Masters of Converged Solutions: Sponsored by Sprint
Apple Exposes Limitations of the Cloud
Apple announced that it will allow customers to download the next release of Mac OS X, codenamed “Lion,” at its Apple stores. This move comes as a result of customer concern that bandwidth limitations or caps will limit their ability to download Lion through the Apple Mac store. Read more
Deconstructing the Cloud
Cloud services are evolving quickly and the lines between managed hosting, co-location, and cloud services are getting fuzzy, especially as marketers interject the word “Cloud” into just about anything to capitalize on the current cloud hype.
Nemertes defines three primary classes of cloud services: Read more
Some Big Announcements in the Video Space
This year’s annual InfoComm conference in Atlanta highlights several key trends that we’re following around video conferencing and video collaboration, including the convergence of video and voice, and convergence of video conferencing and mobility. Each of these drivers require converged network managers to expand their horizons and holistically address performance and bandwidth management concerns on both wired and wireless networks. Read more
Virtualizing WAN Optimization
The number of applications that can’t run in a virtualized environment is rapidly dropping. Earlier this month Mitel announced its new focus on enabling call control and UC applications to run on general purpose VMware hypervisors. Now, WAN optimization controller (WOC) vendors are also delivering virtualized support for their applications, further reducing the need for stand-alone appliances. Read more
World IPv6 Day is Complete. Did Anyone Notice?
Last week saw the completion of the world’s largest IPv6 interoperability test: World IPv6 Day. Led by the Internet Consortium and supported by hundreds of service providers, content providers, and hardware manufacturers, World IPv6 day was meant to test the ability of the Internet to support a seamless migration to IPv6. Read more
What Now for Cell Phones?
If you’ve turned on the news in the last week, then you’ve seen reports covering the World Health Organization’s (WHO) decision to classify cell phone radiation as a possible human carcinogen, putting cell phone radiation in the same bucket as automobile exhaust and lead. The WHO’s analysis of multiple studies on cell phone and brain cancer found a near doubling of the risk of a certain kind of cancer after 10 years or more of cell phone use. Read more
The Evolution of Telepresence
In the minds of many of our clients, the term “telepresence” means an immersive, three- screen video conferencing system featuring acoustics, lighting, furniture, and directional audio all designed to give participants the feeling that their co-workers are across the table rather than across the country or world. Companies like HP, Cisco, Teliris, Tandberg, Telanetix, and Polycom pioneered the rise of telepresence. Read more
Optimizing Bandwidth for Fun and Profit
Bandwidth optimization is now a mainstream technology with more than 61% of companies using the technology to improve application performance and/or reduce bandwidth requirements.
Still, some IT architects ask, “why can’t I just use QoS technologies like low latency queuing or class-based weighted fair queuing to meet application performance requirements?” Read more
Microsoft Buys Skype: What Should Enterprises Do?
Unless you were sleeping under a rock last week, you probably heard that Microsoft is buying Skype for approximately $8.5 billion, gaining access to Skype’s 170 million accounts, as well as creating opportunities to link Skype with Microsoft’s consumer and enterprise communications and gaming products. Read more
But What About Softphones?
Last week I discussed the issue of using cell phones to replace desktop phones. Since just about everyone has a cell phone, why not cut telecom costs by allowing employees to use their cell phones rather than expensive desktop phones (and the accompanying LAN infrastructure to support things like PoE)?
Given that my conclusion was that cell phones are only a workable replacement for a small set of users, it isn’t yet practical to consider cell phones as a general-purpose enterprise telephony replacement. Read more
More Momentum for Consumerization of IT
Logitech’s LifeSize video-conferencing products division and privately held Skype announced plans to enable corporate users of Lifesize’s Passport video systems to conduct video conferences with Skype clients. LifeSize’s move builds on previously announced voice integration between Passport and Skype to enable Passport users to call out to Skype users. Read more
Ready to Break the Cord?
One of the more interesting data points from our last round of benchmark research, based on interviews with more than 225 IT leaders, was the growing belief that we’re heading for an increasingly un-wired world. As smartphones, tablets, and laptops frequently become the computing platform of choice, IT managers are increasingly wondering if it makes sense to continue to invest in not only desktop PCs, but also wired voice infrastructure. One of the most frequent questions I’m asked is, “can I get rid of my desktop phones and just let everyone use their cell phone?” Read more
Storm Clouds
Last week I mentioned several key trends we’ve seen that portend an increase in deployments of cloud-based collaboration, including the acquisition of Smoothstone by West Corporation, and recent efforts by vendors such as Avaya, Cisco, IBM, Microsoft, and Siemens to deliver real-time collaboration services via the cloud. Unfortunately, IT buyers are likely to temper their enthusiasm for cloud-based collaboration given the recent high profile multi-day outage by Amazon Web Services “EC2” Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) cloud platform for hosted applications. Read more
Tablets Straining Your WiFi Network?
One of the trends that we’ve seen in our recent research is that the rising popularity of enterprise tablets, led by the iPad, is putting a strain on enterprise WiFi networks. This is leading to further demand for IT leaders to develop a cohesive strategy for managing the converged wireless/wired network. Read more
Will 2011 be the Year of Cloud-based UC?
Cloud-based UC has gotten off to a rough start. Nemertes finds that only 8% of firms are using hosted VOIP/UC. Another 12% are evaluating it for potential purchase, and most of these are small companies looking to purchase a cloud-based solution solely to minimize up-front costs – the same kinds of companies who often bought Centrex services many years ago. Read more
Harmonizing Wireless and Wired Access Networks
A key trend in enterprise networks is the creation of two separate LANs: data center and access. Data center networks feature high-speed, low-latency, high-bandwidth fabrics designed to move large amounts of data between servers and storage platforms, while access networks are typically designed to provide ubiquitous access to a variety of devices while securing against unauthorized use and prioritizing latency-sensitive applications such as voice and video. Read more
Polycom / 8x8 Address SMB Video Needs
Polycom announced a new partnership to deliver its video solutions as part of 8x8’s “Virtual Office Pro” unified communications service. SMBs have often been scared away from video due to high system costs, high-bandwidth requirements, and the need to manage video performance across the network. And SMBs have lacked the ability to easily establish conferences across company boundaries. Read more
Ready for Video?
After all the years of hype that video conferencing would become the “next big thing,” that moment seems to have finally arrived. More than 80% of companies are using it, and breadth of usage is growing among the majority of our research participants, especially at the desktop, where nearly the same percentage of firms are evaluating or planning a future deployment. Read more
UC management solution demand grows
NetScout Systems announced it is buying privately held Psytechnics to increase its portfolio of solutions for managing IP-based voice and video over wired and wireless networks. NetScout’s acquisition demonstrates growth in demand for unified communications management solutions to enable engineers and support staff to proactively identify and rectify issues related to performance and availability. Read more
Thinking About 911 in a Converged World
One of the strongest trends we’ve seen in our research around communications and collaboration is the desire by both IT and end-users to embrace mobility. IT shops are evaluating the potential to reduce infrastructure costs such as desktop phones, and power over Ethernet, (and all the cooling/power resiliency issues that come with PoE), by moving to software-based phones. Meanwhile, an increasingly mobile workforce looks to shun the archaic desktop phone in favor of software-based telephony and/or UC, or their mobile phones. Read more
- About Masters of Converged Solutions
Irwin Lazar
Irwin Lazar is the Vice President for Communication and Collaboration Research at Nemertes Research, where he develops and manages research projects, develops cost models, conducts strategic seminars and advises clients. His background is in network operations, network engineering, voice-data convergence, and IP telephony. Mr. Lazar is responsible for benchmarking the adoption and use of emerging technologies in the enterprise in areas including VOIP, unified communications, Web 2.0 initiatives, social networking, and collaboration.
A Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and sought-after speaker and author, Mr. Lazar is a columnist for No Jitter and Enterprise2Blog. He is a frequent resource for the business and trade press and is regular speaker at events such as Interop, VoiceCon, and Enterprise 2.0. Mr. Lazar serves as the conference director for FutureNet (formerly MPLScon), and is on the advisory board for the Enterprise 2.0 conference.
Most Discussed Posts
-
Network World, Inc
The Connected Enterprise