October 2007 Archives

You may have heard about the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative, headed by Nicholas Negroponte of MIT. The OLPC is centered on the XO laptop, which among other things has wireless mesh connectivity, allowing connectivity to the Internet from child to child to child optionally using solar, crank or pull chord power, both necessities in many underdeveloped countries.

So what’s the news today. Uruguay has become the first country to order 100,000 XOs, with potential to double this order and thus reach every child in this small South American country. O yes, the XO high resolution screen can be read in the bright sunshine common in Uruguay. Continue Reading...

This actually appeared in the final on-line and printed program for Interop, that just finished in NYC (I spoke on a SIP panel, but more of that in the future blog). Can you imagine two less likely companies to merge?.... these guys are arch rivals!

If these companies are not merging, perhaps the industries they represent are?

Google represents a class of company that has brought innovation to the consumer market. Microsoft is a huge player in the enterprise space. Continue Reading...

Just came back from being a panelist at Microsoft's OCS2007 customer seminar in NYC.

You may have heard Microsoft proclaim that the ROI for UC is >500%, pointing to some work done by Forrester. Elizabeth Herrell of Forrester explained what was behind this claim. Forrester created a 'composite company' based on 15 in-depth interviews. Continue Reading...

So reads the headline in an article written by Jim Duffy, based on a presentation he received from Gartner. The graphic below has been touted by Gartner for a couple of years. The sad fact is that maybe 80% of enterprises have such a relationship with Cisco- all are paying premium prices and many are locked-in via proprietary technologies.

Who benefits- well it’s true that the enterprise has ‘one throat to choke’ as one customer called it, but is there any doubt that Cisco is the real beneficiary of the generosity of its paying customers?

What should you do if you are one of these enterprises? Is this the path to zero budget unified communications? As a minimum, it would be responsible of enterprises to ask the question: where do I want to be on the vendor influence curve?

Whether you are an American law office, an Asian manufacturer or a European bank, you are probably opinionated on this topic. What do you think?