First Coffee

Security has emerged as a major concern for businesses that are storing and sharing more and more sensitive information through IP communications. Recently TMC's Michael Dinan had a chance to speak with Lance Vaughn, director of managed security services sales for the Americas at Tata Communications, a global telecom player.

During a podcast interview that's available on Tata Communications' Data Voice Solutions community on TMCnet, Vaughn discussed the challenges that some telcos encounter when they enter the managed security space, and how the company adds value with its sticky offering.

Physical constraints of embedded devices typically dictate low memory availability for the system and services.

 

"Both static and dynamic memory consumptions impact the overall system, availability of resources to other services in the system," according to officials from D2 Technologies, a mobile unified communications provider.

 

However, the company's vPort technology is "rigorously optimized for such environments and it exceeds typical embedded device requirements."

 

Read more now.

Would it surprise you to learn that in these days of FoIP there's a vendor who still does a lot of business with analog lines, PRI and T1 digital?

 

It shouldn't. FoIP is growing fast, sure, but some customers aren't fully VoIP and UC capable. Plus many customers will be implementing VoIP in the near future but need to have analog now, and need a vendor who can work with them on that.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Miles Davis's 1975 live album Agharta. Some pretty blistering fusion work - most '70s fusion didn't stand the test of time, heck most of everything doesn't stand the test of time, but Davis's genius ensures that this does:   CRM and ERP vendor Consona Corporation has announced that its AXIS product line has achieved "exceptional customer support satisfaction levels," according to company officials, adding that AXIS is Consona's ERP software designed "specifically for the unique requirements of manufacturers and distributors in the metals, wire and cable industries."   According to what Consona officials say are regularly tracked metrics, since October 2008, AXIS ERP software customers have expressed "100 percent satisfaction with their support service experience with Consona - nearly 18 consecutive months." Hard to improve all that much on100 percent.   "For the entirety of 2009, customer feedback was 100 percent positive, and has maintained this record thus far into 2010 as well," Consona officials assert, crediting their business model that places significant importance on providing an efficient, effectual support experience for customers, in which cases are resolved.   In 2009 alone, in fact, Consona handled 2100 support cases - "down from 2600 cases in 2008," company officials say - with "only four in backlog at the end of the calendar year." Throughout this period and into the present time, they say, AXIS customer support "is able to maintain an average of less than three days' backlog of support cases."   Consona officials say the backbone of their support model consists of proactive educational materials the company provides through a database of online courses, Knowledgebase articles and discussion forums in the searchable Expert network that customers can access at any time: "Consona encourages customers to take advantage of this resource, and likewise share experiences and feedback with peers to enable information sharing among the customer base and support staff."   In addition, 33 new recorded classes on the AXIS ERP solution were produced in the past two years. ... Parents are about to get a new resource: DirecTV, which is offering what company officials call "common Sense Media's age-based content reviews on its TV programming guide."   The service is designed to provide parents with what DirecTV officials describe as "detailed, age-based information and reviews so they can make the right programming choices for their families."   DirecTV and Common Sense Media have been making kid-friendly ratings information available on directv.com since early last year. Now DirecTV customers will be able to access this information on the electronic program guide via the "info" button on their remote control.   Doing so will give users access to Common Sense Media's information on the program's violence, sexual content, positive messages, topics for family discussion and more.   Saying it's "based on childhood development criteria," DirecTV officials say Common Sense Media's age-based ratings system complements traditional ratings services by providing more detailed, easy-to-understand information."   Eric Shanks, executive vice president, DirecTV Entertainment, says DirecTV "believes that finding appropriate TV choices for your kids should be simple and straightforward. Common Sense Media reviews go well beyond the current TV ratings system and actually give parents the information to make decisions about the TV choices in their home."   Not only does it give practical information about individual TV shows, he added, "but it also presents ideas of how to discuss the shows or movies with your kids."   "We applaud DirecTV for being the first to integrate our ratings into their on-screen guide," said Anne Zehren, president and COO of Common Sense Media.   Customers can continue to access ratings information on directv.com by clicking on a TV show or movie title on the directv.com programming guide and use the "Parental Ratings" tab to link directly to the Common Sense Media information.   After reviewing the ratings, parents can use DirecTV's DVR Scheduler by simply clicking on the "record to receiver" tab and scheduling the program to record on their DVR at home - only at directv.com. ... IBM has announced that Whitney National Bank, an independent business bank, is deploying IBM technologies to "integrate and speed the delivery of specialized services to its growing customer base."   IBM officials say the move is intended to provide "new levels of efficiency and intelligence to both the bank and its customers."   Whitney officials say they recognize the need to compete in today's dramatically altered financial playing field by using "smarter banking strategies to achieve new levels of risk control, efficiency and customer service."   Bank officials say using the IBM tools, they will be able to extract key intelligence to obtain a full view of a customer's transaction history -- including a comprehensive analysis of sales trends and costs -- to deliver more customized services and offerings: "Increased visibility to this account data also empowers the bank's customers to regulate their activities and expenses."   They're hoping for new operational efficiencies as well, given their recent growth: "After acquiring more than a dozen banks, Whitney faced the challenge of consolidating customer information and reducing IT applications such as those supporting checking and savings account management, online bill payment and loan processing."   In the past, if a customer requested a report of daily transactions, the information had to be pulled from a dozen different systems that could take a few days to deliver, bank officials explained, saying that has now been reduced to hours and minutes.   By deploying the IBM Banking Industry Framework, a portfolio of pre-built financial reports and dashboards, Whitney officials say they expect to be able to cut their banking applications in half, be able to retrieve customer information instantaneously, improve service levels by automating routine processes, reduce costs and eliminate redundancies across the enterprise.   Thomas "Stan" Limerick, Whitney's Senior Vice President and Director of Strategy and Architecture, Operations & Technology Division, says the bank is also migrating to IBM Power System with DB2 in its data centers in Allen, Texas and Prattville, Alabama, adding that the new Power System enables Whitney to cut disaster recovery times between its data centers from hours to seconds. ... Metatron has announced that it will release the appMovie "Michael Jackson HIStory World Tour Live" concert on iTunes, Android and Blackberry under license from Soul Legends and Darryl Payne Productions.   The concert was recorded from the third and final world concert tour by Michael Jackson as a solo artist, which grossed a total of $165 million, included a total of 82 concerts with a record-breaking attendance of 4,500,000 fans.   Metatron officials say this has never before been seen in the US: "This is the first and only High-Definition recording of Michael Jackson performing all of his hits live."   The video quality is described as "extremely high." It was shot with fifty cameras and is two and a half hours long.

The news as of the first coffee this morning, and the music is Lou Reed's Live In Italy, which is an almost great album - yes it's the best band he ever had but they were a year or so past their prime, yes it's a great setlist but not the best. Almost one of the truly great live albums in rock:   As consumers interact more frequently through text messaging, calls and online channels, marketers - particularly communications service providers - are "considering the importance of this social aspect of decision making when developing strategies," SAS officials believe.   Saying "simple demographics fall short" for responding to demand for customer insight in such a situation, SAS has introduced SAS Customer Link Analytics.    SAS Customer Link Analytics includes SAS analytics, visualization, dashboards and reports, and as company officials explain, "lets decision makers use previously unknown connections between leaders, followers, and others" in social communities.   "Social network analysis lets communications service providers not only prevent customer churn, but also personalize marketing messages for greater cross-selling and up-selling opportunities," said Jon Paisner, Senior Analyst, Yankee Group.    Dr. Carlos Andre Reis Pinheiro, a customer analytics expert at the School of Computing, Dublin City University, said SAS Customer Link Analytics would be a tool for "revealing customers' influence in virtual communities inside telecom networks."    The product incorporates role-based variables into segmentation models to help marketers create more cost-effective campaigns, reduce customer attrition, and make messages more relevant, company officials say: "When marketers understand how products and ideas diffuse through social networks, they can determine how and when to target influencers, test campaigns and introduce new products and services."    Communications service providers "need to better understand how customers are using their products and making buying decisions," said Ken King, Director of SAS Telco and Media Convergence, noting that although marketers knew some customers had significant influence over others, "with SAS Customer Link Analytics, they can finally quantify that influence and leverage those insights for competitive advantage." ... As Google will try to win over prospective Android developers at next week's Game Developers' Conference in San Francisco, Mplayit's latest data from its cross-platform app store on Facebook shows that "games are four times as popular among iPhone users than among the Android user base."   BlackBerry users are twice as likely to be looking for game content than Android users, despite the device's strong business reputation.   The data shows that the iPhone is used for games 64 percent of the time, BlackBerry 33 percent and Android 17 percent. Android is used for mobile apps 83 percent of the time and BlackBerry 67 percent, whereas the iPhone is used for mobile apps 36 percent of the time.   "Android is a powerful platform of compelling APIs, but Google needs to persuade both gamers and game developers to get on board," said Michael Powers, Mplayit CEO, adding that in his opinion, "GDC will be a critical opportunity for Google to build the all-important developer momentum that will in time fan out to the ordinary consumer. "   Many industry observers see the growing consumer interest in Android devices, as well as Google's outreach to the game developer community, as evidence of an opportunity for game developers to tap into a growing market.