality, Design tag:blog.tmcnet.com,2008:/blog/greg-galitzine//6.38288 2008-11-13T06:19:45Z 2008-11-13T06:43:49Z It's not every day you meet with a company and think, "...this may be the next Bose or the next Herman Miller, or the next Apple..." I'm talking of course about companies whose claim to fame is not only offering... Greg Galitzine http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/greg-galitzine/ It's not every day you meet with a company and think, "...this may be the next Bose or the next Herman Miller, or the next Apple..." I'm talking of course about companies whose claim to fame is not only offering quality products but also the close attention they pay to the design process to produce a lasting product experience.
 
I met such a company recently, that produces the Aura Mobile BT, a speakerphone that is equally at home broadcasting a Skype-based phone call next to a laptop, or attached to the visor of your car cruising down the boulevard while you carry on a hands-free conversation.
 
Spracht is the acoustic division of parent company ODI, an OEM provider of digital imaging, acoustics, LCD image display, and other consumer electronics. Founded in 1993, Silicon Valley based ODI has developed popular products, such as the Connectix Quickcam, for both Fortune 100 companies and technology notables such as Palm and Kensington.
 
I met Trace Williams, vice president of sales and marketing at Spracht who gave me some background on the company and also talked up a brand-new device that is expected to be launched in the next couple of weeks.
 
First, we discussed the Aura Mobile BT a full-duplex speakerphone featuring dual 3W speakers, and echo and noise cancellation, powered by the patented SoundClear™ Digital Signal Processing (DSP) chip.
 
The device offers eight hours of talk time and can connect up to eight profiles to each device.
 
The company also offers the Aura SOHO, a conference call device that can be used in an analog phone environment, or converted with the simple swap of a module to operate with digital PBXs, and soon will offer a wireless option as well. The Aura SOHO is designed for conference rooms ranging up to 20' x 40' when utilizing expandable microphones.
 
Spracht is offering the solutions through multiple channels, including Dell, Amazon.com, Best Buy, Fry's and telecom distributors such as Synnex, NTD, and others.
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