Integrys Bets on Unified Communications

Nortel is now talking about over 800 wins with Microsoft, with our suite of unified communications solutions and professional services. There are actually ten different solutions being delivered today, including our Converged Office, which integrates the Nortel IP PBX with... continue reading...

SSA on the road to transformation

Tom Hughes, CIO of SSA, had a keynote at the Nortel User Conference, on his perspectives on VoIP and UC. SSA recently signed the largest single VoIP contract valued at $300M, across 64000 employees, 1600 field offices, and a massive... continue reading...

Unified Business Brings in the Money

Every year, Nortel�s User Group recognizes enterprises that demonstrate the most resourceful uses of developing technologies or service deployment strategies. For Sustained Excellence award went to Orlando Regional Health (yesterday�s blog tells you why). This year the award for Enterprise... continue reading...

Unified Business Brought to Life

I�m at the Nortel User Conference, a large international event in Dallas that stretches over 5 days. The opening keynote was by Joel Hackney, the President of Nortel�s Enterprise division. He commented that it�s not really about Unified Communications, but... continue reading...

Cisco CCIEs skills portable to Nortel

I just came back from a 3 day customer session we held in Vancouver, where we had a chance to discuss all aspects of networking and communications with some 20 Nortel customers from across North America. One of the topics... continue reading...

UC Podcast anyone?

Late last year, I did a podcast on the day of the OCS2007 launch at a music studio in Toronto. This is part of Microsoft�s Canada monthly in-depth look at issues relevant to IT executives and managers across a range... continue reading...

Tony’s UC Best Practices

I was being interviewed by the press a while back and was asked about best UC best practices. That got me thinking and I came up with the following top ten: Best Practice #1: Develop a Vision and Strategy for... continue reading...

Convergence of IT and telecom- call this Organization 2.0

During the 90s, there was a lot of discussion on how IT should be (re-)organized to handle IP telephony. With the emergence of software-centric unified communications, tightly integrated not only with email, calendaring and directories, but also with desktop applications... continue reading...

Making The Right Call on Enhanced 911

Hyperconnectivity creates new challenges in emergency situations. Did you hear about the lady in Chicago who placed a 911 call from one of a two building small campus. She died when the first responders went to the wrong building! This... continue reading...

TMCnet connects with readers like you

This blog is on TMCnet. In January of 2008, TMCnet experienced 38,368,961 page views, with over 2.4 million unique visitors, each of which stayed an average for 28 minutes and 59 seconds this past month. In the past, 60% of... continue reading...

TMCnet connects with readers like you

This blog is on TMCnet. In January of 2008, TMCnet experienced 38,368,961 page views, with over 2.4 million unique visitors, each of which stayed an average for 28 minutes and 59 seconds this past month. In the past, 60% of... continue reading...

How IMs work

This is weird, but interesting! Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can. i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at... continue reading...

Avoiding (Cisco) Feature Creep

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... continue reading...

US Social Security Agency going VoIP- big time

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,... continue reading...

The Value Prop for VoIP Has Changed

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... continue reading...

Nortel Enterprise is Rocking

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... continue reading...

Personally Coping with Hyperconnectivity

Hyperconnectivity is with us and people take different approaches to cope with the challenges. As Mike Zafirovski, Nortel�s CEO, says �Technology has left us all with a chronic case of attention deficit disorder and we are all hard-pressed to find... continue reading...

Micro-hoo Targets Google

In my Oct 29 blog, I joked about Microsoft merging with Google. Yesterday, I got a Forester Research Update stating unequivocally that �Among the four large software vendors, Microsoft has been the least active in making significant acquisitions of midsize... continue reading...

Super Bowl IT

What�s it like to be the CIO for the Super Bowl? For my non-American readers, the Super Bowl is the World Cup of American Football. Two years ago, the CIO of Ford Field in Detroit hosted a Nortel customer seminar,... continue reading...

CIO Priorities Dovetail UC Capabilities

35% respondents to CIO Insight survey identified improving business processes as a business priority in 2008, making this area top of mind only behind delivering better customer service. A similar number identified collaboration and workflow technologies as the #2 technology... continue reading...

Is the hyperconnected shopping cart ready for prime time?

Check out this smart cart technology for your neighborhood grocery store. Don�t get discouraged by the date (July 2004) and do watch the video- it works for me if it helps me find what I need faster. But read on.... continue reading...

Is Cisco worth the premium?

That�s the headline in NetworkWorld after they read my last posting. Couldn�t have said it better myself;)... continue reading...

Cisco Just At 37% Market Share in Ethernet Switching!

I haven�t tracked Ethernet share numbers for a while. Recent Gartner Dataquest information (3Q07) on the enterprise Ethernet market surprised me: Cisco share by ports has dropped to 37%. So what gives? Firstly, vendors other than Cisco have collectively shipped... continue reading...

Google vs MSFT in Enterprise

In my interview with Rich Tehrani of TMCnet (Hyperconnectivity Is Permeating Everything), I was asked how Google, Apple and Microsoft change the telecom space? I replied that in enterprise, of the three, Microsoft is the most significant change agent (in... continue reading...

Hyperconnectivity Meets The Boeing 787

Nice to talk about Hyperconnectivity in the consumer space, but let�s turn back to business. In his blog, Michael Krigsman highlights the fact that the preliminary design of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner had the passenger in-flight internet access network connected... continue reading...

Why the Desktop Phone Isn’t Going Away Anytime Soon

In my last blog, I talked about disconnecting my desktop phone. Here�s my 3 reasons why this is the exception rather than the rule in today�s world. #1 Ease of use: familiar look and feel of a phone, including use... continue reading...

My Last Desk Phone!

I have always had a desk phone over my 36 year career. Until last Friday! Firstly, a VT100 dumb terminal (sort of a very thin client running at 1200 bps) and a phone; then an IBM 3270 running off of... continue reading...

Looking Into The Distance from the Summit

Let�s look a little further out from the Gartner Enterprise Networking Summit. I took back three messages: 1) Dr. Lippman of MIT said during his keynote: �Technology doesn't change things; society does. It's out of our hands". "It's not about... continue reading...

The Highs and Lows of the Gartner Enterprise Networking Summit

The recurring conference theme: the job of IT and how we approach this challenge/opportunity is fundamentally changing. These challenges and opportunities arise from a megatrend, we call Hyperconnectivity. My personal highpoint: describing our joint UC solutions to a room filled... continue reading...

Cisco Needs Help

On Monday, Cisco confirmed that it was still experiencing problems with its Cisco.com web site, portions of which have been inaccessible to customers and visitors for most of the day. Perhaps Cisco should hire Nortel Global Professional Services to manage... continue reading...

Google Merging With Microsoft?

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... continue reading...

Beware the Single Vendor As Trusted Advisor: Gartner

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... continue reading...

Zero budget UC

Thought for the day. Conventional wisdom says that you will spend $4 for data network upgrades for every dollar you spend on IP Telephony. If you could decrease the cost of this upgrade by 30% (that is spend only $3),... continue reading...