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Check out a Webinar on Telecom Visibility 2.0

2012-03-20T17:41:14Z

For over 20 years I’ve been tracking Unimax a company that has been the only pure-play moves/adds/changes solutions provider to large enterprises around the globe. Andrew Hunkins was the founder/CTO/CEO throughout the years and my most memorable meetings with him were at the Harry Newton/CMP Computer Telephony EXPOs also known as CTEXPO in Los Angeles, California. A huge accomplishment for the company Hunkins founded was lasting – it’s been around since 1985!! This is a big deal.

It is worth mentioning that Hunkins has moved on from the company but he/Unimax made national news when after the Iraq war they were featured in BusinessWeek because they lost a partnership deal in France because there was a brief spat between the US and the French over the Iraq war.

You remember, when we were briefly calling French Fries, Freedom Fries and body odor French perfume – admittedly I might have been the only one speaking the latter – but I know you were thinking it.

Unimax has evolved over the years and Minnesota-based company is sponsoring a webinar on TMCnet which will discuss how organizations can increase their telecom visibility and reporting. I would have called the webinar using big data and analytics to manage your disparate PBX and communications systems across the campus and/or globe but admittedly that is a really long headline.

But you get the idea. The webinar takes place in a couple of days and thanks for working with me during this brief commercial message from our sponsor.

Chinese Nortel Hack Unconfirmed by my Sources

2012-02-16T01:33:35Z

Although reports have been swirling regarding Chinese hackers breaking into Nortel's computers for over ten years in order to steal trade secrets, I have been unable to confirm such a breach took place. I have tapped into a few high-level sources and they were unaware of anything like this happening - the internal Nortel employees would almost certainly need to know if such an attack was taking place.

After all, reports say that even Nortel CEO Mike Zafirovski had a computer which was compromised.

One of the reasons Nortel went bankrupt had to do with Chinese competitors Huawei and ZTE undercutting Nortel on price for carrier wireless and other products. So it easy to understand why many would easily believe that Nortel had been hacked.

And hacks from China are not unusual - they have happened to numerous US companies and even government agencies.

But again, would you not let your company workers know if this was the case?

Siobhan Gorman has a story in the Wall Street Journal on what happened at Nortel and it seems there is enough information to make you believe the hack was real. But still, I remain skeptical that the breach if it happened was on such a massive scale. I reached out to Siobhan in order to see if there are any public documents which would enlighten us. I will advise you if I hear of anything - please drop me a line if you know of anything as well.

Need a New Car? Win a Mustang at ITEXPO in Miami Next Week

2012-01-27T15:48:11Z

I think I may have one of the best jobs in the world. I admit it is a bit ADHD-inducing as I get involved in lots of areas from new media to the latest technologies in the market as I run this major media company which is TMC. Not only do I get help influence tens of millions of people online I also get to host live events where I meet many of the readers who frequent my blog and TMCnet - the main web portal of TMC where I am CEO.

But the most exciting part of my job comes twice a year when I give away a car to an unsuspecting attendee at ITEXPO. Next week - Friday Feb 3rd at 1:45 pm at the Miami Beach Convention Center, I get to give the next car away and it will be a Ford Mustang. In order to be eligible to win you need to pick up a card at registration and get it stamped by all the sponsors of the car giveaway.

Thank you sponsors for making these giveaways possible. If I were an attendee at a show I would want a mix of solid education, a chance to network with peers, see the leading exhibitors in the space but also to have some fun and that is what events like our various receptions and giveaways are supposed to provide.

The TMC team and I look forward to hosting you next week. Thank you all in advance for coming to our event and hats off to the TMC team who is managing not only ITEXPO but a host of collocated and unparallelled events such as Super WiFi Summit, MSP World, our SUITS technology patents event, M2M Evolution, Mobile LATAM, HTML5 Summit, Cloud Communications Expo, The Channel Vision Expo (CVx), Business Video, Asterisk 123, 4GWE, StartupCamp5, Avaya Tech on Tap, the Blackberry Hackathon, SIP trunking workshop, business development workshop, telecom reseller week, to name a few.

http://itexpo.tmcnet.com/sip-trunking-workshop/miami/

ITEXPO East 2012 Miami Schedule

2012-01-25T20:49:34Z

One of the most frequent question I get regarding TMC’s ITEXPO which takes place next week in Miami – is with all that is going on – how do you make a decision as to which parts of the show to attend. Truth be told I believe the event and its collocated conferences and educational sessions rivals just about any other tech show in terms of education.

Some of the hot topics to be discussed include not only general communications and technology but 4G wireless, mobility, Asterisk, open source, business video, the channel, cloud computing and communications, HTML5, Mobile Latin America communications, M2M, technology patents, the MSP market, Super WiFi/white spaces and much more.

The following is a list of important details you will need to help navigate ITEXPO East 2012 Miami. I warn you – this is a subset of what is happening. To keep you posted on not only these items but other important events at the show please follow @itexpo on Twitter and turn on mobile notifications – it is pretty simple – just follow the menu below. Twitter also allows you to turn off notifications at certain hours in its settings tab.

Also, please download the show directory/guide (PDF) and read through it before you get there to get the most out of the event.

ITEXPO East 2012

January 31 - February 3, 2012

Miami Beach Convention Center

If you are staying at the Loews in Miami or a hotel nearby the best route to walk is down 16^th street making a right on Washington after a block. Most concierge personnel will tell you to walk down Collins which is longer and if the sun is strong may be a bit uncomfortable.

View Larger Map

Registration counters are located in the Hall B Lobby. This is the section of the convention center on Washington Blvd., closest to the show hotels.

When you arrive, proceed to the registration counter to receive your badge. You will need a photo ID.

SHOW HOURS

Tuesday, January 31

Registration: 7:30am – 5:00pm
Workshops begin at 9:00am
POST POTS Special Sessions: 2:00pm
Avaya Tech on Tap: 5:00pm

Wednesday, February 1

Registration: 7:00am – 7:00pm
Workshops/Sessions begin at 9:00am
Free Keynotes: 12:45pm; 3:30pm
Exhibits Open: 4:30-7:30pm
Free Networking Reception: 5:30-7:30 on expo floor - Sponsored by Broadvox.

Thursday, February 2

Registration: 7:00am – 4:00pm
Workshops/Sessions begin at 9:00am
Free Keynotes: 9:00-11:00am
Exhibits Open: 11:00am – 4:00pm
Networking Reception: 4:00pm
StartupCamp5, featuring keynote by Terry Matthews: 4:45pm
ITEXPO Party on South Beach - Mangos Tropical Cafe: 9:00pm

Friday, February 3

Registration: 7:30am – 2:00pm
Workshops/Sessions begin at 9:00am
Exhibits Open: 11:00am – 2:00pm
New Mustang Giveaway at 1:45pm – Must Be Present to Win

Updated schedule. Visit the show site for additional details

Keynotes and Special Sessions Schedule: (Open to all attendees)

Tuesday, January 31:

2:00 pm: Special Panel Session:

Post POTS Net Neutrality & the Cloud: From POTS to PANS

============================================================

Rumors of the death of POTS are not exaggerated. To build a new model for the future we have to determine the bottlenecks. Come discuss the impact of the cloud and the migration from end to end to any to any services; about supporting access and quality of service; about Net Neutrality and Privacy.

5:00: Avaya Tech on Tap Workshop and Networking Reception

=========================================================

Kick off ITEXPO East with a special pre-conference seminar and evening networking event, hosted by the Avaya DevConnect Program. Join Avaya and our special keynote speaker Judith Hurwitz, co-author of "Cloud Computing for Dummies", as we tackle some of the most challenging technology transitions facing IT organizations today, namely cloud computing and collaboration enablement.

KEYNOTES Wednesday, February 1:

12:45pm: Michael Rouleau, tw telecom
3:30pm: Paget Alves, Sprint
4:30pm: Timothy Wagner, Samsung Telecommunications America

KEYNOTES Thursday, February 2:

9:00am: Rick Whitt, Google
9:30am: Chris Swearingen, Senseaware, Powered by FedEx
10:00am: Dirk Gates, Xirrus
10:30pm: Julius Knapp, FCC
4:45pm: Sir Terry Matthews, Wesley Clover

WORKSHOPS at ITEXPO – Open to All Attendees

Cloud Business Development Workshop

Tuesday, January 31 - 9:00am

Larry Dillon and Michael Curry will co-host the first ever pre-show workshops focused towards new business development techniques for resellers, developers and cloud-based service providers.

Asterisk 123 Training

Tuesday, January 31 - 9:00am

Come get a well-rounded and informative introduction to the Asterisk Project. All are Welcome! Whether you are managing a team deploying an Asterisk implementation, evaluating potential replacements for a legacy telephony solution that's on its last leg, or just a general Asterisk "newbie" excited to learn what Asterisk is capable of, then this talk has something to offer you.

Sangoma Vega Training

Tuesday, January 31 - 9:00am

Sangoma Technologies will host a free full day hands-on training session teaching you how to configure and troubleshoot the Vega series gateways for use with IP-PBX and SIP trunking.

Blackberry HTML5 Hackathon

Tuesday, January 31 - 9:00am

Join us at the upcoming HTML5 Hackathon to discover how BlackBerry WebWorks takes HTML5 beyond the browser. We'll show you the power and simplicity of the new BlackBerry browser

Ingate’s SIP Trunking Workshop

Wednesday, February 1 – Friday, February 3

Attendees can earn a SIP Trunking Professional Certificate by participating in the Professional Development Program on February 1. Attendees can also earn a Unified Communications Professional Certificate on February 2.

Telecom Reseller Week Presentation Theatre

Wednesday, February 1 – Friday, February 3

Telecom Reseller Week provides you with a forum for you to learn about cutting edge new solutions you can represent, to meet with many new potential partners, and to study proven sales techniques to help improve your team's performance.

MPLS University

Tuesday, February 2 - 1:30pm

MPLS University is a forum for IT and business professionals to bring their questions about network reliability, always-on connectivity, voice, regulatory requirements, security, and cost control. Join us for two FREE live MPLS University sessions at ITEXPO to learn more about utilizing cloud-based solutions

StartupCamp5: Comms Edition

Tuesday, February 2 - 4:00pm

Featuring keynote address by Sir Terry Matthews

The incredibly popular StartupCamp networking event returns. This unique forum is for early-stage entrepreneurs to pitch their communications products or services to a discriminating audience of potential investors, media, bloggers and industry influencers. The event's fast-paced, "ready, set, pitch" format brings early-stage communications companies, developers, industry leaders and investors together to network and validate entrepreneurial pitches in real time.

4:00: StartupCamp5 Free Networking Reception

4:45: Introduction/Event Kickoff by Larry Lisser

5:00: Keynote Presentation by World-Renowned Entrepreneur Sir Terry Matthews

5:45: Startup Presentations and Judging

7:00: Networking and Voting

QUESTIONS?

Contact Frank Coppola (203.852.6800 x 131)

Thank you sponsors

Diamond Sponsor:

Digium

Platinum Sponsors:

AudioCodes
Sonus Networks
Sansay
Dialogic
Interactive Intelligence
Netxusa

Gold Sponsors:

abp
Adtran
Broadvox
MegaPath
USAN
888VoIP
Panasonic
snom
tw telecom
Sangoma

I really look forward to seeing you all at the show – it will be fantastic.

Update: My marketing team has a fancier version of this document which they send in emails after you register. It has web links and may be easier on the eyes.

ITEXPO East 2012 Miami Out of Office Message

2012-01-24T22:15:59Z

While I digest the super-strong, mind-numbing Apple growth numbers which propelled the stock to a high of $460 per share after hours I have just set my out of office message for next week when I will be at ITEXPO. The message is below in case you want to use something similar. And for your convenience here is the first show daily from the event – which covers news from Sprint, AT&T, Whitespace Alliance, Panasonic, Accedian Networks, Cycle30, FaxSIPit, Phone.com and Polar Media.

---

Thank you for your message. Starting Jan 30th I will be at ITEXPO (www.itexpo.com) in Miami.

This is the global tech and communications conference - covering cloud, MSP, super WiFi, 4G, M2M, Patents, SIP, VoIP, HTML5 and featuring keynotes from Google, Sprint, Samsung, The FCC and Sir Terry Matthews.

On Friday, Feb 3rd @ 1:45 pm I give away a new Mustang - You must be present to win so I hope to see you there. (http://goo.gl/vkqrd)

Have a wonderful week and enjoy the New Year.

Woz, I Agree. Now What if the Samsung Galaxy Note Ran iOS?

2012-01-17T20:06:47Z

In July of 2010 I penned a piece about the ensuing marketshare loss Apple could face as a result of repeating the same mistake from the eighties in which it tightly coupled hardware and software while other companies were free to innovate on hardware alone. In a post titled Is Is Apple Repeating its Mistake from the Eighties? I explained how the thinness and lightness of the Motorola Droid X won me over in a few minutes. In December of 2010 I followed up with And Then it Hit Me, Open Always Wins and a few months back with Apple Screwed Again?

I witnessed firsthand how in the eighties the price/power curve of the PC clones helped make PCs much cheaper than Macs of equivalent power and over time as a result, software developers once loyal to Apple switched over to the PC. The Mac was superior to the PC in most every way except cost – the reality was though that most people would take 80% of the usability for 50-60% of the price or perhaps less.

A huge and imposing banner promoting the Samsung Galaxy Note at 2012 CES

Fast forward to today – there are quad-core 4G Android smartphones with better screens and battery life than an iPhone 4s and they are gorgeous. The Samsung Galaxy Note is just example one example of an Android smartphone on steroids – it supports HSPA+ up to 21 MBPS as well as 4G LTE has a breathtaking 5.3” WXGA HD Super AMOLED screen displaying yes a staggering 1280x800 pixels. The iPhone 4S has a resolution of 960x640) Although it has just a 1.4 GHz dual core processor it pulled up web pages at CES lightning fast and moreover can accept stylus input making it really part tablet, part smartphone and part paper notebook. Moreover it uses what the company calls an advanced smart pen which I saw in action allowing you to press a button to take a screen shot and circle a portion of it to copy and share.

So if you thought there was device consolidation, you would be wrong. In fact the 5.3” device which fit nicely in my shirt pocket is the newest must-have gadget to add to your collection of smartphones, tablets, laptops and PCs and Ultrabooks. But the cool thing about the Galaxy Note is not only the device but the fact that Apple didn’t come out with it.

You see, in the last five years the tech world has been ruled by Apple. Even faithful blackberry users who would never abandon a keyboard are being spotted in Apple stores the world over as they get wooed by the Apple sex appeal of sleek devices coupled with sleek software and speech recognition software which still needs a lot of work.

Who invented the touchscreen smartphone? Apple. Who invented the tablet that people actually wanted – with touch input? Apple. The laptop that weighs a few pounds and lasts a day on a single charge – no not the Ultrabook companies, Apple with its MacBook Air. But this new 5.3" form factor didn’t come from Apple and while my critics will be quick to point out – this device is not a big deal, I would argue it is. After all the iPad is just a large iPod Touch – the 5.3” form factor device with the smart stylus is new. It’s fresh. It’s different and it is the perfect hybrid device because it fits in a shirt pocket comfortably and allows near-tablet size video consumption.

This brings us to Woz – the Apple cofounder who says he is a big fan of Android phones – and here is the interesting part – he describes what I have been saying for years:

There’s a theory that Android could do to iOS (Apple’s mobile operating system) what Microsoft Windows did to the Macintosh in the 1990s. Microsoft triumphed because it licensed its software to many different hardware makers and ultimately had much greater market share than Apple, which would only sell its operating system on its own hardware.

In the mobile space, Apple is using the same playbook, tying its software tightly to its own hardware. And with Android, Apple is facing the same kind of foe that it once faced in Windows. “I can see the similarity,” Woz says.

Worse yet, this time, he says, Apple is up against a stronger competitor, since in his mind Windows was never a very good program, while Android actually is. “There’s not as big a difference [between iOS and Android] as there was between Mac and Windows,” he says.

The question is what can Apple do about it?

The company has dabbled with allowing clones but pulled back the experiment after a short time.

In my opinion if it was to go forward with allowing hardware makers to get a crack at its software – it may want to try working with one company at a time. I’ve used Samsung as an example throughout this piece – why not get the iOS running on the Galaxy Note?

Sure I understand the negative ramifications from Apple’s perspective but the company is losing share left and right already to the Amazon Kindle Fire – eventually Cupertino could end up being in a situation where it is too late to change course. We saw that the last time Apple started to lose share to Windows and Intel – the question is whether the company has enough innovation up its sleeve to keep the cutthroat competition in the dust.

Disclosure: I own Apple shares

Bluetooth Smart Ready Shows Potential

2011-12-19T17:51:59Z

Bluetooth to me is one of the most convenient technologies I use as it allows me to get rid of the cord from my mobile and desk phones. I am surprised actually that everyone doesn't use a stereo bluetooth headset - at gyms around the country it seems like one out of 10 music listeners have given up their typically white cords in favor of new technology.

Frankly I just don't get it but am hoping that the new bluetooth 4.0 standard which is more miserly with power will make a good technology even more useful. It is worth pointing out the SIG wants you to refer to it as Bluetooth Smart Ready.

In theory the power consumption is so low that you can get a year out of a device using a button size battery - now that's low-power.

As you might imagine, applications in home automation and the medical field are prime examples of where such a low-power wireless technology will shine.

Thanks to Kickstarter there may soon be an automotive app - one which syncs with your iPhone 4S which was the first phone to support bluetooth 4.0 BTW. The solution constantly updates your car's location via a small device which is connected to your automobile. It then allows you to find your vehicle when you need to - let's say after that trip to the mall around holiday time when your car is lost in a sea of steel and paint somewhere in a 100 acre lot.

But more interestingly this new bluetooth spec means there is some new competition in the M2M space and technologies like NFC and perhaps ZigBee may lose some marketshare as a result.

I am not holding my breath for the world to go bluetooth when it comes to stereo headphones but perhaps they will at least embrace it for a wealth of other activities which make their lives better.

Hat tip Richard Sprague who retweeted Scott Jenson

Avaya's Top Communication Trends in 2012

2011-12-16T20:22:04Z

Recently I had a chance to have an in-depth conversation with Avaya about the trends they see for 2012 in the communications space. In particular I spoke with George Humphrey a Director and Line of Business Owner at Avaya and Diane Royer, Senior Marketing Services Manager.

The trends below are at times augmented or enhanced with my thoughts.

1) Mobility raises the expectation of availability

Voice is morphing in the enterprise and becoming more consumer-driven and as a result everyone is connected at all times and moreover everyone wants immediate action. Consumers want to know right away if that widget on the website is compatible with European power or if the red color of the lamp online is closer to burgundy, beet or pomegranate.

Consumers are walking around with smartphones today that are the computing equivalent of supercomputers of a few decades back. This means we not only can do anything anywhere from a voice and data perspective, we will need to in order to maintain our customers and jobs. This is certainly not a new trend – a huge jump in being able to work around the clock took place in the nineties when voicemail allowed executives, salespeople and others to check messages without being in the office. BlackBerrys continued this trend and the web and e-mail turbocharged it and today’s powerful devices, WiFi and 3G/4G networks have supercharged the trend.

2) Contact centers test the value of voice

More companies will calculate where voice communications fit into their value stream, from pure cost to revenue generation. This is straight from Avaya - I didn’t get into this one as I thought some of the other bullets were more interesting.

3) Contextual data spans the last mile of personal productivity

For those of you were around during the 1980s in the call center space, you may recall the call centers who could invest millions of dollars were able to connect their Rockwell ACDs to their IBM mainframes to allow a database dip when the phone call information appeared via ANI and this in turn allowed a screen pop on the agents desk when they answered a phone call. What could be “popped” depended upon what was in the database but the idea here is we can do “screen pops squared” today because a call can come in and we can leverage CRM repositories, enterprise search tools, social networks, blogs, wikis and you name it. It is really just a matter of organizing it all. The idea is the more information agents have, the better they can serve their customers and in turn the more loyal the customers will be, resulting in higher ARPU and stickiness to borrow some terms from the wireless space.

4) Businesses advance from social media to social business

The idea here is we are about to cross the chasm of social adoption in companies – the social company or social enterprise is around the corner which in tech adoption turns will likely take 5-10 years. Interestingly at a recent conference I attended one vendor told me about a financial company which installed a state-of-the-art social platform for their company to use. Problem was the majority of the company was made up stock brokers who were – let me put this delicately, closer to retirement than college. Basically the old folks couldn’t figure out the newfangled pokes, circles and the like. Who says I have to be diplomatic all the time? :-)

Point being once again, this will be a journey, not a destination we reach in the next few years. Are we there yet? No. Quit your whining and be patient. :-)

5) Social media and customer care enter into an arranged marriage

My family came to this country from one in which arranged marriages were the norm. Let’s just say you didn’t necessarily fall in love you were I suppose “told” to love. Keep that in mind when you integrate your contact center and social strategies as customers have to feel like the two are seamless and agents need to be able to navigate the Venus of the Contact center and the Mars of social with aplomb. Just keep in mind, you really need to get it right the first time as there is no prenup I am aware of.

The rest of these are straight from Avaya – stay tuned for more comments from me after number 12:

6) The SIP is raised again

early adopters have completed implementation of, and captured initial ROI from, SIP-enabled infrastructure; now they’ll begin deploying SIP-enabled applications to gain the next level of value.

7) Social interactions expose customer care’s flaws

Businesses can’t fake who they are in a “social” setting, because social interactions ultimately expose “the real you.” Some businesses will discover they aren’t portraying an image they prefer, so they’ll be compelled to reinvent what customer centricity is all about.

8) IT support staffs converge, part two

In many companies, voice and data support teams converged with the advent of Internet Protocol (IP) telephony; with the deployment of unified communications applications, more companies will blend their applications teams as well.

9) Continuous connectivity drives communications support services

Communications support services increasingly will involve proactive problem resolution via secure access links and live interaction when necessary via innovative Web environments.

10) “True” UC apps proliferate

IT departments will be compelled by business units and enterprise users to adopt more user-centric applications and devices.

11) UC managed services/outsourcing facilitates alignment between IT and business units

As business unit demands increase at an even faster clip, more IT departments will adopt managed services/outsourcing business models to keep pace. IT groups that resist will continue to struggle.

12) Clients take control of managed services

As IT departments better understand industry best practices around infrastructure management, they will become more discriminating about the services they purchase, their expectations for transparency into those services, and how they hold service providers accountable.

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A few important points - on number eight, the company believes there also needs to be an evolution in IT meaning the director of infotech for the call center needs to understand data, UC, UC apps and be more savvy about MSP-based solutions. And on number ten, the concept here isn’t CEBP or Communications Enabled Business Processes it is more about BYOD – so think mobility.

I also asked the company how these trends are or aren’t manifesting themselves into sales and the response was more clients are seeing true value in UC and app-centric communications. Moreover, they are looking to more creative ways to procure solutions meaning the manufacturer becomes the systems integrator and moreover they are looking for more MSP-based delivery models.

I also asked about Avaya’s Flare collaboration environment which the company rolled out a short while back and they said it is available on the iPad – I downloaded it and it is pretty slick. In the future we can expect it to become video-enabled on this platform and Flare for Android and PC are coming in the spring of 2012.

I also asked about the company’s A175 tablet and didn’t get the sense this device is lighting the world on fire. Let’s put it this way – I knew it was tough to compete with the iPad at $500 when the A175 costs about $2,000. Now there is an Amazon Kindle Fire priced at $200. Believe me there is no comparison between the capabilities of the A175 and these other devices as it is multimedia-enabled and is really a super-powerful device for road warriors. It’s just that Avaya doesn’t have the appeal or consumer electronics name of an Apple or Amazon and this presents a challenge.

Another interesting point is that customers have seen cloud advertised so often they are interested in these types of solutions but they don’t necessarily need their system to be in the cloud. In other words it can be a solution which is MSP-based and OPEX oriented. In other words Avaya is trying to listen to customer needs and cut through the catchy cloud computing and cloud communications buzzwords to determine how they can solve their customer’s needs.

You can also see Avaya’s original thoughts on these trends if you are interested in seeing them without my added perspective.

You can see Avaya live as part of TMC’s ITEXPO where they have consistently been running their Technology on Tap events. It will take place Tuesday, January 31, 2012 from 5-10 pm EST in Miami Florida at the Miami Beach Convention Center (not the typical hotel setting you may be used to). Moreover the keynote will be given by the Author of Cloud Computing for Dummies, Judith Hurwitz. The company kindly requests you register in advance, thank you.

New Interactive Intelligence Quick Spin Cloud Contact Center Trial Portal

2011-10-17T14:00:00Z

Coming off the first six months of 2011, Interactive Intelligence enjoyed cloud-based revenue growth numbers of 58% while orders increased a whopping 146% during the same period. Moreover, the cloud accounted for 26% of the company’s total new order dollar volume in the first half of 2011. Company CMO Joe Staples said the following to me in a meeting in New York, “We are seeing a huge shift towards the cloud.” He continued, “It is talked about in every single deal we are in.”

As a refresher – the company started selling a hosted solution in 2005 but relaunched its cloud-based communications as a service or CaaS solution in 2009.

And when you have a successful service, you always look for new ways to expand – in order to bring it to a larger audience. This is why the company has launched Quick Spin – a new trial site which is designed to allow companies to kick the tires of the hosted service before they buy. Staples explained that some of the functionality has been removed – typically items which require training to use properly. What you get is full unified communications including conferencing, desktop call control and enterprise IP PBX as well as contact center functions such as ACD, basic IVR, reporting, analytics and on-demand recording. Some things not included are predictive dialing, workforce management and post-call surveys.

The Quick Spin Start Page

Joe tells me you can set up the service in about an hour – and you can have a total of ten users, 3 workgroups and five skills. Moreover you can have 10 keywords or phrases you can use for speech-analytics.

The Quick Spin Settings Page

Here is the interesting part of my discussion – Interactive Intelligence is chosen by customers in-part because of their long-experience in the market. The reason this is interesting is the company has been in the contact center space since the mid-nineties which makes their longevity years longer than many newer cloud-based vendors. When the company stormed onto the call center scene in the nineties they differentiated themselves by unifying communications across once-disparate boxes for IVR, ACD and PBX… For the first time, you could have a single unified system handling most everything you needed your contact center to do. But for years, the company was considered a newcomer going up against more established players like Melita, Rockwell Electronic Commerce, Lucent, EIS Davox and Aspect. In the cloud-based contact center space they are now an established incumbent.

The Quick Spin Workgroups Screen

Of course there are other reasons the company is winning in the cloud such as their use of virtual machines for each customer as opposed to multi-tenant architecture. Although for most situations, multitenancy works well at isolating user sessions, virtualizing each company’s sessions adds even greater isolation to user data each customer uploads to the Interactive Intelligence cloud. As an added bonus - Interactive allows customers to migrate from the cloud to an on-premise based solution. This feature is obviously a great option for companies who aren’t sure if they are ready to move to the cloud forever.

For companies looking to trial Quick Spin, you will go through a brief qualification phase to make sure you are a real company, not a competitor, etc. Then you are off and running with 2,500 minutes of use or 14 days of service – whichever comes first. Joe tells me companies will likely not use the system in a live environment but rather as a trial system. One of the benefits of note is the supervisor screens and reporting are both of production quality meaning you get a great feel for what it would be like to become a customer.

The Quick Spin Start Configuration Page

Of course any new technology takes time to be taken seriously but hearing that all discussions with new customers mention cloud and moreover that 26% of the company’s approximately $200M in annual revenue comes from cloud-based solutions shows that as far as customers are concerned, the move to cloud-based contact centers is very real and not slowing down.

Avaya to Show How Chat and Social Influence Telecom

2011-09-08T20:45:27Z

The world on converging faster than ever and technology markets are evolving faster than ever. Today we learned that Google purchased Zagat meaning that content and search will be more intertwined than ever. Earlier this week we learned about a potential link-up between Amazon and 7-Eleven.

The question is, what is next and how do we prepare for transformation which is seemingly taking place across every discipline without regard for incumbent relationships?

Enterprises have to keep an eye on what's happening because as we are seeing before our eyes, voice communications is rapidly becoming social. Avaya is one of the leaders in the communications transformation and this Monday at ITEXPO they will kick off a Tech on Tap event which will help bring us up to speed on how they see the world changing. Expect to come away with a better understanding of how you can evolve your organization to leverage multiple media types and networks from chat to social.

Here are the details and I hope to see you there.

ITEXPO West 2011 Austin Highlights

2011-08-23T19:09:30Z

Before all ITEXPO events I do a final proofread of the show directory and this one may be the biggest ever at 132 pages with tabs (just doing our part to support the economy). We will post a PDF version soon so you can see what’s in it but until then, here are some highlights that caught my eye:

Keynotes & Exhibits Tuesday, September 13^th at 9:15 AM we have Ian Pennell from Cisco and at 4:30 PM-5:30 PM we have keynotes from Siemens and IBM followed by a Grand Opening Networking Reception sponsored by Interact from 5:30-7:30.

Wednesday, September 14^th at 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM we have keynotes from Polycom and DHL followed by exhibits from 11:00 AM- 4:00 PM. Then at 4:00 PM there is a Cocktail reception sponsored by Rackspace Hosting and at 4:45 you could win a pair of mountain bikes from Mellow Johnny's Bike Shop - an Austin Institution ( I am told). Then at 5:00 PM Bob Metcalfe kicks off StartupCamp4 Comms Edition with a keynote and this event continues until 8:00 PM and is free to attend.

Thursday, September 15^th Exhibits open at 11:00 AM and the Jeep giveaway begins at 2:45 PM (see below). Thanks to Jeep sponsors AireSpring, AudioCodes, Windstream Communications, Panasonic, Sotel Systems, Taqua, WildPackets and VocalTec.

ITEXPO West voted #3 fastest growing trade show by Trade Show Magazine – thanks to the fine editors of this publication and to all our loyal attendees who have allowed this conference to honored. We really appreciate your support.

You can win a Jeep – TMC has given away dozens of cars over the years and we will be giving away yet another on Thursday, September 15^th at 2:45 PM. And YES, you have to be present to win.

Free WiFi, as long as less than 5,800 devices are trying to connect at once, I am told the Austin Convention Center will have fast WiFi access for everyone who wants it. Like many of you, I know from painful experience that tech crowds like ITEXPO attendees can bring just about any WiFi network to its knees so I am looking forward to seeing how this network does under heavy load.

Super WiFi & white spaces Speaking WiFi, Tuesday morning 9/13 Super WiFi Summit kicks off and this paid conference will teach you about how white space technology could be as disruptive to 4G/wireless as VoIP was to the PSTN. Imagine if you knew what you know about VoIP today – but in 1998. What investment and career decisions would you have made as a result? And now you see the Super WiFi opportunity. It all takes place in room 5C on the 3^rd floor – learn more here and check out the agenda or register.

HTML5 Revolution In room 6B, Sept 13-15^th you will find the most authoritative conference on HTML5 anywhere and if you are interested in learning how HTML5 will disrupt app stores and allow developers to create broad-reaching apps without having to develop for multiple architectures, this conference is for you. Sessions will allow designers, entrepreneurs, programmers and investors to learn everything they need to know about the future of cross-platform and mobile development. Here is the link to the HTML5 Summit, a Devcon5 Event. Here are some of the latest developments on the show.

MPLS University MegaPath is sponsoring MPLS University on Wednesday, Sept 14th in room 7 between 2:00 and 4:00 PM and it is free to all attendees. Please contact the company with questions and pregister here.

Regulations change everything: Regulatory 2.0 Workshop takes place in room 4A for a half-day on Thursday, September 15^th. The federal government, FCC and other governmental agencies have changed the fortunes of entire industries with the simple passing of a bill. And with the massive disruption in the market taking place with the PSTN potentially being eliminated, OTT set-top boxes eliminating the need for cable operators and wireless eliminating the need for fixed lines and countless USF issues, you need to get a sense of what the feds and state regulators are planning for your future.

Voice peering continues to grow The VIPeering conference takes place in room 5A Tuesday, September 13^th and focuses on crucial factors in the voice peering market like the role of the SBC, number portability and more.

SIP Trunking on a tear Let’s face it, virtually all SMB and enterprise telephony on a global scale will be replaced by SIP trunks and this massive opportunity is why the Ingate SIP Trunking Summit has been such a success at ITEXPO for many years. ITEXPO was the first show in the world with a SIP trunking workshop and we continue to have the most knowledgeable speakers and curriculum designers anywhere. Learn more about this free 3-day event.

Asterisk and open source telephony You know who you are – you prefer to have your telephony be open-source either because you enjoy the added flexibility, want full-control or perhaps you like the cost-savings that comes with this more open form of telecom. Whatever the reasons for your interest, you have to be at Asterisk 1-2-3 training hosted by Digium in meeting room 2 on the first floor on Monday September 12^th where you can learn how to connect SIP phones to Asterisk, how to add logic and even how to compile Asterisk from source code. This is a good fit if you are relatively new to the topic or are exploring your options.

What, more SIP? You know you need to know as much about SIP as possible to ensure you can effectively interconnect your organization’s telecom systems. This is especially true in light of the fact that SIP systems aren’t always interoperable out of the box. And just for you we have assembled some of the best speakers anywhere to teach you at the SIP Tutorial which takes place Thursday, September 15^th in room 5A.

Need talent or a job? We are thrilled that the people from Dice will be hosting a high tech job fair at ITEXPO September 15^th, between 11:00 AM -3:00PM. For more information email Bob Westerkamp or call 800-695-1939.

Dialogic Solution Showcase? On page 53 of the directory there is an ad from Dialogic touting a Solution Showcase. I am not sure what this is but is certainly reminds me of the nineties when Dialogic used to feature its solution partners at shows around the US and world. Anyone else remember the Computer Telephony shows in LA? I’ll be stopping by their booth #407 to learn more.

Send your marketing team Marketing departments have never had to deal with the level of technology and complexity that exists today. SEO, social, deal sites, print, TV, radio, online ads, online communities, resource centers, lead generation, CRM management, analytics and so on. To help, we have launched a CMO Summit on Tuesday, Sept 13, 7:30-9:30 at Fogo de Chao. This event requires an application be filled out and approved so thanks for your understanding.

When a cloudy future is good You mean you haven’t thought about moving your communications in the cloud like millions of others? Well even if you are sure you don’t want to move all your comms to the cloud you should explore moving some of it or at least be educated enough to defend your position in the next meeting with your boss. The best place to learn about cloud communications of course is at Cloud Communications Expo on the level one ballroom C Tuesday, September 13^th and Wednesday, September 14^th.

Some highlights from the above expo are:

International Hour on Tuesday
MidMarket Session on Tuesday
M&A Social Networking Lunch/Track
Analyst Keynote on Wednesday

A 4G future it should come as no surprise that your wireless future will be 4G but how does a company leverage all the opportunities this new standard allows? Well of course by participating in the 4GWE conference where you can learn how to solve picocell issues, deal with backhaul challenges and more. Be sure to come to room 4A and 4BC where this conference will take place and learn more. As part of this event you will also get to hear two awesome keynoters – Cameron Coursey of AT&T as well as Charles Jolley the CEO of Strobe. Here is a link to part of a past keynote Jolly did at the TMC DevCon5 event in Manhattan a few weeks back. It was one of the best presentations we had at the show.

Billions of M2M devices Yes, as amazing as it sounds there will be billions of machine-to-machine devices from tablets to sensors to appliances. Yes, your refrigerator and washing machine will be connected to the network allowing them to utilize power when it costs less and moreover making the world a more efficient place. Opportunity in M2M abounds – witness my recent pieces on Sprint and OnAsset. Life often imitates musical chairs – and if you aren’t quick, you lose. Come to M2M Evolution Tuesday September 13^th through Thursday, September 15^th in room 5B to learn more about the industry.

MSPs are the cloud Recently a managed service provider I was speaking with said his company was the cloud. Of course this sounds a bit silly but he had a point – and that is, without a network of cloud-based providers supplying backup services, payroll, email, collaboration and other apps – the cloud would not only be boring but not as profitable. Leave it to MSPs to act as the glue that makes all the really cool cloud-based apps stick. Come learn more at MSP World Tues-Wed, Sept 13-14^th.

Without the channel, where are we? Starting up companies which make great products is sometimes the easy part of the equation. The tough part is finding a channel to market – a set of resellers who can hold the hands of your customers and walk them though a more complex sale. There is no better place for the channel to gather than at Channel Vision Expo or CVx Wed-Thurs Sept 14-15^th, located on the show floor.

Customers are tweeting and facebooking, are you listening? Social CRM Expo is an event I decided the world needed because to be honest there are so many ways customers can complain and comment regarding your company that if you aren’t engaging prospects and customers in near real-time you risk major reputational and potentially financial damage. Social CRM is the discipline which brings together the art of listening to what customers are saying and engaging them to ensure problems are resolved quickly and your company’s reputation is as good as it can be. Social CRM Expo is the place to be to learn all about it Tues-Wed Sept 13-14^th in room 8A.

Be sure to check TMCnet for the latest on Telecom reseller week – an event all resellers should be particicpating in and of course Avaya has a great event on Monday, Sept 12 at 7:00 PM called Technology on Tap which will explore how the workplace needs to evolve to handle the millennial generation. Oh great, now we need to tweet these kids to get them to do something we want. :)

It should be really great – like all the past Avaya events they have always included great drinks, food and course objective information.

I really can’t wait to see you all at the show – it should be the best one ever. Please register now if you haven’t – and keep in mind you may need to register for multiple conferences if you have interest in their sessions.

Latest Trends in Speech Technology, CRM, IVR, Collaboration and Cloud Computing

2011-08-14T23:45:22Z

Speech analytics in greater demand

At the recent SpeechTek 2011 conference in New York I gained some great insight into the state of speech technology. For example, Jeff Schlueter of Nexidia told me his company’s speech analytics solutions have been in greater demand in this current economy as the desire to control costs has led to increased adoption of speech analytics. In addition, the company has released version 9.0 of its Enterprise Speech Intelligence product suite which cuts the TCO in half and allowing for customers to handle even larger amounts of data.

Voxeo goes big

The idea of handling larger systems was echoed by Dan York of Voxeo who told me the latest version of the company’s new VoiceObjects 11 solution has scaled for a mix of global carrier and enterprise customers to handle 20k ports. More importantly the ports are all linked into a private cloud of sorts allowing central reporting across the VPN, a central console, full resiliency, redundant failover and one-click roll back in case there is a problem which quickly needs to be undone. York explained the company has also rolled out Prophecy 11 which adds HD voice, IPv6 and fax support. One good bit of news is wideband audio makes it easier to recognize voice because as York explains, “There is a lot more data to analyze.”

New player Novauris intrigues

Competing against established players like Nuance, Microsoft and Loquendo isn’t easy but Novauris, a newcomer to the speech technology space has already inked some deals with tier one OEMs and carriers and they have a specific niche where they think their performance is best in class. Specifically, accessing very large sets of databases such as addresses, names of people, product catalogues, IPTV and electronic programming guides, local search and directory assistance. The company works with Angel and SpeechCycle in the call center space as well – doing name and address recognition in the cloud and passing back the data via XML in real-time.

Industrial speech apps boost productivity

Wavelink Corp has been in the mobile device management space for many years and its Avalanche software has been upgraded to 5.2 providing increased capabilities in terms of reporting, organizing devices, security, location-based services and two-way messaging between administrator and user devices. Moreover, in a conversation with Jay Cichosz, he tells me the company has been enjoying success in the industrial market where the company’s terminal emulation solutions help workers more efficiently manage packing and shipping logistics via handheld devices. Moreover, by speech enabling these apps – his customers have seen productivity gains as floor workers no longer have to glance at a watch or PDA to see what they need to do next – they can now just listen and respond with voice as well. The company’s Speakeasy voice solution was upgraded this past March and differentiates itself by being priced very competitively and doing the speech processing on the mobile device in order to save precious bandwidth on factory-floor networks which typically aren’t designed to handle bursts of multimedia traffic.

Microsoft to abstract devices for more seamless experiences

Last year, Microsoft introduced me to their Xbox Kinect gaming system with built-in speech recognition and I was very impressed. To date though the gaming system has been better known for its motion detection – allowing the body to be the controller than its speech technology. This will potentially change soon as speech has now been put into the SDK.

In my meeting with Grant Shirk, I also had a chance to use Windows Phone 7 Mango and as Shirk explained some areas of speech integration are apps, search and address book. By the way, the new Mango OS supports 500+ new features 4 of the top 15 requests for improvements included speech.

I asked Shirk about his thoughts regarding HTML5 and he believes there is a lot of opportunity for speech to be integrated into HTML5 and moreover, he said companies HTML5 investments generally start with customer interactions and he said, “Speech is a natural interface.” When queried about where Microsoft sees itself in these spaces, he replied, “We are in a great position to provide services to help companies build cross-channel experiences independent of device.” To me that makes the company sort of a super-middleware provider of the future and in some ways, Adobe’s new Edge tool I just covered will be competitive with this vision.

SAP feeds customers feeds

SAP is best known for a suite of software solutions used to help companies get products from manufacturing to the customer, allowing them to collect money and pay taxes – and just about everything in-between. In a conversation with Anthony Leaper and Dr. Volker Hildebrand, they told me how the company sells their solutions in bite-sized chunks and also makes rapid-deployment solutions available for delivery in 6-8 weeks. Sales, service and marketing are just some of the areas where such packages are available.

One of their latest announcements is Sales onDemand – a feed-based system which brings structured and unstructured data together in a collaborative, Facebook like way. Similar to Salesforce Chatter or Cisco Quad, the company is targeting very large companies and will also release Service onDemand. These two products will work together allowing salespeople to see a feed of customer late payments or service requests. Leaper believes SAP has an advantage over Salesforce because his system is more integrated allowing all objects in the CRM database to be seen while he sees Chatter as a bolt-on solution.

The challenge for SAP is they are late to the game but they may see these new releases as a way to protect and cross-sell to their installed base and speed-to-market has to be balanced with interoperability across the company’s ever-expanding software suite.

Turning Oscar Madison communications into Felix Unger

The Odd Couple was a favorite TV show of mine as a kid featuring a very Messy Oscar Madison who was roommates with a very neat Felix Unger. I couldn’t help thinking about these two when I met with Alok Kulkarni of Cyara Solutions and his customer Sam Jackel from Westpac, Australia’s largest bank with 6-7 million customers. Cyara provides next-generation premise and cloud-based solutions for simulating, testing and monitoring IVRs, voice biometrics, outbound dialers, voice callback and other contact center systems and applications.

And what they did for the bank was to help them take disparate solutions handling IVR, speech, complex routing algorithms, Websphere, java apps and more and integrate them more efficiently to dramatically improve customer satisfaction. A three-year project resulted in customers being able to get to the information they want via phone in only 14 seconds. This is down from 90 seconds – a significant improvement. To get an idea of what challenges the company had, every time there was a customer interaction, messaging needed to traverse a number of different firewall hops and pipes between Telstra, IBM and Westpac networks causing potential packet loss, latency and jitter.

In addition, by using automation, the need for human testing has been reduced by 50% - allowing these testers to be deployed for more sophisticated testing.

The bank is thrilled and says they view Cyara as a key plank in their strategy around quality and efficiency and use the company for end-to-end regression, systems integration, functional, stress, performance and load testing and real-time monitoring of the customer experience in the production environment. You generally don’t get such a large company to give such a glowing testimonial to a relatively new company so I thought it worth sharing.

Zoho’s Appleization

In a conversation with Sridar Vembu and Raju Vegesna of Zoho they explained to me their take on the future of computing. Sit down before continuing because this is a really big deal. The software market is going through a gut-wrenching change. Consider, even the most complex apps can be put out in a few weeks because of the maturity of the latest development tools which can be constructed atop existing frameworks. And once released, distribution of these solutions has been commoditized through app stores. Basically, software is on the verge of being commoditized and if we learned anything in the PC Vs. Apple war it is that a slick, simple-to-use interface is worth far more than a commoditized solution.

Subsequently, Zoho, a company with a suite of 30+ cloud-based solutions is working on making their interfaces even simpler to use. I got an early glimpse of their new CRM software and was very excited about the new and much-cleaner interface which loses no functionality in its pursuit of Apple-like simplicity.

What I like best is the ability to tie together email, office apps, CRM and everything else so users don’t have to bounce around between a myriad of apps on the desktop to get their work done. An early pioneer in the cloud space, Zoho is now up to 1,500 people and is profitable and experiencing 100% YoY growth.

In two weeks you can expect a new solution, Contact Manager which the company bills as CRM for the beginner. For more on Zoho, check out this video interview TMC’s Erik Linask conducted with the company late last month in San Jose.

So there you have it – if you made it this far, thanks and be sure to catch up on other articles from Speechtek from TMC’s Tammy Wolf:

Did Social Just Make UC Irrelevant?

2011-07-08T21:14:27Z

If you are working with a phone system maker who isn’t innovating rapidly, beware - their days could be numbered.

I hate to be sensational but you have to wonder, with real-time video & voice communications embedded into social networks where a billion or spend a good part of their day, is standalone unified communications now much less important? And with Google+ tying together all of Google’s activities from voice to video to Gmail and chat, will people prefer to make calls from their Google toolbar or something a PBX company provides?

Obviously Avaya with its Flare interface and Cisco’s Quad are examples of being ahead of where the consumer market eventually evolved to. But again, will consumers prefer social networks they use in their personal lives or the ones mandated by their companies?

Consumerization of IT is a serious and very disruptive threat to organizations who long for the days of being able to manage all tech decisions from the top down. Obviously we know those days are over and one wonders if social communications with UC integration won’t push the boundaries of consumer and enterprise tech causing them to seemingly lose control altogether.

Of greatest concern to smaller PBX players has to be the lag there is between their UC offerings and what the competition has. Avaya and Cisco for example are already integrating social into their platforms and now Microsoft owns Skype and Skype is integrated into Facebook. Does this mean Facebook can soon become an enterprise phone system replacement? Then there is Redmond’s Lync and SharePoint – with Skype and a friendly Facebook where Microsoft is part-owner, what new revolutionary solutions might the company roll out tying it all together?

On June 20^th I mentioned a threat to Quad was Facebook becoming a player in the collaboration space and sure enough, a few weeks later they have taken a baby step in this direction. Of course, Facebook would have to “grow up” in terms of its enterprise controls to get through compliance departments but again, we are in a BYOD world nowadays.

So the bottom line here is how does UC change as a result of social – does unified communications become a subset? Will there be a market for Quad and Flare or are Facebook and Google+ going to steal the it? And LinkedIn has distinguished itself as the enterprise social network – people use it essentially as a business Rolodex – isn’t it surprising they haven’t beefed up their collaboration options?

The enterprise communications market has evolved incredibly over the last two decades. Avaya and Nortel had a lock on the market for so many years and slowly, the CTI revolution allowed a host of small players to utilize the latest technology to gain large amounts of share. Many of these companies such as Inter-Tel and Comdial got rolled up and more or less destroyed but it proved to the market that you could differentiate yourself by riding the leading edge of technology and take share from the big guys in the process.

Towards the tail end of the CTI boom, VoIP came onto the scene and companies like Inter-Tel embraced it and benefitted. Selsius Systems was a start-up subsidiary of PBX maker Intecom launching a novel new product in the IP-PBX space and Cisco acquired the company shortly after its launch. And just like that Cisco seriously disrupted the telecom space.

The question we have to ask ourselves in the communications space is whether social networking will kill UC systems and phone system companies or whether they will rise to the occasion and leverage this tech transition to one-up the big boys who now are Microsoft, Avaya, Cisco and Facebook. One thing is for sure; if you are working with a phone system maker who isn’t innovating rapidly, beware - their days could be numbered.

For more check out this piece written by Gary Kim on TMCnet titled: Is Social Software a Substitute for Unified Communications?

Avaya's Support Strategy Emulates Successful Cancer Diagnostic Systems

2011-06-23T22:03:29Z

It is an unusual occurrence for me to receive a call from any company to discuss their support. Generally the media gets all warm and fuzzy about tangible things like new product launches – scoops and items you can put in the category of breaking news. Ironically though if you ask most companies what differentiates them from the pack, service and support is typically the most common answer. Yet, I can’t remember other companies asking me to meet their new head of global services.

And yet perhaps one of the most important things you need to do when you have a complex system of networks carrying packets full of voice and video communication is to ensure it all operates at peak efficiency. In other words the area which could be most important to a customer – getting a communications and/or networking system back up and running after an outage is often an afterthought. It is hardly discussed.

But still, I was a bit surprised when the offer came from Avaya to meet Mohamad Ali, President of Avaya Global Services. The company’s PR team was so excited about the meeting I decided to take it. I was tentative – but walked away impressed.

Ali started the conversation telling me he is passionate about service and this is to be expected – but what is more interesting is that he doesn’t come from the service and support space. In fact his background is quite different and most impressive. He worked for IBM where he led and integrated many acquisitions such as Cognos, FileNet, Ascential Software and he also was the program director of the GSM semiconductor business and co-led the PricewaterhouseCoopers acquisition which transformed the company. He has also worked for Adobe and has an EE Bachelors and Masters from Stanford.

The reason this is important has to do with the fact that Ali can be doing anything – he could be heading up M&A at Avaya, managing the design of products and a whole host of other initiatives. When I mentioned this the response was that Avaya CEO Kevin Kennedy is a visionary and has said the company should be investing heavily in services and service technology as a differentiator. Moreover he said Kennedy was willing to put a key person in this role – which to me says a great deal.

The cancer connection

So half the story is about the resources Avaya is dedicating to support the other half is that Ali is looking to radically simplify support and to dramatically reduce time to resolution. And where he received his inspiration is interesting. It turns out that he heard a presentation from a cancer researcher at Mass General who spoke of the evolution of cancer treatment. It was once necessary for doctors to try treatment after treatment to determine the correct drug which needs to be prescribed. In other words a hit or miss process. But then a machine was built which matched biopsy results to the right type of gene mutation allowing improved results.

The goal then is to imitate the workings of the machine described above – and in doing so create true service innovation and of course differentiation. One point he made was that Avaya systems have diagnostics and alarms allowing for lots of output on which to perform diagnostic analysiss. He contrasted this to a competitor (he didn’t mention any by name but obviously Cisco) which has a lot of disparate boxes making this task more difficult. Of course Avaya recently acquired Nortel – bringing a few disparate boxes into the mix as well.

The night shift

One technique the company uses is simulating traffic at night in order to pinpoint problems with critical and other systems. This can be done across the contact center products, switches, voice and video systems. Ali tells me Nortel gave Avaya access to excellent diagnostics and these will be incorporated across the product line soon. Moreover, not everything is covered across the product portfolio is covered yet but they are working on getting all the diagnostics to cover all the products.

Streamlining Support Advantage

One of the biggest pieces of news from Ali’s department is the new Avaya Support Advantage model features two packages Essential Support and Preferred Support. Essential Support is the basic level of support. It’s targeted at those customers who require solution level remote technical support, and also software updates and patches. Preferred Support includes all the features of Essential package and more comes with remote monitoring that alerts Avaya within 90 seconds of receiving an alarm, and it can drive up to 20 percent faster resolution times, on average, due to increased visibility via around-the-clock monitoring. Plus, it includes Avaya EXPERT Systems.

Moreover, support pricing has been detached from the underlying product making it easier to determine the price based on a standard schedule. For customers who have multiple support contracts there is the option for co-termination and synchronized billing going forward.

Some of the benefits to customers are easier management and budgeting, less paperwork, less bills, reduced time to resolution and better customer service.

Nortel and Avaya users to benefit

Nortel and Avaya Support are expected to both improve as the best features of each will be rolled out across the other product line. For example there is now lifetime support across the Nortel portfolio and an emergency response program designed to help Avaya customers with catastrophic failures.

A more difficult support future

Ali mentioned the architecture of communications moving from centralized management approach to highly distributed service with multiple servers at the edge and in the cloud. He went on to mention that UC is becoming more unified and voice, data, video, IM and SMS are being used through a unified environment. He mentioned that Aura helps unify these modes of collaboration and Avaya’s diagnostic technology leverages Aura at the intersection allowing multimodal analysis in a holistic manner.

Like I mentioned at the top – service and support is usually a talking a point in my vendor discussions and it rarely comes up in detail. Avaya seems to be committing serious resources into differentiating itself in this important area. Now the question becomes how important does this become to enterprises? We know IT departments are constantly being asked to do more with less – perhaps now is the best time for Avaya to be making this push. In addition to customers, I am looking forward to seeing how the rest of the information technology and telecom market responds to Avaya’s cancer treatment-inspired support improvements.

Quad: The Death of E-mail and Cisco's Social Enterprise Ambitions

2011-06-20T21:42:20Z

Quad moves to the cloud, has native Cius tablet support and offers better interoperability

Last week I took a train into the city from TMC’s Connecticut HQ to spend time with the Cisco Quad collaboration team – using Cisco telepresence technology and it was a fascinating look into the company’s foray into a post-email, collaborative enterprise world. First things first, I wrote about Quad and spoke with Murali Sitaram VP/GM of Cisco's Enterprise Platforms unit last September and since then Quad has not been talked about much in the media and has limited buzz in the market. Moreover, Cisco is repositioning itself – lightening up on consumer products meaning much of the company’s messaging has been in other areas of the market including launching consumer telepresence product UMI – something which should never should have gotten the green light.

So I was skeptical at this point and went into the meeting trying to figure out if Quad has a future. Bottom line is Quad is enterprise Facebook with real-time collaboration built in and the idea is it allows easy searching of repositories of information – meaning the knowledge a corporation gains transcends the brains of the few people involved in information creation and it can be intelligently woven into training programs or called upon to more easily answer questions at a later date.

Imagine you are an auto manufacturer working on a green car initiative which flops. A few years later, a new manager reintroduces the idea – you can now go back and analyze the WebEx conference calls, telepresence and other video, presentations and knowledge bases associated with building a green car the first time around. You should be able to learn from your mistakes more easily because there is a record of what went wrong.

More importantly, if we live in a world where Congressmen are comfortable enough sharing photos of their private parts on Twitter, certainly it is time for the typical enterprise worker to start utilizing enterprise social networks as well to become more productive. Although one would hope the worker will deploy a bit more discretion before hitting send.

Quad goes cloudborne and targets smaller enterprises

The meeting didn’t blow me away but it is definitely worth sharing what I learned as Quad could become very important if e-mail does become less utilized and social networking does become the defacto standard for communications within organizations.

Probably the biggest news is Quad now will support enterprises as small as 1,000 users (down from 3,500) and be supported by cloud-based vendors allowing an organization to use Quad in a SaaS configuration. Moreover, the new 2.5 release will allow integration of activity streams and watch list functionality to enable users to better define and filter the content they consume.

Quad: See us on the Cius

I have yet to test the Cisco Cius tablet (ironically Cisco just invited me to a Cius event next week as I write this) but Quad will work on it natively which could make people who buy these tablets happier that they integrate natively with Cisco collaboration tools. Then again, Quad will work on a variety of mobile devices including iOS so this may not be such an important point. We will have to wait and see how it works.

Extending the Quad across campuses

Cisco has extended interoperability within Quad allowing it to work with enterprise IM clients Microsoft OCS 2007, IBM Sametime, and Cisco Jabber. This means a Quad user will be able to initiate and conduct an IM conversation with users of these other collaboration systems. It’s worth pointing out Quad also works with EMC Documentum and Microsoft SharePoint 2007.

Microblogging and template support

There is now support for hashtags, multimedia and other file attachments and of course messages beyond 140 characters. There is also template support allowing an admin to assign them to a community or a team.

Who are the hosting partners?

Depending on your geographic area, you can work with Capgemini, ACS a Xerox company or Infosys.

Suggestions and recommendations – enables semantic components to shine

One area of interest to me is the suggestion and recommendation functionality which comes in handy when using consumer social networks and even LinkedIn. Cisco’s solution works in a similar fashion by doing things like suggesting connections of other people within your company who have similar expertise. This could come in handy not only in a company like Google where people spend so much time working on secondary projects but since suppliers and partners could be on Quad together. It allows you to gain better visibility into your counterpart(s) with your partner or customer company.

Quad to become more visible

I asked Murali about why Quad hasn’t been visible with regards to marketing and PR and he told me it will be more visible going forward as it knits all the Cisco products and services together. I got to thinking though – this was also the case a year ago yet I’ve spent months looking at millions of dollars worth of TV ads for enterprise and consumer telepresence – much of it turned out to be wasted. And I am left still wondering – if Quad is as good as Cisco says it is then why aren’t we seeing it more? Generally when a disconnect like this exists between a vendor’s actions and words, we learn later of an underlying conflict. Perhaps I am wrong but I remain skeptically optimistic we will see Cisco start to promote Quad and more importantly we will start to see my fellow journalists start to write more enthusiastic pieces regarding its growth and future potential.

Quad SMB & Fremium?

I also asked about whether Quad needs to go SMB and have a free model to get smaller companies excited and hooked. Sitaram mentioned he didn’t think this made sense at the moment and utilized Yammer as an example of a company who does this but isn’t very financially successful as a result. I was thinking more Salesforce.com Chatter but I didn’t get a chance to ask about it.

Final thoughts

I am an advocate of using technology to boost productivity and make companies more productive and the research tells us the future will be one where email is less important and enterprise social is more important. And for Cisco the move from hardware to software makes sense as it is potentially more profitable (unless you’re Apple) and if you own the social collaboration platform you have a greater chance of selling the components which work with it. Routers, IP telephony systems, telepresence, videoconferencing are just a few of these and going forward, Cisco will be able to offer more software solutions which will have higher adoption rates because they work seamlessly with their collaboration solutions. IF this strategy is successful, over time, Cisco will become a threat to Microsoft and potentially Google, Oracle, SAP and others.

But of course this is the best-case scenario – Cisco isn’t batting that well lately and there are challenges the company faces as it decides which businesses to keep and which ones to get rid of. Moreover, Cisco is not known as a software company and quite frankly, Chatter is a lot easier to start using and deploying as it is in the cloud and free. Sure it doesn’t have the built-in IP communications and video bells and whistles but a Salesforce.com partnership with Polycom or Avaya could easily rectify this situation.

Another challenge Quad faces is Facebook or LinkedIn deciding they want to own enterprise collaboration and rolling out a product which competes head-on. Then there is Skype. Now that Microsoft owns them and the Internet telephony software is integrating more closely with Facebook, perhaps the stage is being set for a SharePoint/Lync/Facebook/Skype combo which will one-up solutions like Quad, Chatter, Twitter and others.

It is worth mentioning another challenge with enterprise social solutions in general. With infinite repositories of corporate intelligence you face potential legal issues where discovery could create volumes of information which could be used against you.

The one constant is change – and I am reminded by Warren Buffet’s famous statement which I am paraphrasing – where he said he doesn’t understand technology. What he meant is he could look at a market leader like Coke and know 20 years from now they will still be the market leader. In tech, he said, this is much tougher to do. And boy is he right. The analysts tell us the next generation of worker will demand social tools and in order to attract the best talent you will have to have a social enterprise. The question is how does the enterprise make a social enterprise decision today which will be the right one in the long run? For Cisco’s part, they are saying the right things – but for my readers, I would wait to see Quad become a more common story and gain more momentum before plunging in with both feet.