Jul 31 2008 8:56PM GMT
Posted by: Tony Bradley
Unified Communications,
UC,
NEC
There are a number of big players in unified communications. Everyone is familiar with Microsoft, Cisco, Avaya, and Nortel. Most people are familiar with NEC as a company. But, does NEC play in the UC sandbox? Few realize it, but yes. NEC is starting a major marketing push to promote its position in the area of UC and seek to challenge the likes of Microsoft and Cisco for a dominant piece of the UC pie.
Jun 30 2008 4:29PM GMT
Posted by: Tony Bradley
Denial-of-Service,
DoS,
Cisco Unified Communications Manager,
Cisco,
vulnerability,
Secunia
Security vulnerability research firm Secunia reports “A vulnerability and a security issue have been reported in Cisco Unified Communications Manager, which can be exploited by malicious people to bypass certain security restrictions or to cause a DoS (Denial of Service).” The vulnerability is only rated as Less Critical by Secunia, so it is not an urgent issue, but users of Cisco Unified Communications Manager should be aware and investigate the availability of patches or updates to address the problem.
Jun 30 2008 2:42PM GMT
Posted by: Tony Bradley
LDAP,
filter,
contacts,
Active Directory,
UC,
Unified Communications,
OCS 2007,
Mike Stacy,
EC,
Evangelyze Communications
For most organizations, the fact that OCS 2007 can pull the contacts from Active Director is not a problem. However, situations can arise in larger companies with separate subsidiaries where one group is deploying OCS and another isn’t, or where multiple organizations within the company are deploying OCS, but they don’t want to share contacts in OCS. There is no truly elegant solution, but there are rudimentary options available to enable this sort of filtering. Evangelyze Communications Voice Program Services Director Mike Stacy explains how to do it on his blog site.
Jun 7 2008 1:56PM GMT
Posted by: Tony Bradley
customer service,
latency,
Call Centers,
Aspect,
Microsoft,
Unified Communications,
UC
Microsoft has a unified communications offering for small and medium businesses (SMB) with Response Point. They also have a more robust solution for enterprises providing even more features, functionality, and power for unified communications with Microsoft UC. What they do’t have, or at least didn’t have, is a unified communications solution for call centers, or other businesses that rely on communications more than standard businesses at an almost exponential level. The have formed a partnership with Aspect, a company that focuses on delivering innovative solutions for customer service and call centers. Combining the power and flexibility of Microsoft’s Office Communications Server 2007 with Aspect Unified IP delivers next-generation communications for call centers. There are still some hurdles to cross. Aside from delivering unified communications capabilities to the call center, the solution also has to offer high availability and resiliency to ensure communications are not disrupted even in the event of a server, or complete site catastrophe.
Jun 5 2008 2:42PM GMT
Posted by: Tony Bradley
Director of Professional Services,
Evangelyze,
Mike Stacy,
VoIP,
Unified Communications,
UCC,
UC,
OCS 2007,
Office Communications Server,
Microsoft,
calculator,
capacity,
bandwidth
One of the most important factors in a successful VoIP or unified communications implementation is ensuring that adequate server processing horsepower and network bandwidth exist to handle the load. Streaming audio and video are less tolerant of latency and packet fragmentation, and the infrastructure has to be capable of meeting the demands of unified communications. Mike Stacy, Director of Professional Services for Evangelyze, has created an OCS Capacity and Bandwidth Calculator. The calculations to determine the number of users a given server can support, or the bandwidth capacity necessary for those users to use unified communications technologies are contained in an Excel spreadsheet which Stacy makes available for free.
Jun 5 2008 2:33AM GMT
Posted by: Tony Bradley
VoIP,
UCC,
UC,
Unified Communications,
D-Link,
Syspine,
Quanta,
Aastra,
SIP,
Response Point,
Microsoft,
Allen Miller
Microsoft’s Response Point phone system will have a third hardware provider very soon. Quanta (Syspine) and D-Link have already been providing Response Point base units and phones, and now the long awaited Aastra phone system is nearly ready for prime time. The Microsoft Response Point system offers small and medium businesses many of the features and functions of larger enterprise-level unified communications voice solutions, in a cost-effective and exceptionally simple system. Aastra, aside from just being the third vendor on the block to offer Response Point equipment, is also the first to provide a cordless phone handset option that works with Response Point. Ohio-based consultant Allen Miller shows off some pictures of his beta system and talks a little about the Aastra equipment on his blog. Miller also talks in another post about his experience using the Aastra Response Point phones to conduct a call over VoIP while also loading his network down with additional activity. Overall, Miller gives the Aastra system high marks and says that his call was crystal clear even with the extra network traffic.
May 31 2008 1:28PM GMT
Posted by: Tony Bradley
Switches,
Unified Communications,
UCC,
UC,
Response Point,
Microsoft,
Cisco,
D-Link
D-Link, an established name in consumer wired and wireless networking, is targeting rival Cisco to deliver switching solutions for unified communications. D-Link is one of the primary partners with Microsoft for their Response Point communications package, a simple, cost-effective product for small and medium businesses (SMB) which provides many of the benefits of an enterprise unified communications implementation without the cost or complexity. D-Link plans to deliver a range of products aimed at providing unified communications for the SMB market, and they envision being able to achieve 50 percent profit margins in this hot, cutting edge arena.
May 25 2008 3:03AM GMT
Posted by: Tony Bradley
TMobile,
AT&T,
Starbucks,
wifi hotspot,
Wireless
I have never understood why Starbucks charged for their wifi hotspot access. I understood why TMobile wanted to make some money off of the deal, but wifi hotspots are everywhere. I like Starbucks, but Panera has free wifi, other coffee shops, bakeries, and restaurants have free wifi. Heck, I got new tires on my car the other day and the tire store offered free wifi in the waiting room. The Internet is available for free virtually anywhere, so I could never understand why someone would pay $20 or $30 a month, or even worse $10 a day, for the privilege of accessing it at a Starbucks. Well, no more! Almost. AT&T has won the contract for Starbucks from TMobile and they are offering a revamped pricing structure. Subscribers to the AT&T broadband Internet service will be able to access the Starbucks wifi for free. Patrons who use a Starbucks card, will be able to access the Starbucks wifi for free for the first 2 hours per day. Additional time will cost money, but less than patrons are used to paying for the TMobile wifi hotspot access. Now, if McDonald’s would get on the free wifi bandwagon too American caffeine and fast food consumers will be all set.
May 8 2008 12:36PM GMT
Posted by: Tony Bradley
government,
Security,
VoIP,
DOD,
Department of Defense,
IPv6,
Unified Communications,
UC,
Application Server 5300,
Nortel
Companies generally have confidential information- financial projections, intellectual property, trademarked secret formulas, etc. But, the magnitude of secrecy and the need for confidentiality pale in comparison with a government, especially the United States government. Nortel has developed a new unified communications solution based on their Application Server 5300, which provides the level of service assurance and security that government agencies, and civilian agencies linked with the government require. The new offering complies with IPv6 and Department of Defense (DoD) requirements for secure, resilient VoIP and unified communications. The Nortel appliance also supports multi-level precedence and pre-emption, a DoD system to enable the most critical communications higher priority over existing calls.
