Time Flies
Relatively speaking, time flies. I’ve worked in big Fortune 100 companies, my own company, and now just me – and I am amazed at how relative time can be. I am currently involved with a large school district that has…
New From Cisco: CMBE 3000
At Enterprise Connect 2011, Cisco announced a new phone system called the Unified Communications Manager Business Edition 3000 with planned availability later this year. The product is aimed at the mid market – organizations that need up to 48 trunks….
The CIO Hat Trick
It used to stand for Career is Over, but I don’t think so any more. I do keep hearing people insisting that IT is dead, and they are right – the old IT is dead. The T stands for Technology…
Type This
Yesterday, it was reported that the last typewriter manufacturer in the world (located in India) closed its doors. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640 Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy No more typewriters I still have my IBM Selectric…
Logitech, LifeSize, and Slim Devices Oh My
I posted news about LifeSize now supporting Skype. I think it is significant news because the enterprise world, where LifeSize resides, has pretty much ignored Skype. But Skype is too big too ignore. Skype is on fire this year. They…
UC Is Free
Phillip Crosby published “Quality is Free” in 1979, and it became a key contributor to a global revolution in manufacturing practices. Previously, “Quality” was associated with goodness, or luxury rather than conformance to requirements. Quality was also considered intangible. Crosby…
Multi-Modal Communications 1
One term we use fairly often in unified communications is this notion of “Multi-Modal Communications”. There are some interesting new features and services that fall into this category. As with nearly everything in Unified Communications, we start with the obligatory…
ALU’s Silent Auction
Lots of conversation this week about the possibility that Alcatel-Lucent intends to sell its enterprise business unit. I have a few thoughts on the matter. To my knowledge, no one at ALU has actually publically stated ALU Enterprise is for…
Upcoming Conference: Mitel Freedom Partner Event
Busy time of year for conferences… the next event is what used to be known as Mitel Forum. Many of you know that I have a long history with Mitel. I’ve always been impressed with their products and their chairman…
Upcoming Conference: NEC’s Consultant Symposium
NEC is holding their Consultant Symposium in Florida this May and intends to cover these topics: The New UC&C; Architecture NEC’s Vision and Strategy for 2011 Business and Technology Trends Competitive Landscape and NEC’s Positioning UC&C; and NEC’s Partner Technologies…
Microsoft Office 365 Getting Closer
Microsoft is rapidly moving Office to an Internet app that will run in a browser. It is called Office 365. It’s a huge part of Microsoft’s all-in cloud strategy. Office 365 was introduced in limited beta last year, bringing together…
UCStrategies Podcasts
I cross-link most of my posts on other sites here, but have not been particularly reliable with my podcasts on UCStrategies.com. Almost weekly I participate in a UCStrategies.com podcast. The podcasts are filed under Industry Buzz, which includes many topics…
Flip, Kin, Wave
Did the SmartPhone kill the Flip? Horseshit. Cisco killed the Flip. Evidently murdered just before its newest version was to ship. Pogue reported that the company was set to release a new feature to enable live streaming – but the…
Upcoming Conference: InterOp
I used to love InterOp. Back in the late 90s it was the show for IT topics. I used to bring lots of my crew too. We would compete to see who could collect the most shirts. Boy we were…
The “Post PBX Era” is BS
Bovine Scatology NoJitter is running a symposium titled The Post-PBX Platform & The New Communications Architecture. The idea of a symposium is for multiple experts to chime in with differing opinions – which inevitably includes both brilliant and erroneous points…
The “C” Word
There are plenty of C words known as the “C word.” Communications There is “bitch” with a capital C Cancer But more and more, the C word – even the UC word is becoming Collaboration. At the recent Enterprise Connect…
Next Conference: Aastra User Group
This is my year for conferences, about one a month. Next up is the Aastra User Group Conference in Santa Monica, CA May 1 – May 4th. I am really excited about this one because I don’t normally attend very…
Lync 2010 and the SBA
One of the more interesting trends in enterprise telephony is the notion of centralization. This just wasn’t possible a few years ago. With VoIP came two powerful ideas: teleworker phones and pseudo FX lines. Both effectively newly possible since VoIP…
Defending Avaya
Avaya sure looks stupid, their desktop video device is the most expensive tablet on the market. But armchair quarterbacks don’t always see the whole game. Eric Krapf in I’m With Stupid discusses the intelligence of a proprietary tablet strategy. Both…
UC Summit Podcasts
At the recent UC Summit, I recorded 5 podcasts. At Enterprise Connect, I brought with me my kid’s MP3 recorder he uses with music. I used as an aid to note taking and assured each one I met with that…