Unify-Atos Connects with RingCentral
Earlier this year, Atos expanded its portfolio with RingCentral. It seemed odd at first as Atos had acquired Unify along with its UC portfolio back in 2016. However, Unify had very limited UCaaS services, and SI Atos needed UCaaS in…
Will Google Acquire Slack?
I just spent a few days with team Slack at its Spec conference. I’ve had pleasant conversations with both of its founders. They seem sincere to me, that is not a lot of spin. Everyone has heard the story that…
Update on Unify from Atos Analyst Event
I attended the Atos Global Analyst event in Boston. Things are going well for Unify. They had a turbulent time a few years back that either culminated or accelerated with its acquisition by Atos. I think it’s fair to say…
Unify’s OpenScape Cloud: A Q&A
Recently, Unify (a division of the European IT service company Atos) released the OpenScape Cloud service, an integration of the company’s Circuit team collaboration software-as-a-service (SaaS) application and its OpenScape Voice solution as a single cloud-based service. Each solution on…
Getting the Message
Over the past several months I’ve been using Cisco Spark and Unify Circuit for projects and communications. Here’s a few take-aways from the experience. I get it. There’s a reason why messaging apps (Facebook Messenger, Line, WeChat, Hangouts, Snapchat, and more)…
Newz Snippets Spring-2016
Sometimes being succinct, yet thorough, and presenting details without fluff and hype is refreshing. Here, we round-up recent advancements around business telephony and unified communications products and services – in a brief, quick-take type of format. Read about some of…
Unify is Back #UnifyCO16
In the classic Animal Crackers movie by the Marx Brothers Groucho sings: “Hello, I must be going, I cannot stay, I came to say, I must be going. I’m glad I came, but just the same, I must be going.”…
Not The Ansible You Are Looking For
In case you’ve been in a coma, Unify launched Circuit last month. Circuit is the manifestation of Ansible, announced by Siemens Enterprise Communications in the summer of 2013. Confused? Let me try again: The CEO and CCO/CMO of Siemens Enterprise…
Split-Up or Shut-Up
In a recent interview, investor superstar Marc Andreessen told Bloomberg’s Emily Chang at the Salesforce Dreamforce Conference on Wednesday. that if a technology company is more than 20 years old, then “they’ll probably benefit from being broken up, and many of them…
Crazy October
It was true last year too – October is a crazy month in the world of UC. This October 2014 is filled with travel, briefings and trials. On the travel side, I’m doing a 4 city road show with AVST,…
Unify Heads to Santa Cruz
News recently broke that Unify intends to open an office in Santa Cruz, CA. If you are not familiar with Santa Cruz, it’s just west of San Jose, about 45 minutes over the pass as they say. That pass separates…
Thoughts on the Unify Cuts
Last week Unify announced a major “restructuring” that will eliminate about 3800 jobs. That’s nearly a 50 percent cut which will leave about 3900 employees. The cuts will occur over six quarters. In an analyst briefing, CEO Dean Douglas said the…
Mitel, Unify, and Amazon
What a week. It was a week of travel. I spent the week in Japan attending the NEC iExpo. More on that coming soon. The flight from Denver to Tokyo is over 12 hours – quite possibly the longest I’ve…
Marketing and UC
It is easy to complain about marketing in this industry, but to be fair it’s a tough task. Both the audience and the subject matter make marketing very difficult. The audience is hard to target – every organization needs a…
Siemens Enterprise and Ansible
Siemens Enterprise Communications hosted analysts and consultants for a few days in Denver (#Eworld13) to discuss its accomplishments and to provide a sneak peek at a future product codenamed Ansible. Ansible Ansible was unveiled on day two. Day one was…
Giants Competing
For the past several months, the UC conversation shifted toward a Microsoft v. Cisco debate. Cisco enjoys a market share lead over Microsoft in UC, but Lync is experiencing rapid growth. Microsoft has its sights on dethroning Cisco. Personally, I…
Two Different Pictures
A few months ago, highly respected and legendary prognosticator Elliott Gold predicted that Vidyo would pass Polycom. At the time it didn’t seem particularly reasonable. But as Elliot says “the trend is clear.” My reservations with his prediction were that…
Siemens Wants To Amplify Teens
Special Guest Contributor Emily Litella here, now a part of TalkingPontz. It’s great to be part of such a professional blog. Today’s commentary is about Siemens Enterprise and what exactly they are communicating. What’s all this I hear about Siemens…
Match the EC13 Vendor to its Tagline
Pop quiz, here’s ten UC taglines spotted at the recent Enterprise Connect (#EC13) conference. Can you match the vendor to its tagline? Vendors Taglines 1 8×8 A Amplify Teams 2 Aastra B Click. Connect. Collaborate 3 Avaya C Cloud Solutions…
A Merry UC Christmas
Dear Santa, It’s been a while since I have written to you. I know you are busy filling the wish lists of deserving children everywhere, but this year the telecom industry needs you more than they do. You see businesses…