VoIP

IBM Challenges Microsoft to a Cage Match

Its unified communications meets WWF.

IBM had some serious issues during a live demonstration of its UC technologies at the Enterprise 2.0 conference. Its a presenter’s nightmare. I am sure the stuff works better than that and I assume they even rehearsed the presentation just fine. But, during the actual live presentation all of sudden the bandwidth wasn’t there to deliver a smooth experience. C’est la vie.

IBM rebounded from that experience and moved on to issuing challenges to Microsoft. Basically- IBM says its UC solution is superior to Microsoft’s and its willing to prove it in a head-to-head, mano-a-mano, cage match at VoiceCon in Spring of 2010.

What do you think? Will Microsoft accept the challenge? Can IBM hold its own in a cage match with Microsoft UC?

Perhaps IBM can also get Hulk Hogan for a new marketing campaign?

Sipera Has SLiC Solution to Protect Smart Phone VoIP

One goal that many companies and unified communications vendors are striving for is the seamless integration of mobile phones with the unified communications environment.

Sipera, a leading provider of unified communications security solutions, has developed SLiC (Secure Live Communications). SLiC helps security managers manage the privacy, integrity, and other critical security elements related to integrating Wi-Fi, 3G, GPRS, and other mobile technologies into the enterprise communications infrastructure.

According to Sipera, SLiC is the first such solution available to help customers seamlessly combine smart phone and other mobile devices, and allow employees to use VoIP and other cloud-based communications while maintaining security and privacy.

Google Wave Isn’t All Sunshine and Lollipops

OK. I swear that I am not anti-Google or anti-Google Wave, and I promise not to repeatedly bash Google Wave. In all honesty, I couldn’t wait to get my Wave invitation and I am still very excited to jump in and see what its all about. My previous post about being underwhelmed has more to do with what it looks like now during beta testing and not living up to the hype, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t think it will eventually be a very capable product.

That said, there are two sides to the Google Wave coin. Its not all ice cream and rainbows, or sunshine and lollipops. First, the real-time collaboration is a huge benefit and the ability to see others typing as their fingers hit the keys is novel, but do we really need to watch others type…wrong…then backspace….then retype?

Have you ever written a message in anger or frustration? Then you take a step back and a deep breath, re-read it, and decide that there is a more appropriate way to say things so you edit the message before sending it? If you were holding that conversation in a Google Wave the other party would be able to watch as you type what a complete jackass….brain dead moron…..jerk….good person with the right intentions, but poor execution your boss is.

Real-time typing has its drawbacks.

What about the ability to chain and forward a Wave well after the fact? Say you start a Wave with a friend and you are venting between the two of you about a third friend. The Wave evolves and later the third friend is inadvertently added to the Wave. That person can go back to the beginning of the Wave, replay it, comment on it, etc.

Once its a Wave its sort of out of your control and the concept of assuming that everything you type will be shared publicly takes on a whole new meaning.

It will be interesting to see how some of the pitfalls of Google Wave are addressed as development evolves and the fully functional Google Wave eventually hits the Internet.

If you are on Google Wave, you can feel free to connet with me at s3kur3@googlewave.com.

Facetime Adds Sophos AV Protection to Unified Security Gateway

Facetime is a respected name in unified communications security. Its Unified Security Gateway, or USG 3.0, appliance allows enterprise administrators to control the web sites and applications that can be accessed by users, as well as monitoring and filtering content for Web 2.0 communications such as webmail, blogs, and social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook.

Aside from the goal of protecting intellectual property and sensitive information, the USG 3.0 appliance also provides the tools necessary to maintain legal and regulatory compliance related to network security and disclosing information.

Another threat that enterprise administrators have to contend with is malware and malicious attacks. Mike Rogers, vice president of Global Alliances and OEM for Sophos stressed the issue. “For the first six months of this year, SophosLabs detected 23,500 new infected Web pages–that’s one every 3.6 seconds. This statistic underscores the necessity of ensuring safe Web browsing, which includes virus and other malware protection.”

That is why Facetime is adding Sophos antivirus scanning and malware protection technologies to incorporate into the USG 3.0 appliance.

Google Wave Underwhelming

You know that anticlimactic feeling you get when something doesn’t quite live up to the hype?

Like when you tried to avoid seeing the movie Titanic because a Leonardo DiCaprio love story just didn’t sound appealing and you were already sick of hearing Celine Dion singing My Heart Will Go On, but then everyone in the world but you saw the movie….three times? So you finally caved and saw it and left thinking ‘it was a good movie, but nowhere near worth the attention its getting and certainly not something I’d pay to see more than once.’?

That is how I feel about Google Wave right now.

A few weeks ago when Google unleashed a new flurry of Google Wave invitations I managed to acquire one (thanks again Marcus). It still took forever for the invite to actually arrive in my email, but at least I didn’t have to continue begging, or troll eBay trying to buy a fake invitation.

Once it arrived though it felt like 4pm on December 25th when the feeling sinks in that after months of shopping, and wrapping, and decorating, and Christmas carols, and tons of money….its all over. That was it.

I am not condemning it yet. I understand that it is a beta version, and to be fair I haven’t comprehensively examined it yet. I will definitely be diving in and perhaps it will seem more compelling once I get under the hood and start figuring out what to do with it.

All I’m saying is that after the 90 minute video overview Google unveiled it with, and the hype leading up to getting the invite, it just doesn’t seem very exciting, or like the unified communications competition it has been described as (which I am guilty of as well).

Stay tuned for more in-depth reviews and assessments as I dig in and figure it all out.

Unified Communications? There Is No App for That

OK. To be fair, there are iPhone apps related to unified communications, and even an iPhone app which provides rudimentary integration with Microsoft Office Communicator. The point, however, is that as popular and as functional as the iPhone is it still has some catching up to do in order to be a viable platform for enterprise mobile and unified communications.

I had an iPhone for a few months. I enjoyed it, and I felt like it had a lot of really cool features, but in the end I found the fact that there is ‘an app for that’ for so many things to be more of a distraction and a time-suck than a value. I also missed Office Communicator Mobile and my Office Mobile applications so I eventually traded my iPhone for the AT&T (HTC) Tilt– a Windows Mobile 6.0 device.

New phones are emerging with the potential to challenge the iPhone for rock star status among mobile devices. The HTC Pure isn’t really one of them, but it is the crown jewel of the Windows Mobile 6.5 devices which recently hit the streets. I’m debating holding my breath to see if the HTC HD2 comes to AT&T when Windows Mobile 7 is unleashed, but that seems like a long time to wait for a rumored device on a vaporware OS that may not even be offered through my wireless provider if/when it does arrive.

Back to the iPhone though. The iPhone is the #2 smart phone in America. It is lower on the global totem pole, but as it begins to be offered through multiple providers in China that could quickly change. However, there is a reason that Nokia and RIM have so much of the smart phone market share and it has a lot to do with the ability to integrate with enterprise networks and applications. Until Apple gets an app for that it is going to have a tough time being a serious threat in the enterprise.

The flip side of that point though is that Microsoft could do itself a favor and extend its reach by working with Apple to make that happen. The iPhone is a formidable mobile device and it is hugely popular. Microsoft should develop Office Communicator Mobile and Office Mobile apps for the iPhone to promote the use of Microsoft products no matter what mobile platform is being used.

Free Unified Communications Security Webinar

If you’re free next Wednesday, October 28, you should mark your calendar and plan on attending The Final Frontier: Secure Unified Communications to Any Device in Any Place at 12pm Eastern time (9am Pacific).

Unified communications, like just about any useful technology, can be a double-edged sword. Often, for every benefit or convenience there is a tradeoff of increased risk and exposure. As organizations work to extend unified communications to smart phones and wireless devices, they face even more security and compliance challenges.

The webinar is being presented by Sipera Systems and Aberdeen Research and will include the latest research and industry trends, real-world scenarios from actual deployments, and best practices for deploying unified communications securely.

Designing a Resilient Microsoft Unified Communications Environment

As organizations move to unified communications it becomes imperative that disaster recovery and business continuity be incorporated into the design and implementation. In the event that a natural disaster or other catastrophe strike the primary data center, there needs to be a fall-back plan in place to ensure that the business can continue to communicate and work productively.

The ability to provide some sort of failover redundancy or site resiliency has been seen as an Achilles heel of Microsoft Office Communications Server. Microsoft has made some enhancements though in R2 and produced a white paper describing how to accomplish site resiliency with Microsoft OCS 2007 R2.

Here is the description Microsoft provides for the white paper:

This white paper describes a site resiliency solution for Office Communications Server 2007 R2. The solution includes an Enterprise pool that spans two geographically separate sites. The solution provides a failover mechanism between the two sites to ensure that Office Communications Server functionality such as instant messaging, presence, and conferencing remains available even if one of the sites becomes unavailable.

This white paper is divided into three main sections:

Tech Data Adds Unified Communications and Security to Portfolio

If you ask me, Tech Data is coming a little late to the party, but better late than never.

Tech data announced that it is adding a unified communications and a network security business unit to its service offerings.

The official press release from Tech Data contains this quote:

“Tech Data is responding to the growing demand for unified communications and network security,” said Tech Data Vice President, Networking Product Marketing John O’Shea. “Unified communications — the seamless integration of voice, data, messaging, mobility and video over a converged network — delivers new operational efficiencies for end users of all sizes. Meanwhile, the network is becoming more exposed than ever with the explosive growth of wireless, mobile devices and demands for access all the time from anywhere. That creates an array of security issues, especially for key vertical markets implementing these technologies like government, education and healthcare that need to protect sensitive information.”

I don’t disagree, and I commend Tech Data for joining the fray– but unified communications has been hot for some time and networks have been vulnerable since they existed so its not like this was a brilliant epiphane on their part.

What would be cutting edge is if Tech Data merged the concepts and created a Unified Communications Security business unit. That is an area where there is a need that customers aren’t even aware of yet.

Sprint Rolls Out General Availability of SIP Trunking

Sprint was one of the first SIP trunk providers certified with Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 (OCS 2007 R2). Now it is expanding availability of SIP trunking to all business customers.

Sprint SIP trunking customers will be able to leverage Sprint’s Global MPLS network and utilize a single IP network connection to facilitate voice, date, and video conferencing connections.

SIP trunking and VoIP enable customers to save significantly over traditional local and long distance expenses, and it is also a key component of unified communications.