March 2008 Archives

Combine a Samsung phone with a heart rate monitor, a stride sensor in your Adidas running shoes and you get MiCoach. The phone can act as an MP3 player and tell you to run faster if you’re not keeping pace. When you get out of the shower, you can track your training program via a web site.

What if you include a sugar intake monitor for when you’re watching the game. MyCouch!?

The Royal Society's motto 'Nullius in verba', roughly translated as 'Nothing in words', dates back to 1663, and is an expression of the determination of the Fellows to withstand the domination of authority (such as in Scholasticism in the 17th century or vendor claims today) and to verify all statements by an appeal to facts determined by experiment. (Thanks Steve for this inspirational bit of history).

Ac ne forte roges, quo me duce, quo lare tuter,
Nullius addictus iurare in verba magistri.
(Horace, Epistles I.i, 1.13-14)

You shall not ask for whom I fight
Nor in what school my peace I find;
I say no master has the right
To swear me to obedience blind.
(trans. C.T.

My father-in-law used to say (he was in video technology), “I give my customers what they need, not what they want”. He certainly wouldn’t have allowed feature creep to get in the way of delivering on this philosophy.

When we buy a car, while we may look at car magazines and day dream about owning a fully featured whatever (insert your favorite car here), many of us would narrow it down to the features we really want/need, and consider performance, maintenance costs and energy efficiency in making a purchase decision. We would be crazy to pay our hard-earned cash for features that we will never use (though there are many who go for a higher prestige to debt ratio!), and then pay again for increased gas consumption, maintenance costs or whatever.

With all the excitement last week at VoiceCon, you might have missed the news of the week before VoiceCon.

Microsoft and Nortel jointly announced their commitment to deliver transformed solutions in the contact center space under the Innovative Communications Alliance.

This solution from Nortel-Microsoft will not only UC-enable the contact center with Office Communicator, but will speed up customer service. Microsoft estimates that 10% of contact center calls (1 billion per year worldwide) can be expedited by reaching out to subject matter experts across the enterprise.

One of the strategic goals of the US Social Security Agency is “to deliver high quality citizen centered service”. Speeding up the disability claim and appeal process, while making better and more effective use of people, are two important priorities, according to the SSA’s 5-year strategic plan. It’s not uncommon for disability claims to spend over 500 days in backlog!

To meet its objectives, the SSA has established a strategic objective of “improving service through technology, focusing on accuracy, security and efficiency”.

What if your cell could have two numbers: one for your business use (in fact, the same as your office number), and one for your personal use? Whenever you made a business call, the called party would see your business number or name. Whenever you are on your cell, presence would show you ‘on the phone’. If you had a smart phone with a UC client, the experience would be even richer.

May I have the envelope please for the UC Product of the Year award winners?

Here’re three of my personal favorites:

Nortel’s Multimedia Conferencing (NMC): I use it everyday and in fact have my own virtualized bridge number (as does every other Nortel employee). I’ll even use the meet-me feature on two party calls- easier than chasing each other to connect! I really like the use of IM to convey a cheat sheet of chairperson commands and to track participant involvement.

Microsoft recently showed off a touch-screen technology (using MacOS!) for mobile devices. To solve the problem of using your finger to point to what you want on a small screen, they teamed up with Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs to develop Lucid Touch, a transparent touch sensitive screen that allows the user to see what he/she is doing by pointing from behind.

Is this neat or what?! But will it fly?

A new survey finds that “More than seven out of 10 respondents expect VoIP to be ‘important’ or ‘extremely important’ to their organizations by late 2008.” Didn’t we see similar results even 5 years ago? Well, the facts are that less than 30% of PBX lines are IP phones. So what’s happening?

Here’s a clue.

Earlier this week, Cisco launched its ASR 1000 (Aggregation Services Router), positioning the technology for both carriers and enterprises.

Now consider the following:

1) The press release quotes the SVP and GM of the Cisco Service Provider Group, confirming who the product was primarily designed for.

2) It's called an aggregation router. But aggregation in enterprise networks is most often provided by the public network cloud (based on MPLS, Ethernet or the Internet).

I got a comment (from someone called Tim) which I opted not to post in its original form because of its language. It was in response to my Nexus is no Lexus piece, but I suspect it was as much a comment on a number of my postings which challenged common perceptions on Cisco. In part it said: “Why are you in denial that Nortel's technology sucks and Cisco is kicking your ass.”

Our focus is not Cisco per se, but rather to be the best at solving enterprise business problems with communications technology. Our sales guys tell me that we win more often than we lose, often against Cisco, when we get ‘a chance at bats’.