March 2009 Archives

I have previously highlighted the application of Nortel innovation in the form of web.alive in e-commerce applications, specifically as used by Lenovo in their e-Lounge virtual storefront.

But the applications of web.alive go well beyond e-comm environments.

We recently announced our first customer application in an e-learning environment, specifically with Virtual Heroes.

Virtual Heroes is best known for creating the US Army Game training platform and HumanSim, a medical training world (check out this ABC News video - it's a great example).

My last speaking engagement was a keynote at ITExpo in Miami.

At VoiceCon in Orlando next week, I'll be speaking in three sessions:
Monday, March 30, 2009 from 1:30 to 4:30 in a tutorial on UC vendors run by Marty Parker
Tuesday, 2:30 to 3:45 on a panel called Presence: Dial Tone of the Future?
Wednesday, 12:45PM to 1:15 in a Nortel session on our Open UC solutions.

At other times, I will be at the Nortel booth (#808) demonstrating web.alive, of which I have spoken often. Cool stuff.

Maybe we'll see you there. Please drop by.

I'm behind in my podcasts, but here's an interesting one I just listened to including an interview with Geoffrey Moore, of Crossing the Chasm fame. It comes from OCRIRadio and is over a year old, but still insightful.

Some interesting quotes (my paraphrasing):

His top 3 venture capital opportunities:

#1: "Clean technologies.... Green is no longer a cause, it's a market". In today's economy, this is driven by opportunities for increased energy efficiency. So get the facts.

#2: "Healthcare technologies...Healthcare used to be concerned about the dehumanizing impacts of technology, but this has now changed through e.g. Web2.0 and wireless." If you are a healthcare institution, you don't need a VC-funded start-up. There are plenty of ways to improve the delivery of healthcare today.

"Consumerization of digitization.... IT technology still dominates VC funding but this is huge." And sometimes we take consumer technology and apply to solve business problems. Take gaming software for example.

Finally, "Communications used to support computing.... Now computing supports communications". That's why the IBMs and Microsoft's of the world are getting into communications, and why the future of UC is as a software application. Just like our SCS solution.

A recent IDC study sponsored by Nortel found that the percent of respondents willing to send business text messages on vacation varied from 52% in China and 67% in the United Arab Emirates to 11% in Canada and 17% in Japan.

Another survey of city workers in the U.K. by CREDANT Technologies found that 83% plan to take their mobile phone or BlackBerry with them on vacation, while 65% plan to make contact with the office.

This may be just fine for you, but if you feel that you are suffering from cellphonitis, help is at hand.

The Fairmont Hotel and Resorts in the Canadian Rockies has just launched "electronic rehab get-aways" for mobile phone addicts. When you sign up for the weekend package, you hand over your cell phone, BlackBerry or other mobile device. Then sit back and smell the roses (if in season) and take in the great vistas (year round).

Does it have to come to this? Unified Communications should provide you the tools to personalize who reaches you and how and when.

One option is the off switch!

Greenroots is Nortel's new blog devoted to all things green!

Back in August, I highlighted the walkstation. Now a potential competitor has emerged.

All you need is pedals to turn this slick ergonomic PC chair into a green-friendly workstation!

This is the title of an article by Tara Seals of Xchange, based on an interview she did with yours truly.

Thought you might be interested. If you're wondering about our partnership with Intel, this was in error in the article.

Previously, I highlighted three problems with Cisco's EnergyWise:
1) security vulnerabilities,
2) it's should be an app, and
3) it doesn't make Cisco switches any more efficient.

Now Art Wittmann has raised the very valid concern that it's proprietary to Cisco and its few partners. He observes "So if you happen to be a Cisco, Schneider, SolarWinds, or Verdiem shop--lucky you!" But if you're one of these and want to change, you have just been locked in. And if you're not one of these, you have just been locked out. Ugh! This is not the business practice that is going to help save this planet.

Art then hit the nail on the head: "there was a buck to made, so Cisco decided not to go that (standards) route". Sounds familiar.

Centralization of IT resources has been the path to lowest TCO, whether we are talking about application processing, or data storage. Centralization provides higher utilization of servers and reduces server costs, reduces operations costs including power, staffing and management and provides increased agility to accommodate network changes (e.g. new sites, unexpected growth, site decommissioning).

But obviously both centralized and distributed IP Telephony are viable options. So what are the key factors to consider.

In my mind there are five:
1. Remote Site Business Model: Are you employee or customer centric (remote offices or branches in my lingo), and/or are your sites run as under separate budgets or are they centrally budgeted?? This impacts service levels, as well as performance and feature needs.
2. Reliability, Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery: What is your business priority in terms of business continuity and disaster recovery? For example, you can have a call server a safe distance away, take over call processing when the primary server fails. For example, IP Telephony provides you new options to address business continuity shortcomings of traditional PBXs.
3. Scalability: Not a big deal for a medium enterprise, but if you are very large, centralization demands simplification, for example in number of servers required.
4. Reliability and Network Bandwidth: The key questions are how reliable is your IP network and at what cost can it be upgraded, and what is acceptable business impact in case of network failures.
5. Business Economics and Migration Risk: Balancing business needs with the network costs (which increase as reliability is enhanced) and IPT costs (which decrease as you centralize) is a critical factor in choosing between centralized and distributed solutions. Likewise investment protection can play a big role as well.

The two technology factors (#2 and #3) is why Nortel's CS 2100 solution is winning many very big deals: it delivers carrier-grade reliability with unmatched scalability to 200,000+ users on a single server and is well suited to data center deployments.

Whether you are a large multinational or a smaller regional enterprise, you should carefully assess your business needs and the degree of centralization and distribution that best meets these needs.