A recent Webinar sponsored by Wind River focused on ways to smarten your dumb pipes by using software.
The presentation reviewed how the rapid growth in broadband connectivity "is accelerating a network evolution at a rate never seen before," and how networks are experiencing "dramatic increases" in data traffic, largely driven by multimedia content coming from wireless and wired smart devices.
This growth is impacting the ability of service providers to keep up with network performance demands, while also finding ways to monetize the bandwidth usage to increase average revenue per user.
The featured presenter was Mark Guinther, Product Line Manager for Networking Technologies at Wind River. According to the company he has over twenty years of experience in the data/ voice/wireless networking industry, including management positions at Alcatel and FORE Systems, as well as a background in a broad range of technologies including IP routing, xDSL, network security, ATM, IPv6, VoIP, wireless and next-generation networks.
Wind River sells embedded and mobile software, and Guinther alluded to the news that they were working with LSI Corporation, a provider of silicon, systems and software technologies, as part of what Wind River officials described as "a multi-year strategic collaboration" to co-market optimized multicore hardware and software.
Read more here.
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The Florida House of Representatives, recognizing the dangers of undercounting votes, is making one final push over the next month for its state residents to be counted in the 2010 Census, according to officials of Microsoft.
You might be wondering: Microsoft? What do they have to do with this? I thought Google ran the world now?
Perhaps not the entire world - thanks to cloud hosting. Florida's running its appeal through its Microsoft Azure-hosted MyFloridaCensus site and Web-based application.
MyFloridaCensus is a major Florida's overall effort to ensure a complete count of residents during the ongoing 2010 Census. Oh they're going door-to-door too, doing the canvassing thing as well, but that ends nationwide July 10. An online presence is quite necessary.
As an aside, when this reporter lived in Istanbul, he saw a quite effective method of census-taking: The Turkish government simply banned people from leaving their homes for one day. The census workers came by and counted you and that was it. A delightfully efficient method.
Read more here.
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Presidio Networked Solutions announced SMARTnet Optimization, described by company officials as "a new Business Process Outsourcing tracking tool for monitoring the day-to-day usability of SMARTnet devices and service contracts."
So if you've been looking for help with your managed networks -- this is what you want.
Designed for businesses with large Cisco SMARTnet contracts, Presidio's new tool "tracks supported devices and applications, ensuring they are accessible and that contracted service levels are upheld." Company officials say the tracking ability "reconciles customer and Cisco data to align contract fees with the number of covered devices," providing a singular point of view which "simplifies the network support process."
Kevin Mulloy, president of managed networks at Presidio Networked Solutions, noted that "our engineers would often find that customers were paying for devices that were no longer in service or had devices that were not supported by existing contracts. We developed this new tool to help them minimize risk and costs by providing better visibility into devices and tighter management of both existing and renewal contracts."
Read more here.
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ACT Conferencing officials say they've extended the company's contract with AB&T Telecom, a national telecommunications master agent headquartered in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
The move is seen by the company as AB&T increasing its focus on conferencing services.
"Adding AB&T master agents to our partner program will enable us to further expand the reach of our services into new markets across the United States," said Emmet J. Tydings, president, AB&T Telecom.
Founded in 1963, AB&T Telecom is a master service provider in telecommunications, cloud computing and converged technology. The vendor works with value-added resellers, agents and consultants across the U.S. to deliver voice, data, SaaS, Internet and wireless network to business and government customers.
The company has recently collaborated with ACT to launch a series of education and training initiatives to enable AB&T reseller partners to offer ACT Conferencing services to their customers. AB&T now offers the entire suite of ACT conferencing products and services.
Read more here.
