Recently at the Interop 2010 show in Las Vegas, TMC's CEO Rich Tehrani interviewed Jason Nolet, vice-president of application delivery products from data center networking vendor Brocade about the company's latest news.

At the show, Nolet said, the company announced something to help customers get greater control and visibility over their application performance in virtualized data centers and environments. He mentioned a new piece of software that's a member of their ServerIron ADX family, the BARB - Brocade Application Resource Broker.

Essentially what it does, according to information provided by Brocade, is provide visibility into application performance across network and VM infrastructures, and "ensure application service level agreements are met by dynamically allocating additional resources to service increases in application load." 

Recently at the Interop 2010 show in Las Vegas, TMC's CEO Rich Tehrani had a chance to speak with Andy Gottlieb, founder and CEO of Talari Networks.

Gottlieb said the company's been doing well - mentioning that in a recession, saving money suddenly gets a lot more attractive: "On the one hand, people are willing to be more aggressive in using our technology." He explained that Talari's technology can be added to an existing MPLS network, what he calls "MPLS augmentation," or actually replace the MPLS itself.

He's seen a couple customers trying to install a hybrid, keeping some MPLS in their core data centers, but to actually eliminate their MPLS and really save money, Gottlieb says, Talari would "pay for itself in 6 to 10 months."

Recently at Interop 2010 in Las Vegas Rich Tehrani sat down and interviewed Kevin Gavin, vice president of marketing at ShoreTel, who said that the company recently announced a total cost of ownership guarantee - "the lowest total cost of ownership."

For a long time, Gavin said, "we've known that the total cost of ownership of a PBX turns out to be 25 percent up front costs and 75 percent ongoing management and maintenance costs."

He said they're learning "what IT executives are increasingly aware of, the fact that complexity costs money, and over time complex systems are harder to administer and require more staff, and end up costing an awful lot of money."

Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden has filed suit against two vehicle service contract sellers for auto dialer calls, according to The Examiner:

"The lawsuits are against U.S. Fidelis and Credexx which have used direct mail postcards and auto-dialers to market auto service contracts in Idaho."

The suit, according to The Examiner, alleges that U.S. Fidelis "misrepresented to consumers  the coverage of the contracts and misled them into believing the contracts were extensions of their manufacturer's warranties," and that Credexx "sent direct mail advertising to Idahoans falsely claiming that their consumer's auto warranties had expired or were about to expire," offering renewal services.

So where does auto-dialing come in? Wasden alleges that they both violated Idaho's telephone solicitation statutes and rules.  The point may be academic however, as both companies have stopped doing business and U.S. Fidelis has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Missouri.

The lawsuits brings up again the issue of the FCC's pushing to prohibit auto dialer calls to mobile devices, "which would - in my opinion - do a wonders for my aggravation every time I receive an unwanted call," according to TMC's Kelly McGuire.

Ever wonder how a call recording software system for Skype differs other types; in this case, Coordinated's Virtual Observer?

Applian Technologies, a privately held company specializing in software to record streaming media, has introduced just such a system especially for Skype communications, according to industry journal Television Broadcast.

The Applian system, Replay Telecorder for Skype, described by company officials as "an intuitive video/audio recorder for all Skype calls," has a one-click recording process and can capture regular Skype voice calls, video chats, conference calls and Skype voice mail.

The recorded file is saved in the AVI format, which TVB says "can be played back using Windows Media Player." It has six different call recording options on a drop-down menu - "audio only; picture-in-picture; side-by-side video, local video only; remote video only; or recording the call as two separate files."

TVB says it works on any PC running Windows 7, XP or Vista with Skype installed.