Unified Communications

Cisco Cius HD Android Tablet

June 30, 2010

Cisco unveiled Cisco Cius, a business tablet running on the Android OS that offers "virtual desktop integration with anywhere, anytime access to the full range of Cisco collaboration and communication applications, including HD video." Now before you think iPad killer, you should know that Cisco is focusing this tablet on the business enterprise not the consumer market. It sports WiFi, 3G, and soon 4G when it becomes available. Nice! It also has a front-mounted 720p HD camera supporting 30fps.

I should add that many enterprises are using iPads as laptop replacements, so I wouldn't classify the iPad as strictly a consumer product.

Posted in Android, Cisco, TMCnet, Unified Communications, Video Conferencing, VoIP

Enterprise Unified Communication, VoIP & TDM Equipment 2010 (1Q10) forecast report

June 28, 2010

Infonetics Research released the 1Q10 results from its first quarter 2010 (1Q10) Enterprise Unified Communication, VoIP, and TDM Equipment forecast report. In it they point to how Cisco and Avaya battle for supremacy in enterprise telephony market with Avaya closing the gap with Cisco due to their Nortel acquisition. Could Avaya finally knock Cisco off their #1 IP-PBX perch?

Here's the news:

ANALYST NOTE
"We expected the acquisition of Nortel's enterprise assets to put Avaya in the clear lead for overall PBX equipment market share leadership, and while Avaya did receive a nice bump this quarter, softness in the acquired Nortel business combined with strong results by Cisco meant that Cisco and Avaya essentially tied for revenue market share, although Avaya is ahead in terms line shipments. This unfolding battle will be interesting to watch over the coming quarter, as both companies bring certain strengths and weaknesses to the table," notes Matthias Machowinski, directing analyst for enterprise voice and data at Infonetics Research.

1Q10 MARKET HIGHLIGHTS
- Cisco maintains its lead in the overall enterprise telephony market in 1Q10, but only by a hair over Avaya, which saw a 25% quarterly jump in PBX revenue after absorbing Nortel's enterprise solutions business
> Both vendors posted their strongest PBX revenue standings since the end of 2008
- Manufacturer revenue from PBX and KTS system equipment hit $2.0 billion in 1Q10, a 4% sequential dip
- Despite the quarterly decline, the enterprise telephony market continues to grow from the lows set in the first half of 2009, and is up 7% year-over-year from the first quarter of 2009
- The North American PBX equipment market posted the highest year-over-year (1Q09 to 1Q10) growth among all regions
- IP phones continue to recover from their 1Q09 low point, up 32% year-over-year to 3.9 million phones shipped in 1Q10
- Sales of unified communication (UC) applications are temporarily down due to expired promotions
> The UC market, led by Cisco and Avaya, is expected to resume growth in 2010

REPORT SYNOPSIS
Infonetics' quarterly Enterprise Unified Communication, VoIP, and TDM Equipment report provides worldwide and regional market size, market share, analysis, and forecasts through 2014 for the enterprise telephony market, including TDM PBX and KTS systems, hybrid and pure IP PBX systems, IP PBX by system size, VoIP gateways, unified communication applications (communicator, unified messaging), IP desk phones and IP soft phones.

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

SkypeKit SDK adds Skype to Just About Anything

June 22, 2010

Skype today announced that soon every Internet connected device can now become a Skype endpoint with the addition of the SkypeKit SDK. The Panasonic line of TVs that integrated Skype used an early version of SkypeKit (as well as LG and Samsung TVs). Other connected devices like wireless picture frames could soon be Skype-enabled. The SDK will leverage Skype's wideband SILK codec.

Posted in Home Entertainment, Skype, TMCnet, Unified Communications, VoIP

CounterPath Announces Linux Softphone

June 2, 2010

Today, CounterPath has announced its Bria for Linux softphone client. Bria for Linux will support multiple VoIP accounts, LDAP, a wide variety of codecs and more. The new Bria 3.0 for Linux will debut next month, however CounterPath said it has already ben deployed by two Fortune 500 companies. CounterPath is well-known for it's industry-leading SIP clients, both free (X-Lite) and paid (Bria), so perhaps the biggest advantage of this announcement is that enterprises can have a single SIP application that enables VoIP across embedded products, Linux, Mac and Windows operating systems.

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

Sangoma and HP Partner on UC Platform

May 12, 2010

I saw a release a couple of weeks ago about Sangoma entering into an OEM relationship with a "major computer and networking equipment supplier", which really piqued my interest since I'm a Sangoma telephony card fan. The release however doesn't name the company.

However, it got me thinking that there are not many companies that sell computer AND networking equipment. The only two companies that came to mind are Intel and HP (which now owns 3Com now). I doubt Intel would ink a deal with Sangoma since Intel already tested the telephony waters with Dialogic which they bought & then sold.

That leaves HP.

I did some digging and a source told me that they saw a Sangoma logo on some HP hardware at the last VoiceCon show.

Posted in Microsoft, TMCnet, Unified Communications, VoIP

Alteva's Hosted OCS 2007, Exchange & Sharepoint Offers Comprehensive Hosted UC

April 23, 2010

Alteva, a unified communications hosted solution provider recently announced a partnership with Microsoftand Broadsoft to provide a true hosted Unified Communications (UC) solution to small businesses. Alteva has connected their hosted voice and messaging services with Microsoft Communication Services product suite, including Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint and Office Communications Server (OCS). Alteva is essentially offering a hosted unified communications platform that offers hosted Exchange, hosted Sharepoint, and hosted OCS ("The Big 3" Microsoft communications apps) - all from a single service provider. (not to mention hosted VoIP) Obviously, this greatly reduces the complexity of integrating the various popular Microsoft applications in-house, performing maintenance (TCO), and the upfront capital expenditure for purchasing Microsoft licenses.

Alteva claims to be the first one to to offer all three in a single hosted solution when they stated, "Alteva has been selected as one of the only hosted voice service providers to offer the complete suite of Microsoft Communication Services, with integrated voice services.

Posted in Microsoft, SIP, TMCnet, Unified Communications, VoIP

Ringio Launches Cloud-based 'Rich Calling' Service

April 19, 2010

Today, Ringio launched a new cloud-based service for small and mid-sized businesses which integrates web-based CRM and advanced telephony features. It seems a bit Google Voice-esque, but with some additional advanced CRM functionality. It works with any phone system (mobile, landline, PBX) since it leverages follow-me and call forwarding to reach your phone number. No word on number porting on their website, so I'm not sure if you have to use one of Ringio's phone numbers or if they'll port your existing number to their service.

The core app actually leverages Adobe Air. Here's a screenshot:

Features include:
- Greets contacts by name
- Treats callers according to your priorities (Normal, VIP, Blacklist)
- Remembers who the caller last spoke to
- Knows your office hours and team member availability
- With Ringio Mobile, you have the power of a high end call-center in your pocket
- Hold, transfer, redirect, deflect calls visually while on the road
- Your phone extension travels with you
- Redirect calls to another phone with one click
- All calls, your voicemails, contacts, notes, and team members at your fingertips
- Synchronized in real time with Ringio Desktop and all your team members
- Shared Corporate Address Book - One-click sharing of contacts
- Shared Customer Information -- big prospect, frequent caller, current client?
- Shared Call History - shows who the caller talked to within the company
- Team Presence - lets users know availability of team members
- Shared call-handling responsibilities

Here's the news release:

Ringio Launches New Cloud-Based 'Rich Calling' Service for SMBs

Integrates CRM, Intelligent Routing So Users See History of Interactions With Callers

SAN FRANCISCO - April 19, 2010 --Ringio, a new company founded by a group of long-time SaaS and Telephony Executives, today launched a new service for small and mid-sized businesses that brings them a combination of CRM and telephony functionality that until now has been available only through call centers and enterprise-level telephony systems.

Introduced at the Emerging Communications Conference & Awards (eComm 2010) here, Ringio's Rich Calling service presents calls together with their contextual details, either through the service's desktop client or through its mobile version, which also debuted today for Android-based smart phones.

In studying the needs of SMBs closely, the Ringio team developed Rich Calling as a software as a service (SaaS) with an emphasis on affordability, ease of setup and elegance of presentation on users' screens - whether desktop or mobile devices.

Posted in Android, TMCnet, Unified Communications

Adobe Flash 10.1 Adds P2P VoIP, Social Networking, IM

April 16, 2010

The latest version of Adobe Flash Player 10.1 (still in beta) adds support for RTMFP Groups. This is huge because it enables clients to easily communicate with other clients in a network in order to share the transport of media and communications without maintaining a connection to every peer in the group. Groups can be defined by their functionality and access can be controlled by the client application, whether it's a VoIP app, chat app or a social networking app.

They also added support for Directed Routing, which enables a developer to create communication applications and send data messages to a specific peer in the group. Critical features of RTMFP include low latency (critical for VoIP), end-to-end peering capability, security and scalability.

Posted in Internet, Reviews, Skype, Social Networking, TMCnet, Unified Communications, VoIP

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