VoIP & Gadgets Blog

CloudTC and N-Able Acquired

By Peter on Wednesday, May 22

"Australian-owned IP PBX systems company, Vixtel, has completed the acquisition of Silicon Valley based glass phone developer, CloudTC, for an undisclosed figure,"...

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Tagged hosted pbx, itexpo, mergers, phone system, RMM

ProfitBricks: Where InfiniBand Meets Cloud 2.0

By Rich Tehrani on Wednesday, May 22

In a recent meeting with William Toll and Pete Johnson of ProfitBricks, the pair were ecstatic to explain how their company has...

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Tagged amazon, cloud computing, data center, ec2, infiniband, interop, profitbricks, public cloud, technology

Proactive Care Puts Operators One Step Ahead

By Peter Bernstein on Monday, May 20

By Thomas Fuerst, Senior Director, Multimedia Solutions MarketingAlcatel-Lucent

Monitoring and analyzing network data proactively saves operators time, money, and customers.

When a network service fails, it makes headlines, ticks off customers, and costs that network operator money. When a failure is headed off in advance, on the other hand, there might not be praise-laden headlines, but it's newsworthy nonetheless.

The traditional approach to customer care has typically been: a disgruntled customer calls customer service and complains of a service interruption or problem; the rep, learning of it for the first time, sends out a technician the next day, and eventually finds a resolution. Often, customers are left feeling put out, and the operator has spent significant time and money resolving the problem. Even worse is the customer who doesn’t call and just feels this is ‘typical’ of their network experience. That is a customer at risk of leaving.

Proactive care flips this dynamic on its head by using predictive analytics to identify potential outages or errors in the network and stop them before they occur. It consists of three main parts: one, constantly monitoring and measuring data on the network; two, real-time analysis of the data; and three, the most important, acting on that analysis to fix the problem.

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Tagged Alcatel-Lucent, big data, customer care, KPIs, network monitoring, procativecare | Responses

10 Lessons from Volleyball

By Peter on Monday, May 20

I've played volleyball for over 25 years. I have traveled around the US to watch the pros live - both indoor...

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Tagged hiring, strategy, volleyball

Emerging Threats Combats a Million Plus Pieces of New Malware a Week

By Rich Tehrani on Friday, May 17

There are 250,000 plus new pieces of malware being produced each day equating to one piece per person in the US in...

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Tagged emerging threats, interop, malware, security

NFV-Based Software Telcos Need OSS/BSS Interoperability

By Rich Tehrani on Friday, May 17

One of the goals of ETSI NFV is to allow new entrants to provide solutions to carriers based on software instead of...

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Tagged bss, carrier, ericsson, huawei, interoperability, nfv, nokia siemens networks, nsn, oss, sdn, software telco

SysAid's Lifshitz: The Cloud Will Dominate ITSM Market

By Rich Tehrani on Thursday, May 16

Cloud computing has really become a household word with mainstream media outlets running stories on television about the growth in the space...

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Tagged help desk, itsm, mdm, sysaid

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Terahertz Wi-Fi Super Speed Breakthrough Coming Soon...

June 8, 2012

Japanese researches have crushed the record for wireless data transmission utilizing the terahertz band, an uncharted part of the electromagnetic spectrum, resulting in 20x better performance than Wi-Fi.

The band makes use of frequencies from about 300 gigahertz (300GHz or about 60 times higher than the current highest Wi-Fi standard) to about 3THz and it lies between the microwave and far-infrared regions of the spectrum. Wait, between microwaves (cook/heat via vibration) and infrared, which can be used to heat or cook things? And you thought cell phone radiation was bad for your brain...

But don't worry, the 20x faster than Wi-Fi data rate is worth cooking a few brain cells! I jest - there is absolutely no evidence terahertz frequencies poses any health risks.

According to the BBC terahertz rays or "T-rays" can "penetrate many materials as effectively as X-rays but deposit far less energy and therefore cause less damage." Well, there you have it - the BBC says it causes less damage than X-rays, so it must be safe.

Posted in Gadgets, Mobile Phones, Technology and Science, Wireless

Tagged: bbc, t-rays, terahertz, wi-fi, wireless : Related Tags: terahertz, wireless

LG-Ericsson SBG-1000 Review

June 6, 2012

When you think unified communications (UC) you’re most likely to think voice, video, and IM/chat. The LG-Ericsson SBC-1000 takes a slightly different and quite unique approach unifying voice, video, and IM/chat but also data, security, and IT services. The LG-Ericsson SBG-1000 is an all-in-one phone and IT system that sports both phone features as well as IT infrastructure features, such as a print server, file server, PoE switch, router, SPI firewall, QoS, bandwidth allocator, VPN concentrator, Wi-Fi access point, and DECT base station. It truly is an “office in a box” offering all your typical voice and IT infrastructure needs.

Posted in Reviews, SIP, TMCnet, Unified Communications, Video Conferencing, VoIP

Tagged: data, firewall, ip phone, ip-pbx, it services, lg-ericsson, sip, uc, unified communications, voip, wi-fi : Related Tags: internal staff, print server, phone extensions, access point, ericsson phone, phone

Infonetics 1Q12 Enterprise Voice, UC and TDM Report Released

June 5, 2012

Several PBX vendors delayed their first quarter reporting so Infonetics 1Q12 Enterprise Voice, UC and TDM report is later than usual.The report tracks traditional PBX and KTS phone systems, IP PBX systems, voice over IP gateways, unified communications (UC) applications, and IP phones. The excerpted report comes out tomorrow, but a sneak peek reveals a few bright spots in 1Q12 enterprise voice equipment market while Cisco and Avaya battle it out. There is definitely some slowing in the enterprise voice market due to a slow economy, but that has resulted in aggressive pricing by competitors, which is good for enterprises looking to upgrade.

Posted in Avaya, Cisco, TMCnet, Unified Communications, VoIP

Polkast 2.0 Improves on P2P Personal Cloud Access to Your Files

May 31, 2012

Polkast, a personal cloud service that connects computers and mobile devices through a secure peer-to-peer connection, today announced Polkast 2.0, available on Windows, Mac OSX, iOS and Android devices. Polkast 2.0 includes several new features and a Pro subscription version.

I tried out their service recently and it works very well. It reminds me of Orb, although Orb caches thumbnails and filenames of your photos, music files, and videos on their web server. Privacy advocates may not like this.

Posted in Cloud, Gadgets, Internet, Mobile Phones, TMCnet, Wireless

Tagged: cloud, dropbox, google drive, google play, ios, iphone, p2p, personal cloud, polkast, polkast 2.0, skydrive, streaming, wi-fi : Related Tags: personal cloud, mobile devices, music files, access files, cloud polkast, polkast

SimpleSignal Brings Mobile Enterprise Video Conferencing to Apple & Android Mobile Devices

May 30, 2012

SimpleSignal, a cloud-based Unified Communications and Collaboration provider announced today that they are bringing mobile enterprise video conferencing to Apple's iPhone, iPad, iTouch and Android mobile devices. Their cross-platform video phone compatibility works across a variety of mobile, desktop and telepresence/video-enabled devices, via a WiFi connection or a 3G/4G network.

I've said in the past that I predict Apple iPads (& Android tablets) will be your next enterprise desktop phone because of their UC and video phone capabilities. SimpleSignal also believes tablets and other mobile devices will be game changers when it comes to UC. Hookflash is another interesting player in the mobile UC space.

According to SimpleSignal, "The seamless integration of iOS and Android operating systems into SimpleSignal's Unified Communications platform, coupled with the mobile video capabilities of these devices, means that advanced enterprise communications capabilities are no longer confined to the desktop."

"This new mobile video service is the biggest breakthrough in SimpleSignal history," said Dave Gilbert, CEO of SimpleSignal.

Posted in SIP, TMCnet, Unified Communications, Video Conferencing, VoIP

Tagged: android, cisco, hookflash, ipad, iphone, simplesignal, tandberg, telepresence, uc, unified communications : Related Tags: mobile devices, video conferencing, mobile video, video phone, android mobile, mobile

OPNET Technologies, Inc. Acquires Clarus Systems, for Unified Communications Management

May 30, 2012

OPNET Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: OPNT), a provider of solutions for application and network performance management, announced that it has completed the acquisition of Clarus Systems, Inc., a privately held software company headquartered in Redwood City, California. The acquisition expands OPNET's product portfolio for application and network performance management by adding Unified Communications (UC) to the management mix.

Clarus software provides end-to-end service management for Enterprise Voice over IP (VoIP), Unified Communications, and TelePresence video. Clarus's suite, ClarusIPC Plus+, maximizes service performance and availability through automated testing, performance monitoring, configuration management, and business intelligence reporting.

Posted in Unified Communications, Video Conferencing, VoIP

Tagged: clarus systems, conferencing, management, opnet, performance, telepresence, unified communications, video, voip : Related Tags: unified communications, clarus systems, application network, performance management, opnet technologies, management

Skype Integration with Microsoft Xbox 360 & Lync is Slow Going

May 29, 2012

Microsoft's purchase of Skype for $8.5 billion was considered a risky move considering the failure of eBay's acquisition of Skype, which did not result in any synergies between these two companies. The New York Times gives some interesting insights into the inner workings of Skype within the Microsoft juggernaut. For one, the article states, "Microsoft gave Skype a longer leash than it grants most of its divisions, even allowing Mr. Bates to work in Silicon Valley." Apparently, Skype is the only Microsoft division located almost entirely outside Microsoft's Seattle-based headquarters.

The article goes on to explain that Tony Bates, the head of the Skype division, uses a Apple MacBook Air and not a Microsoft operating system.

Posted in Lync, Microsoft, Skype, TMCnet, Technology and Science, Unified Communications, VoIP

Tagged: blue jean networks, interoperability, lync, microsoft, skype, tony bates, video conferencing, xbox 360 : Related Tags: operating system, microsoft operating, windows tablet, skype microsoft, skype, microsoft

Why the Cisco Cius Failed & Why Microsoft Might Beat the Mighty iPad

May 25, 2012

Rich Tehrani has a good post today on why the Cisco Cius failed. He put it succinctly and with a nice metaphor when he writes:

Company after company is learning what most of instinctively know already – competing with Apple head-on is like trying to tackle a freight train with your bare hands as it is barreling down the tracks in your direction. Amazon with its Kindle Fire competed on price and used its services to subsidize the device. Other tablet makers are finding it virtually impossible to compete without such advantages.

Rich is exactly right.

Posted in Android, Apple, Gadgets, Microsoft, TMCnet

Tagged: active directory, byod, cisco, cius, ipad, it, microsoft, rich tehrani, tablet, windows 8 : Related Tags: windows tablets, active directory, virtually impossible, windows, tablets, tablet

Say it With Skype Facebook app Wants to Be American Idol

May 22, 2012

Skype announced a new contest to find the next great music band using their Say it With Skype Facebook app, an engaging-group video greeting app that lives on both Facebook and Skype.com. Simply use Say it With Skype to record your music band on video and you could be the next American IdolSkype Music Super Hero! Hey, it worked for Justin Bieber, who was discovered via a YouTube video.

Similar to American Idol, there will be some relatively well-known judges in the music industry to judge the entries, including Pete Wentz of Black Cards, Ryan Tedder of OneRepublic, and MTV music personality and host of "120 Minutes" and MTVHive.com Matt Pinfield. As an added bonus to joining the app as the 'house band,' the winning band is to receive one-on-one mentoring time with the celebrity judges and paid studio time to not only record the song which will be featured on the Say it with Skype app, but also the chance to record their own song to use however they please.

Here's me rocking out to the #1 downloaded iTunes song of all time - Journey's Don't Stop Believin' using the Say it With Skype Facebook app.

Ok, maybe not.

Posted in Skype, TMCnet, VoIP

Tagged: app, band, black cards, facebook, journey, justin bieber, music, recording, say it with skype, skype, video : Related Tags: skype facebook, opportunity showcase, emerging artists, emerging musicians, music technology, skype

Skype v4.0.1325 Released for Apple iOS

May 21, 2012

A new version of Skype was just released to the Apple App Store. No new major features to report - just some stability fixes and a fix for a sign in issue as seen here:

Certainly if you're having sign-in issues by all means have this version a go.

Posted in Skype

Tagged: apple, ios, skype, voip : Related Tags: released apple

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