Apptix, a vendor of hosted Unified Communications services, has announced the completion of a nearly two and a half year project to consolidate legacy systems onto a network and service delivery platform.
Company officials say they had more than 300,000 full Exchange users at nearly 22,000 companies and organizations under contract at the end of the second quarter of 2010, "including 100,000 employees of one of the largest U.S. healthcare providers."
David Ehrhardt, president & CEO of Apptix, said Apptix can, "meet the unique needs and requirements of businesses of all size -- from a single employee SoHo or a 100,000-seat enterprise."
They certainly have experience with the latter -- earlier this year, TMC reported that Apptix secured a contract with a U.S. healthcare system to provide standardized e-mail services for more than 100,000 employees spread across multiple facilities.
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NSR's annual review of the wireless backhaul via satellite market shows the industry made what NSR officials characterized as "tremendous gains from the blistering pace of wireless subscriber growth in 2009 and the first half of 2010."
And this is despite what by all accounts has been a challenging economic environment. The wireless industry was one of the global economic bright spots, which, the report found, "led to sustained demand for satellite backhaul services for use primarily in rural markets."
Global wireless subscriptions breached the 4 billion mark in 2009, which translates into an additional one billion subscribers in the one year. "This pace is the fastest thus far," the report finds, adding that "it likewise signals the penetration of wireless usage in areas previously untapped."
Report officials say satellite technology was used to serve new and emerging market opportunities as CAPEX ,and OPEX "began to make sense in key market niches with the advantages of ubiquity and reach that satellite backhaul presents."
And much to nobody's surprise, cost remains the single most important issue in the market: "Company-specific performance was mixed as economic issues led to some postponements of shipments and installations to some wireless telcos."
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According to the headline of a recent white paper from Alcatel-Lucent, Teleconomics means "Doing More with Less."
Among the main ideas of cost transformation are: Consumption of video and multimedia content is booming. This trend makes high-quality broadband services increasingly important for maintaining customer loyalty. In fact, recent Alcatel-Lucent research found that consumers worldwide value their broadband connection more than any other.
Dynamic bandwidth management optimizes network resources. Soaring demand for bandwidth is a crucial issue. But merely increasing network capacity also increases overall maintenance and management costs. High Leverage Networks offer a more cost-effective way to put bandwidth where it's needed, using fewer resources.
Simplified networks shrink OPEX. Maintaining multiple silo networks is an inefficient way to deliver video, voice and data services. High Leverage Networks help minimize operating expenses by transporting these diverse traffic types over a single network. This converged services approach relies on network intelligence to automatically identify each unique service type and apply the appropriate QoS controls -- while significantly reducing network management and maintenance costs.
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Is Google serious about social-networking opportunities? Judging from reports saying they've bought online entertainment company Slide, we'd have to say so.
Industry observer Nancy Gohring reported that Google acquired the company for $182 million, citing TechCrunch, which first reported the deal. "The New York Times, citing unnamed sources, put the value at $228 million," she noted.
Slide, as Gohring says, "develops virtual community applications used on social-networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. They include SuperPoke Pets, Top Fish, SPP Range and SuperPocus Academy of Magic. The company was founded by Max Levchin, a co-founder of PayPal."
She also mentions reports that Google has invested in Zynga, the purveyors of the insidious Farmville Facebook cult.
Maybe Google's just admitting that it really doesn't know how to build social networking apps itself. Remember Buzz, which as Gohring said was intended to let Gmail users share status updates, photos and videos? If you do it's because you remember the blizzard of negative publicity about the lax privacy standards with your friend list.
