Irwin Lazar's "Real-Time" Blog

YouTube Fun

YouTube is having a bit of fun this April Fools day.  Go to http://www.youtube.com and click on any of the "Featured Videos"

Post VoiceCon Thoughts

I've posted a few entries on the Enterprise 2.0 Blog on some VoiceCon-related observations on social networking, UC as a "green" technology, and the last-minute agreement between Microsoft and IBM Lotus to test interoperability of their respective UC platforms.  I'll post something a bit more detailed to NoJitter.com next week, but meanwhile Eric Krapf has done a tremendous job in providing daily updates.

Russell Shaw

By way of Om Malik I just saw the news of the passing of Russell Shaw during last week's eComm event.  Unfortunately I never had the opportunity to meet Russell in person, but I had been a regular reader of his blog for several years (and have included it in my "Blog Roll" since I started this blog.  Larry Dignan of ZDNet is posting additional news including information on funeral arrangements.

Rest in peace Russell, your insight and thoughts will be missed.

"The End of the Internet"?

Following up on the below post I need to plug next month's "FutureNet: MPLS, Ethernet and Beyond" conference taking place April 14-17 in Boston, MA.  I have been the conference director for this event since its inception as "MPLScon" in 2000.

This year's event is focused on the evolution of services such as MPLS and Ethernet (metro & VPLS), IMS, and WiMAX.  In addition, we're looking at key Internet infrastructure challenges including IPv6 and evolution of the Internet routing architecture.

The highlight of the event is the annual "Beer & Pizza Shootout" entitled "The End of the Internet".  The B&P is a lively 2-hour moderated discussion with audience opportunities to participate in Q&A.  The panelists are Dr. John Day, John Curran, Dave Schaeffer, Mike O'Dell, Dr. Stuart Elby, and Scott Bradner.  Johna Till Johnson of Nemertes moderates.

If you are interested in attending, please register using the code "IML20" to save 20% off the published price.

The Coming Internet Traffic Jam

Yesterday's NY Times ran a front page story on how increasing application demands threaten the ability of the Internet infrastructure to meet user needs.  The article mostly talks about the impact of video, and cites our recent report "The Internet Singularity, Delayed" in which we noted that rising Internet application demands are likely to cause increasing access network contention issues.  One has to wonder what happens when YouTube launches "YouTube HD" (assuming they can justify the investment in storage infrastructure required to support HD video on-demand).

Apple's SDK for iPhone

I've posted some thoughts over on the Enterprise 2.0 blog....

Apple iPhone Goes Enterprise!

My thoughts are now up on the Enterprise 2.0 Blog

Blogging Changes

Collaboration Loop is now the Enterprise 2.0 Blog.  I'm excited to join a small group of contributors to the site, and I hope to be contributing at least several times per week.  The site is a bit of a shift from Collaboration Loop in that we're posting more frequently, with a bit shorter pieces that are designed to generate discussion on key E 2.0 related topics.  The blog will also be closely tied to the Enterprise 2.0 Conference this June in Boston.

Please join me on the new site (I'll still post here from time to time as well as well as at NoJitter).

Getting Ready for VoiceCon

VoiceCon takes place in Orlando, FL on March 17-20th.  I will be participating in several sessions:

• Tuesday, March 18th - 4:00 - 5:00 - Vertical Market Focus: Finance - a discussion of the challenges and opportunities of real-time communications in the Finance market
• Wednesday, March 19th, 10:30 - 11:00 - Social Networking Meets Enterprise Communications - a round-table discussion with myself, Eric Krapf, and Dan York on the impact of social networking on enterprise communications
• Thursday, March 20th - 8:00 - 8:45 - Building the New IT Organization: Role of the Applications Teams - discussing evolution of IT organization to support unified communications and advanced communications application integration

If you are interested in setting up a meeting with me at the event, please contact sales@nemertes.com

Alec Saunders's Squawk Box

I'm remiss in not mentioning that Alec Saunders at Iotum has launched a daily "Squawk Box" via the Iotum conferencing application on Facebook.  The discussions cover a variety of topics related to VOIP, video, and unified communications.

http://saunderslog.com/ for details