UCStrategies Views - Unified Communications (UC) Strategies

Home / UC Views / UCStrategies Views

UCStrategies Views

Articles from the UCStrategies.com UC experts, providing insights and analysis on UC products, events, market trends, and the state of the UC industry.

12 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 Next »

End Points or End Users – Where’s the Focus?

By Marty Parker January 30, 2012

These are pretty exciting times as the core functions of communications (presence, directory, instant messaging, e-mail, social posting, blogs, wikis, voice, video, app sharing, conferencing, collaborative workspaces) are being overlaid with all these versions of communication dashboards known as UC clients.

Related UC Vendors: Avaya, Cisco, IBM, Microsoft

Using UC to Re-invent the Channel

By Jon Arnold January 25, 2012

I’m really just scratching the surface here, but the idea is to show that channels can add value in new ways if they’re ready to move in a different direction. There is definitely some risk involved, as this is really early adopter territory, but can be especially effective for SMBs who don’t have much IT expertise, but want to get first mover advantage with UC.

IBM Focuses on the “Big Picture” at Lotusphere

By Michael F. Finneran January 23, 2012

Like Marty Parker, I too spent a good part of last week at Lotusphere in Orlando, where “Business. Made Social” was the central theme, and I could not help but be impressed with the range and depth of IBM’s vision on the importance of social networking in business.

Related UC Vendors: IBM

IBM Lotusphere 2012 – Socializing 'Social Business’

By Marty Parker January 21, 2012

Went to Lotusphere 2012 this week. Goal: Dig out the evidence and metrics for social; relate to UC. Happily, was able to achieve most of this goal. Here are some highlights.

Related UC Vendors: IBM

The Channel: Key to UC and Gaining Traction

By Marty Parker January 10, 2012

For years now, UCStrategies has been emphasizing that the "channel" is key to Unified Communications (UC) success. While the vendors have to the heavy lifting of creating the software, servers, end-point devices and network appliances that comprise the building blocks of UC, the channel has to deliver these building blocks to the market in a way that is compelling, efficient and effective for the customers.

UC Backstories

By Dave Michels January 6, 2012

UC vendors, along with car and soft drink makers, all offer a reasonably unique value proposition. Understanding those nuances can make all the difference in the world in aligning vendor solutions/choices with technical goals and objectives.

Related UC Vendors: Mitel, NEC

UC Has to Plan For the World That Is

By Michael F. Finneran December 30, 2011

The political season is upon us, and I’m always struck by the contrast between the world our politicians are talking about and the one we live in. The candidates seem to cling to this persistent delusion that we are still living in the 1950s. In those halcyon days, the US was the only developed economy not decimated by the Second World War, the GIs were back home and starting families, and the population held the deep-seated belief that we could lick the world – hey, we just had! The US embarked a growth phase that spurred a rise in the standard of living the likes of which we’ll likely never see again.

2012: Will “Mobile Apps” Drive the “UC Contact Center?”

By Art Rosenberg December 29, 2011

The “UC Contact Center” provides a practical starting point for UC implementation planning, and by focusing on mobile users with multimodal smartphones, can provide the path to improved business processes and CEBP through self-service applications and “mobile apps.”

Megatrends 2012

By Dave Michels December 26, 2011

Rather than offer an annual review, I’m going to jump back to a December 2009 post called Megatrends in Voice. These trends, mobility, the cloud, and de-materialization, continue and are evolving. I think these shifts (shift happens) are still relevant and transformational, but I'd like to offer a few updates.

2011 UC Takeaways – Disruption and Uncertainty

By Jon Arnold December 23, 2011

I can’t think of a better word to sum up the state of UC in 2011 than “disruption.” By its nature, UC is a fluid concept, and in some ways this has been its Achilles Heel. Despite this, 2011 has seen a host of new trends and drivers that are stretching UC into forms we don’t fully understand or even recognize.

ADTRAN Adds to its UC Capabilities

By Blair Pleasant December 6, 2011

Two years ago, ADTRAN acquired ObjectWorld, and now offers a family of UC solutions for SMBs. The company has made a good deal of progress in the past two years, adding new capabilities to enhance its UC offerings.

Polycom Enhances Microsoft Lync, Again!

By Marty Parker December 5, 2011

Polycom has been a UC leading partner with Microsoft all along, providing a range of devices for desktops, conference rooms, and video deployment. Today, December 5, Polycom announced another major step forward with Microsoft Lync 2010 both for video-based collaboration and for office mobility solutions.

Related UC Vendors: Polycom

Welcome to the PC-Plus Era

By Kevin Kieller November 30, 2011

Many have incorrectly termed this the "Post-PC Era" but clearly these new devices are personal computers simply in a smaller and more mobile form factor. In the same way that laptops or netbooks were simply smaller PCs, I would suggest that the same holds for smartphones and tablets, slates or "pads."

Cisco Continues to Help Customers Transform Their Business

By Blair Pleasant November 28, 2011

At the recent Collaboration Summit, I got an update about Cisco’s Customer Business Transformation Group and how they’re developing a number of use cases and proof points about how real customers are experiencing real benefits using Cisco collaboration solutions, while transforming their businesses in a variety of ways.

Related UC Vendors: Cisco

Cisco Collaboration Summit – What’s UC?

By Jon Arnold November 28, 2011

My main message is that Cisco is after the same result everyone else desires around UC, but via a different approach. Working outward from the network, they believe that the cloud is the best way to address the multitude of end user scenarios that benefit from UC applications.

Related UC Vendors: Cisco

Cisco Getting Serious About Developers

By David Yedwab November 21, 2011

It appears that the application development community – ISVs, SIs and independent developers – are now high on Cisco’s list of growing its collaboration applications platforms with the aid of third parties. Cisco said that over 100,000 developers (many probably independent developers) representing some 700 partners are now registered with the program.

Related UC Vendors: Cisco

Distributing UC

By Dave Michels November 15, 2011

The dealer channel is changing dramatically as products move from hardware to software as well as major shifts in both customer expectations and the dealer skills required. But how the dealers obtain their products, or more specifically the role of two tier distribution is also transforming.

Cisco Delivers UC to SMBs via Hybrid Cloud and Premise Packaging

By Marty Parker November 15, 2011

On November 2, Cisco announced Cisco^® Business Edition 6000 and Cisco Business Edition 3000. Normally, I don’t write about Small and Mid-sized Business (SMB) solutions, but this caught my attention for multiple reasons, since this announcement sends several very important messages to the market.

Related UC Vendors: Cisco, Microsoft, IBM, Esna Technologies, Inc. (Esnatech), 8x8

Moneyball and UC – All About Results!

By Marty Parker November 14, 2011

Generally, the lessons of Moneyball are worth considering in any situation.

The New “UC Contact Center” – More Than A “Use Case”

By Art Rosenberg November 14, 2011

With a flexible UC framework, business communications can now selectively accommodate all contact and informational access needs for individual end users both inside and outside an organization. Such flexibility will have a significant impact on the traditional, telephone-oriented “call center,” enabling its transition to a true, two-way, multi-modal “contact center” between people and business process applications.

12 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 Next »

UC Alerts

UC Blogs
UC Solutions RSS Feeds

UC Newsroom

News Analysis

Industry Buzz

In The Spotlight

Executive Insights

Unified Communications
Communications Integrated to Optimize Business Processes. UC integrates real-time and non-real time communications with business processes and requirements. Uses presence capabilities for coordination, and presents a consistent unified user interface and experience across multiple devices and media types.
Learn more at What is Unified Communications all about?

Web Development and SEO by Activo

UCStrategies Views - Unified Communications (UC) Strategies

Insight & Analysis

Resources

Planning

Our Team

Vendor Community

A-L Vendors

M-Z Vendors

News

About

UCStrategies Views

UC Newsroom

News Analysis

Industry Buzz

In The Spotlight

Executive Insights

Opinions and More

RSS Feeds

Unified Communications