Messaging: Cellular or Internet Protocols?

Craig Mathias — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 19:19:50 -0400

The subject of instant messaging came up this week (and the week is just getting started) via a call from an editor who wanted to talk quite broadly about this topic, particularly with respect to how IM is being used in business. In general, I am not personally a fan of IM, and rarely recommend it beyond purely personal use, for two reasons: it's not secure, and, even more importantly, it's not auditable. This is why many enterprises ban the use of IM at work - there's no trail of what was communicated as there is with e-mail.

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Global rollout of IBM managed maintenance solutions (mms) for Cisco products

Brad Reese — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 03:49:52 -0400

Cisco and IBM announce an expansion to 46 new countries of their Global Services Alliance that already provides product maintenance services to their mutual enterprise customers here in the United States. This expansion allows IBM customers who purchase Cisco products to globally get a consistent level of IT infrastructure support. IBM is a Cisco Gold Partner in 51 countries and a Cisco Silver Partner in 4 other countries (indicating that IBM currently has a minimum of at least 212 CCIEs on staff). Presentation: IBM managed maintenance solution for Cisco products "This is a significant evolution in our Global Services Alliance," said Karl Meulema, vice president, Cisco services marketing and channels. "Providing a collaborative maintenance service offering means our mutual customers will no longer need to choose between Cisco networking skills or IBM multivendor systems integrator capabilities. Instead customers get the collective expertise of both companies, combining the best of both worlds." IBM managed maintenance solution for Cisco storage products "We have been working together on these service offerings in the United States for the past three years and are excited to offer a broader global customer experience by expanding our efforts into additional markets around the world," said Robert Kritzer, vice president, IBM and Cisco Strategic Alliance, IBM Global Technology Services. "Our relationship with Cisco allows us to provide our customers with a single resource to seamlessly and rapidly integrate business processes, industry knowledge, information technologies and the intelligence of the network." "The 'IBM managed maintenance solution for Cisco products' provides us with a single escalation point for maintenance services across multiple vendor products that comprise our global reservation system," said Charlie Majane, director of technical services at Carey International, a leading global provider of limousine services and luxury ground transportation. "Our clients count on Carey's reservations specialists and customer care representatives 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. IBM and Cisco's collaborative service relationship has simplified our billing and service delivery processes spanning 65 countries." IBM Managed Maintenance Solution Global Coverage: IBM will market and sell this services offering under the name "IBM managed maintenance solution for Cisco products," while collaboratively delivering the service with Cisco. IBM will provide the customer with consolidated call management for all networking devices and will retain responsibility for resolving customer issues. Technical support will be provided via IBM Technical Support Centers by highly experienced network specialists, trained by Cisco, who have access to IBM's technical support resource base. Cisco will provide, through IBM, such benefits as worldwide, 24x7 escalation to the Cisco Technical Assistance Center, access to cisco.com, ongoing operating system updates, advance hardware replacement, and tools and best practices to address network issues. What has been your experience with IBM's Managed Maintenance Solution (MMS) for Cisco products in the United States? Do you believe Cisco and IBM are ready to rollout MMS globally? http://www.BradReese.Com

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