Irwin Lazar's "Real-Time" Blog

Cisco's collaboration strategy

I've posted some thoughts over at Enterprise 2.0 blog

Androids Among Us

Google's first "Android" based IP phone is here.

Om Malik has a great write-up here

My comments over at Enterprise 2.0

Cisco buys Jabber

I've posted some thoughts over at the Enterprise 2.0 Blog, and was quoted in an eWeek article here.

VoiceCon Webinar on VOIP Costs

My colleague Robin Gareiss will be presenting a webinar this friday covering some research we've recently conducted on enterprise VOIP costs.

You can register here. Eric Krapf over at NoJitter provides a preview.

In Memory of Ben Goldman

I just saw the news that Cisco's Ben Goldman was killed in Detroit last week. I knew Ben from his days as an MPLS product manager. He was a terrific person, extremely smart, friendly, and always fun to talk with. He will be missed.

The family has set up a memorial fund, donations can be sent to:

Benjamin Goldman Memorial Fund, C/O Bank of America, 333 N. Santa Cruz Ave, Los Gatos, CA 95030, Attn: Daryl Dehn

Aircell vs. VOIP

Last week American Airlines launched their Aircell wireless Internet access on a limited number of flights. It didn't take long before a few folks tried to make voice and video calls (in violation of Aircell's terms-of-service according to their PR folks), and it didn't take long before someone figured a way around their voice/video blocking efforts.

It's amazing how many times this battle gets fought. Service providers must know by now that people will find a way around their efforts to block applications. And they ought to realize that going after such users is going to create some negative publicity.

I posted some thoughts at the Enterprise 2.0 Blog. Andy Abramson and Dan York have "must read" posts as well.

WSJ: Microsoft hires Seinfeld to bite Apple

A bit of interesting news, especially considering that Apple was a sponsor of the Seinfeld series (you can usually tell how old the episode is by looking at the Mac on Jerry's desk in his apartment)
See: WSJ: Microsoft hires Seinfeld to bite Apple

Video Sees Growth

Sorry, couldn't resist at least some corny pun in the title.

Ken Camp has a nice piece on growth of video adoption. I posted a piece on NoJitter this week on some of the results from our recent benchmarking of over 400 end-user organizations. The bottom line is that video is seeing significant growth in the enterprise.

NoJitter: Get Ready for Video (Finally!)

Major shakeups in the VOIP/Networking Industry

Two big announcements: Siemens Enterprise Networks is being acquired by private equity firm “Gores Group” and both the chairman and CEO of Alcatel-Lucent have resigned.  Follow the stories over at NoJitter.com.  Gores Group also owns Enterasys and contact-center systems vendor SER Solutions.

Skype Backdoor?

Doug Mohney over at FierceVOIP reports on a potential Skype back-door, enabling those with access to listen in to Skype conversations.  If true, I’d love to understand the technology of tapping a P2P app (proprietary or SIP-based forking I assume?)