Irwin Lazar's "Real-Time" Blog

What if the Cloud Broke Up?

2008-11-19T10:11:52-05:00

Nemertes has just released its latest study on the Internet infrastructure, covering bandwidth, addressing, and routing issues affecting the ability of the Internet to support present and anticipated future demand. The study is freely available on our web site though registration is required to view charts.

Nemertes Webinar: Building the UC Business Case

2008-10-14T09:42:56-04:00

On Tuesday October 28th at 2:00 PM Eastern I will be presenting a webinar on building a UC business case. This webinar will present research findings and best practices for justifying UC, creating a positive ROI, and measuring success. I'll present a number of a case studies based on our recent research gathered for our benchmark report entitled Unified Communications and Collaboration.

This webinar is free to attend. Register here

Notes on your iPhone

2008-10-03T09:32:54-04:00

IBM announced Lotus iNotes this week, bringing Notes calendar, e-mail, and address book access to iPhone. It looks like this approach is based more on providing a stand-alone iPhone app rather than synching the iPhone's own apps with Domino as is possible using Microsoft ActiveSync with Exchange. Still, this just knocked down another argument for using the iPhone in the corporate environment, especially when the cost of an iPhone is on par with most BlackBerry's. But IT architects need to understand the impact on their server and network environments of enabling their remote users to sync directly with messaging servers versus using a hosted proxy in the RIM/Good models.

UC On the Rise

2008-10-02T10:09:50-04:00

Nemertes Research has released a new report on UC adoption, here's the press release.

NEW YORK, NY – October 1, 2008 – Unified communications deployments continue to grow in the enterprise, according to Nemertes’ Unified Communications and Collaboration research benchmark. More than 47% of IT executives indicate they are deploying or planning to deploy UC, which is up 17% from 2007.

Disperse workgroup locations, rising travel costs, and new technology options such as telepresence are a common factor driving the increase of UC deployments. “Nearly 90% of enterprises identified their organizations as ‘virtual’ where employees work remotely from supervisors or workgroups,” says Irwin Lazar, principal analyst and program director for unified communications and collaboration with Nemertes. “This leads enterprises to invest in technologies that enable better collaboration. “

Large growth in adoption of desktop, room-based, and telepresence video conferencing is allowing several global companies to eliminate 2% to 5% of international executive travel. The study found 65% of executives deploying or evaluating telepresence video-conferencing systems, and 51% deploying desktop video. The increased use of video conferencing is a direct result of travel restrictions or reductions in travel budgets.

The benchmark -- in which 443 IT executives also rate their IP telephony and unified-communications vendors -- advises enterprises to build a business case, looking for opportunities to reduce human latency and travel, and improve meeting efficiency by leveraging UC applications appropriate for business. “IT managers need to make sure they have a UC plan, and that they are looking at video to improve virtual worker collaboration and travel costs,” says Lazar.

Skype and Asterisk

2008-09-25T17:13:16-04:00

Skype and Asterisk have announced a partnership that will enabled Asterisk PBX users to connect to the Skype network, enabling calls to/from Skype users.

I think this might alleviate some of the concerns I've heard recently about the future of Skype, especially with regard to its focus on business customers. I think this move presents an interesting opportunity for VARs to bring value to Asterisk users by enabling them to support interoperability with the universe of Skype users. But I don't see this being something for the masses, rather it will be mostly of interest to tech-savvy companies wanting to reach partners, customers, or other Skype users.