The Thursday morning keynote featured a presentation from Richard Tworek, vice president of Enterprise Communication Servers at Nortel.

Tworek addressed the assembly with a keynote entitled enhancing the human experience with enterprise real-time secure converged communications.

Reminiscing on the history of the industry, Tworek recalled that we have passed through several revolutions since the early days of 1998-99.

Tworek is a self admitted technophile and a classic early adopter. During the first “revolution,” Tworek had downloaded some software and attempted to call a friend in Virginia from his home in Maryland. Of course it took some time and lots of effort and configuration and reconfiguration sending e-mail back and forth until his wife finally asked, “Why don’t you just pick up the phone?”

The second revolution consisted of a so-called arms race, where bits and bytes, feeds and speeds, my phone works better than your phone were the order of the day.

Revolution number three is current: “What are we concerned about today?” In Tworek’s view, the ‘Top 3 Technology Initiatives for 2006’ include Security, Open Standards, and Personal Communications (any where, any time). “It’s really about enhancing the user experience,” he said.

He expanded on the theme and noted that the only consistent thing over the three revolutions is business. The needs of business haven’t changed. Businesses need to optimize investments. Businesses need to save time and money. Businesses need to save and protect company assets. Businesses need to simplify.

Tworek described the fundamental disruptions transforming today’s telecom industry:

Demand for employee mobility.

The need for security

IP Convergence

Consumerization of I.T.

Drilling down on the top three technology initiatives, Tworek pointed out the drivers for — and advantages of — the three factors.

Security

Drivers include an increase in mixed media on networks; and an increasingly distributed workforce demanding more attention to security. The real value to the enterprise lies in risk mitigation, protection and recovery of information and elimination of productivity loss.

Open Systems

Open systems, specifically SIP-based systems are being driven by user diversity, a desire for flexible choices when choosing platforms and devices, the potential to be a disruptive technology. Advantages of using open systems include adaptive client and application choice, streamlined business processes, increased customer responsiveness, and increased productivity.

Personal Communications

Regarding personal communications, Tworek shared his view that the drivers are technology consumerization, and an increasingly virtual and mobile workforce. The advantage of embracing personal communications includes simplicity, time to decision making, and the ability to conduct business without boundaries.

Tworek thanked the audience and closed with the following observation regarding revolution four, “Innovation is executing on creativity.”