http://www.ucstrategies.com/rss/comments_all.aspxUnified Communications Strategies - An industry resource for enterprises, vendors, and system integrators. http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/partnering-in-pencil.aspx#comments The "fluidity" of vendor partnerships in the UC space is one reason that minimizing the number of vendors in your selected solution avoids "irreconcilable differences" when short-term vendors "divorce". While choosing a single vendor for your UC solution has some "lock in" issues, it also improves the likelihood that the various pieces will continue to be supported and it reduces the chance of incompatibilities introduced by mismatched upgrade schedules. No solution or approach is perfect. The "partnering in pencil" phenomenon is another reason to "do your homework" before selecting the solution for your organization. As a VAR or SI, give thought to how you will support some of these multi-vendor solutions when the vendors stop talking with each other; your end customer will expect this of you. Kevin Tue, 18 Jun 2013 11:43:36 GMT Kevin Kieller http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/partnering-in-pencil.aspx?guid=1066#comments Comments http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/partnering-in-pencil.aspx#comments Dave: Great article on vendors, end users relationships, and how things are constantly changing. As consultants at FOXGROUP who help end user organizations acquire UC and carrier technologies, you totally nailed the challenges we face in helping our clients acquire and install next generation UC solutions. Many times the solution is obsolete by the time it is installed for larger distributed organizations. Our biggest concern about the accelerated pace of co-opetition, frenemies, etc. is that there is little or no customer protection from theses vendor changes. (They certainly are not reflected in our vendor contracts we have reviewed). Perhaps us end user consultants and customers should rise up and put forward our own terms and conditions to the industry players that suit us as the customer versus the vendors so that we are all protected from these various accelerated partnership/relationship changes? What a concept. Tue, 18 Jun 2013 09:54:07 GMT Roberta J. Fox http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/partnering-in-pencil.aspx?guid=1065#comments Comments http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-newsroom/intelepeer-grows-uc-capabilities-with-vidtel-videoconferencing.aspx#comments Nice article you might also want to check out BroadConnect VC solutions. BroadConnect offers a lot of the same options and a few different ones as well. http://www.broadconnect.ca/video-conferencing/ http://www.broadconnectusa.com/video-conferencing/ Mon, 17 Jun 2013 19:33:30 GMT CHRISTIAN ROWSELL http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-newsroom/intelepeer-grows-uc-capabilities-with-vidtel-videoconferencing.aspx?guid=1064#comments Comments http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/webrtc-who-is-your-peer.aspx#comments Obviously, supporting WebRTC is critical for Broadsoft, though the announcement is short on details. It appears they are showing a demonstration of a WebRTC client, which is the BYOD version of WebRTC. The reference to contact centers and customers is vague, not clear if this is really an open CC integration or if they are creating a portal as well. It would have been interesting to see a demo at he WebRTC World conference, as many others are doing. Mon, 17 Jun 2013 10:29:49 GMT Phil Edholm http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/webrtc-who-is-your-peer.aspx?guid=1063#comments Comments http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/what-is-collaboration.aspx#comments Thanks Dave. I think it is important to define collaboration in terms of what businesses are hoping to achieve. For me ... Collaboration is about working together to achieve a goal. And then it follows ... Collaboration tools are supposed to help you work together more effectively in order to achieve the end goal more quickly OR deliver a better quality product in the end OR to solve a problem you could not have on your own. As usual, defining and prioritizing business objectives (success metrics) before implementing technology can greatly increase the chance of success. Further, success for Collaboration projects requires Adoption and Usage of the deployed solution, which is something technology-centric groups often forget. The technology + training + communication + change management is needed, especially in the area of collaboration. Sun, 16 Jun 2013 06:24:08 GMT Kevin Kieller http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/what-is-collaboration.aspx?guid=1061#comments Comments http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/webrtc-who-is-your-peer.aspx#comments Phil, What's your take on Broadsoft's Press Release on webRTC? (June 10, 2013) Thu, 13 Jun 2013 16:59:33 GMT Dave Gilbert http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/webrtc-who-is-your-peer.aspx?guid=1060#comments Comments http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/avaya-innovation-surprise-its-in-services.aspx#comments I'm happy to hear that Avaya finally is back on track. Thu, 13 Jun 2013 12:49:00 GMT Ashraf Mohamed http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/avaya-innovation-surprise-its-in-services.aspx?guid=1059#comments Comments http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/busy-week-in-uc-and-contact-center.aspx#comments While it is nice that Mitel is changing the names of their products to be more functionally descriptive, they have a lot of work ahead of them in bringing those products more up to date to satisfy the new demands of UC-enabled mobility, online self-services, and automated notification services. Maybe they should break down their MiContactCenter label into the logical elements of assisted vs. self-services, and how each can inter-operate with WFM, CRM, CEBP, etc. Thu, 13 Jun 2013 09:45:12 GMT Art Rosenberg http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/busy-week-in-uc-and-contact-center.aspx?guid=1058#comments Comments http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/saying-yes-to-move-forward.aspx#comments That was an incredibly profound and moving article. Thank you for being brave and strong enough to share it. Truly inspiring. Thu, 13 Jun 2013 08:41:06 GMT Marina Geronazzo http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/saying-yes-to-move-forward.aspx?guid=1057#comments Comments http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-newsroom/snom-expands-uc-portfolio-sells-hp-desktop-ip-phones.aspx#comments Seems like we see a convergence; Polycom Optimized and Qualified through VVX; snom Optimized (HP) and qualified with 7xx/8xx series tel. Where does this leave Aastra? They chose not to participate in the 3PIP program. Thu, 13 Jun 2013 08:29:52 GMT Ray Maccani http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-newsroom/snom-expands-uc-portfolio-sells-hp-desktop-ip-phones.aspx?guid=1056#comments Comments http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/avaya-targeting-shoretel.aspx#comments Dave, Thank you for the fine words about ShoreTel. We're well aware of how we are taking away business from Avaya, and represent a bigger threat to them than ever before. The financial public disclosure of operating results speak for themselves. Avaya's revenues went down 26% last quarter, an even larger drop from the last quarter - whereas ShoreTel posted a 7% gain in revenues. Even though their 777 promotion discount resulted in a significant drop in operating margin, it didnt help them generate business. Public disclosures indicated another significant workforce reduction took place last week, with more to come according to the last 8K. Ever since the CFO left after the IPO attempt, it's apparent they are losing ground faster than expected. So adding video to IP Office? That's not going to address the reasons why IP Office doesnt win against ShoreTel in the market. Avaya can't escape the fact that pretty powerpoint slides suggesting IP Office is a simple one box solution is just not the reality their resellers face when quoting production systems for customers. Wed, 12 Jun 2013 22:27:11 GMT Bernard Gutnick http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/avaya-targeting-shoretel.aspx?guid=1055#comments Comments http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/avaya-targeting-shoretel.aspx#comments Dave: According to the Avaya channel partners that I spoke with for my UC Channel study, most of them were thrilled about the changes to IP Office and see great opportunity in terms of making more headway in the midmarket. The new video solution Avaya just announced for IP Office shows that Avaya wants to help midmarket companies be on par with large enterprises as far as features and functionality, without having to sacrifice capabilities. The midmarket holds a lot of promise for Avaya and its channel partners. Wed, 12 Jun 2013 09:55:26 GMT Blair Pleasant http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/avaya-targeting-shoretel.aspx?guid=1054#comments Comments http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-expert-views/contact-centers-the-next-cloud-frontier.aspx#comments I have to agree with you about Interactive Intelligence's role in moving to "cloud" based contact center functions. Most importantly, however, is the role of "cloud" based mobile business self-services, better known as "mobile apps," that are both multi-modal, as well as UC-enabled for flexible "click-for-assistance." As I point out in my post at: http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/mobile-multi-modal-customer-self-services-less-talk-and-more-action.aspx customer assistance will be less dependent on being able to manually place a traditional phone call over the PSTN, but with new connectivity options, like WebRTC, "click-for-assistance" will be becoming easier to implement within online applications. Interactive Intelligence's "Interaction Mobilizer" is an innovative platform approach for implementing mobile self-service applications that can flexibly access live assistance. So, it's not just the 'cloud" infrastructure that is important but the tools for creating and using the customer service apps that will be involved. Tue, 11 Jun 2013 15:42:47 GMT Art Rosenberg http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-expert-views/contact-centers-the-next-cloud-frontier.aspx?guid=1053#comments Comments http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/avaya-innovation-surprise-its-in-services.aspx#comments I'm impressed with Mike's innovative changes and the CSAT improvements YoY. Tue, 11 Jun 2013 14:12:42 GMT Thomas Wagg http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/avaya-innovation-surprise-its-in-services.aspx?guid=1052#comments Comments http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/avaya-and-hp-partner.aspx#comments Great comments Dave as always. Unfortunately does not apply to the Canadian marketplace at all. Avaya is still primarily going through telecom channels and smaller VARs. HP has also not rolled out many of their enhanced services to the Canadian marketplace, therefore our FOXGROUP.ca customers cannot even buy these next generation services from HP if they want to. The good news is that the CaaS services in Canada are coming from smaller new entrants formed by either ex-Telco execs, or ex-IT execs to the market. These folks are using the CoLo raised floor server racks as a way to get into the market cost effectively. They do struggle with support and billing as to be expected, and it sure makes it interesting to do analysis for acquisitions for clients! Tue, 11 Jun 2013 10:40:07 GMT Roberta J. Fox http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/avaya-and-hp-partner.aspx?guid=1051#comments Comments http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/avaya-innovation-surprise-its-in-services.aspx#comments Marty, Glad to hear about Avaya's new directions. It takes them into virtualized, self-service applications that are what mobile consumers really want to start with. Because customization will always be required, it brings in Avaya's channel partners to the new opportunities for multi-modal, mobile customer services and CEBP. Tue, 11 Jun 2013 08:56:34 GMT Art Rosenberg http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/avaya-innovation-surprise-its-in-services.aspx?guid=1050#comments Comments http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/is-webrtc-a-threat-to-skype.aspx#comments Great article Dave, much appreciated! Will you be attending the WebRTC Expo in a couple weeks in Atlanta? Be sure to stop by our booth if so! I thought you might also enjoy following my blog - www.teledini.com/blog - typically covering VoIP / WebRTC topics and their impacts on the small business community. I look forward to hearing all of your UC news and advice right here! Best, Max Mon, 10 Jun 2013 16:43:45 GMT Max McChesney http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/is-webrtc-a-threat-to-skype.aspx?guid=1049#comments Comments http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-newsroom/snom-technology-ag-improves-interoperability-for-7xx-series-ip-phones.aspx#comments It can be hard to find a good VoIP phone sometimes, specially because the industry is always changing and growing you want to have the most up to date systems as a company. If you are looking for a IP Phone check out the IP Store https://www.ipstore.com/ Mon, 10 Jun 2013 06:21:27 GMT CHRISTIAN ROWSELL http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-newsroom/snom-technology-ag-improves-interoperability-for-7xx-series-ip-phones.aspx?guid=1048#comments Comments http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/saying-yes-to-move-forward.aspx#comments Beautiful! Sun, 09 Jun 2013 06:22:01 GMT Deborah Kimmett http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/saying-yes-to-move-forward.aspx?guid=1047#comments Comments http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/ucc-is-the-only-term-going-forward.aspx#comments One other area not mentioned in this article that I'm seeing a lot of interest in is the integration of an organization's phone system with their CRM database. The ability to have the caller's CRM record automatically pop up, and to have the call details automatically captured in a CRM record are very powerful to sales and customer support organizations alike. Fri, 07 Jun 2013 12:38:27 GMT Matt Moskitis http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/ucc-is-the-only-term-going-forward.aspx?guid=1046#comments Comments