First Coffee

Citrix Online has reached Australia, where they have "launched a local version of its Web conferencing service," according to industry observer Beverley Head, who described it as "aimed at individuals and small business owners."

It's offering access to unlimited Web conferences for up to 15 people for $65 a month. Pretty much in the SMB - self-employed sweet spot.

Yes, Citrix web conferencing has been available locally Down Under, Head says, "but only via the U.S.

We all know about the rise of smartphones. But SMBs are increasingly relying on wireless technology, and major carriers are taking notice. AT&T recently conducted a study, which revealed small businesses are, in fact, "increasingly dependent on wireless technology." The study's authors found that wireless technologies are "increasingly being seen as crucial for the survival of today's growing businesses." Nearly two-thirds of businesses -- 65 percent -- said it would be "a major challenge" to survive, if they could survive at all, without wireless technology. Study officials concluded that there's a "rapid increase" in the perceived importance of wireless technology, since in a similar AT&T study from 2007, only 42 percent of businesses said it would be difficult to survive without it. Read more here. ... Testing wireless networks is expected to become more important under the FCC's recently announced National Broadband Plan, which is expected to boost national access speeds to 100 Mbps, and release 500 MHz of additional spectrum for wireless broadband. As you might expect, of course, mobile VoIP providers, carriers and mobile device makers are grinning and drywashing their hands in anticipation. Also keeping an eye on proceedings are those who oversee wireless networks testing. Major carriers are taking testing much more seriously. Verizon Wireless has employed real-life test men and women to test the company's network, and over the past ten years has "more than tripled" the size of that fleet, company officials said, currently fielding over 100 test vehicles. Read more here. ... Fax - due in part to fax server and FoIP-based technologies - is certainly not dead, as some have wrongly said. It continues to be an important and cost-effective means for business-to-business and business-to-customer communications. In fact, more than 90 percent of U.S.

The Federal Aviation Administration has begun a research and development pilot aimed at helping the agency detect and react to hackers before they have a chance to attack FAA systems, IBM and the FAA announced Tuesday. The pilot makes use of recently released IBM software called InfoSphere Streams, which was developed in conjunction with the Department of Defense and can perform realtime analytics on heavy throughput data streams of up to millions of events or messages per second. FAA security analysts are swamped on a daily basis with a massive volume of security information coming from the FAA's firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and wireless detection systems as well as data feeds from other agencies and commercial security services such as Verisign's iDefense. Read more here. ... Voxeo's Prophecy, described by company officials as a standards-based platform for speech, IVR, and SIP VoIP applications, is a telephony application platform software offering "enterprise-class features with retail like simplicity." Also, since its an openly available, single download product with no configuration required - just one download includes speech recognition, speech synthesis, and the company's designer visual development tool. The product includes functionality needed to create and deploy IVR or VoIP applications, including full VoiceXML and CCXML browsers with high-quality speech recognition and synthesis engines, a built-in SIP soft-phone, and support for hundreds of SIP providers and devices. Read more here. ... Since its formation in California in 1874, Bank of the West has - in what is undoubtedly one of the truer sentences written - "seen its business undergo many dramatic changes." Initially, the bank was formed to support farmers in Northern California and today is the third largest commercial bank headquartered in the West. The bank has grown aggressively through 15 acquisitions in a two-decade period, bank officials say, noting that it now has $55.6 billion in assets, more than 700 branch banking locations and commercial offices, and nearly 10,000 employees. But the bank had issues with standardizing its business processes. Especially given its numerous acquisitions, "consistency throughout the footprint is the key to improving operations, enhancing customer service, creating greater operating efficiency, and increasing sales," they believe. Read more here. ... A recent white paper from Contactual looks at call centers and "examines the differences between on-premises call centers and hosted alternatives." Tipping its hand a bit, the paper's introduction says it "looks at the reasons why on-premises call centers are becoming obsolete." Noting that enterprises have traditionally invested millions of dollars into building and maintaining best-in class call centers, the paper says "for decades, this strategy made sense." However, "in today's environment of rapid technological change and economic volatility, an on-premises call center is no longer an asset; in most cases, it is a clear disadvantage." Highlighting three of the major problems with on-premises call centers, the paper notes that, for one, it requires significant capital expenditure. "Purchasing the hardware and software required to set up a new call center runs into the hundreds of thousands of dollars," it finds, adding that given the tremendous complexity and cost, the technology often becomes outdated soon after it is up and running. Read more here. ... Of course the question on everyone's mind is, "Can I convince my wife that I need an iPad because it'll take the place of my laptop?" Tony Bradley, author of Unified Connections for Dummies, doesn't have that problem, as a tech writer he can justify getting an endless stream of cool tech toys as "work," much the same way a sportswriter can watch a baseball game while over at the in-laws' and call it "work." Still, Bradley set out to find the answer - is the iPad your all-in-one biz tool? Read more here.

The International Customer Management Institute has launched its 2010 Call Center Workforce Management Practices survey to provide an analysis of call center best practices, explore the greatest challenges in forecasting and scheduling, evaluate how workforce management technology is being embraced and examine various staffing strategies such as home agents, outsourcing and staff-sharing.

A recent ICMI look at outsourcing found that selecting the proper vendor is of key importance: "Many times, outsourcing relationships bring disappointment and frustration. When I'm called in to resolve outsourcing problems, I find that most of the time, it comes down to a poor match between the company and the outsourcing vendor," wrote ICMI's Francoise Tourniaire.

This is "something that could have been prevented through a better selection process," she noted.

Here's a shocking bit of news: Online advertisers are "planning new advertising methods created specifically for iPad applications."

 

Who woulda thunk it? Why, they already have "major companies" signed on and are "seeking to promote their goods and services to customers on Apple's forthcoming device," according to AppleInsider's Sam Oliver.

 

ClickZ said mobile ad platform AdMarvel "has teamed with Gannett-owned rich media ad firm PointRoll to enable expandable and highly-interactive ads on the iPad.