Posted on Tue, May 31, 2011 @ 10:09 AM
Microsoft users now will have more flexibility to use LifeSize HD video conferencing systems, thanks to new interoperability between the two companies’ products.
LifeSize Team 220 was qualified within the Microsoft Office Communications Server platform. This is the first of many qualifications LifeSize is pursuing with Microsoft. Later this year, the company expects to win approval for its Passport, Room 220 and Express 220 products as well.
This further strengthens the ties between the two companies. Recently, Skype qualified the LifeSize Passport HD video conference product to be the first room-based, business-class video conferencing solution to be plugged into Skype. Weeks later, Microsoft acquired Skype with the intention of integrating its products into desktop computing and other applications.
With the new qualification, Microsoft customers can now experience seamless video calling across the enterprise by connecting LifeSize video systems in conference rooms and meeting spaces to the PC, and vice versa, delivering a unified communications (UC) experience.
Today, customers are able to make calls between Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 desktops and LifeSize endpoints, ensuring genuine, face-to-face interaction within their existing Microsoft environment and workflow. Later in 2011, LifeSize will seek qualification to interoperate with Microsoft Lync. This flexible interoperability will also enable customers to upgrade from Microsoft Office Communications Server to Lync on their terms.
Moreover, LifeSize has licensed the Microsoft RTVideo codec and is planning a future server-based product to enable high-definition interoperability between Microsoft Lync and LifeSize video systems. Later in 2011, LifeSize will seek Microsoft Lync qualification with true HD interoperability.
“LifeSize delivered the first HD video conferencing system in 2005, the first sub-$2,500 HD video product in 2009, and our commitment to innovation is realized today in yet another first – delivering on our promise to reach true interoperability across UC platforms,” said Craig Malloy, chief executive officer of LifeSize and Logitech senior vice president. “Through LifeSize and Logitech’s relationship with Microsoft and deep dedication to UC, we’re delivering on our vision to extend high quality communication capabilities to anyone, anywhere.”
LifeSize solution qualification for Microsoft OCS 2007 R2 includes support for:
- Authentication and encryption (TLS/SRTP) for secure, reliable communications
- Firewall/NAT Traversal via Microsoft Edge Services to ensure issue-free calling outside organizations
- Auto-configuration of systems as they are registered to Microsoft Office Communications Server, helping simplify deployment to users
- Unified presence status with the ability to place and receive calls from one Office Communications Server account between multiple devices (PC or a LifeSize system)
- Addition of LifeSize systems to contact lists in the Microsoft Office Communicator view and vice versa
- Easy placement of calls from LifeSize systems to third-party systems within the Microsoft OCS 2007 R2 environment, using commonly supported video and audio codecs
“Microsoft is pleased to be working with Logitech and LifeSize as a qualified partner to offer customers more comprehensive UC solutions through interoperability with Microsoft Office Communications Server and soon, Microsoft Lync,” said Yancey Smith, director of product management for Lync at Microsoft Corp. “The combination of LifeSize technology with Microsoft UC platforms will enable customers to extend their video conferencing ecosystems from the desktop to the boardroom, and everywhere in between.”
Posted on Tue, May 24, 2011 @ 10:45 AM
At every industry conference, manufacturers and service providers have been preaching the benefits of the growing cloud computing phenomenon. It will be the preferred way for corporate America to operate.
And then, there was Amazon. The Internet retailing giant also provides cloud computing services to a large number of clients. And in April, Amazon Web Services went down for four long days.
The cause? A configuration error was made during a network upgrade. In other words, a seemingly minor human error led to outages for several well-known web sites including Quora, Foursquare and Reddit. Unlike many web server issues, this was not a slowdown in service or occasional 404 message. Instead, entire companies were taken down over an entire weekend.
Almost immediately, the naysayers of the cloud computing concept began coming out of the woodwork. They began arguing that the idea of off-site hosting, storage and applications just doesn’t make sense for the enterprise.
Instead of this knee-jerk reaction, it would do IT professionals good to analyze the situation and see what can be learned – and how cloud computing can be safer, better and more reliable in the future.
For its part, Amazon published a highly transparent post-mortem of the entire situation.
Some of its customers are being quite public and forthcoming with their own experiences as well. For example, Netflix published a report on its experiences over the outage weekend. Netflix’s customers ran into more errors than usual, but the company’s web site and services generally remained live. This has only reinforced, however, Netflix’s decision to remain in the cloud.
“We set out to build a highly available Netflix service on AWS and this outage was a major test of that decision,” Netflix said in a published statement. “While we do have some lessons learned and some improvements to make, we continue to be confident that this is the right strategy for us.”
Like Netflix, I believe that companies who are considering or already rely on cloud-based computing services could ultimately become stronger based on the lessons learned from Amazon’s failure. First and foremost is this: every company needs a disaster recovery plan that extends to its unified communications system, data storage, servers and more.
Most firms that keep their servers for data and apps on-premise also rely on some kind of off-site backup. And those who don’t should start this practice today. Similarly, when a company chooses to operate in the cloud, IT personnel must have a complete understanding of potential failures and weaknesses in this strategies. Redundancy, backup and fail-safes are the key.
This isn’t the end of cloud computing. It’s just a growing pain. And over time, the same advantages that have made cloud computing a technology buzzword of 2011 will prompt its development into a stable, reliable platform for corporate America.
Posted on Wed, May 18, 2011 @ 10:08 AM
When it comes to bandwidth, corporate America can’t seem to get enough. Everything from email attachments to video conferencing is demanding that companies have increased ability to send and receive huge streams of information.
Thanks to some new technologies demonstrated last month at the Optical Fiber Communications Conference, a tremendous amount of new bandwidth could come online in the future. Two separate research groups set a world record by each sending more than 100 terabits of information per second through just one optical fiber.
“That’s enough to deliver three solid months of HD video- or the contents of 250 double-sided Blu-ray discs,” writes Jeff Hecht of New Scientist.
One team was an alliance between AT&T, NEC Corporation and Corning Incorporated. A research team put together by these three companies used emerging network technologies to transmit data at 114 Gigabits per second over each of 320 separate optical channels on a single, 580-kilometer optically amplified link.
The results? A total bandwidth capacity of 32 terabits per second, which exceeded the previous record by 25 percent and was transmitted over more than twice the distance. This advances the companies’ development of 100 gigabit technologies, which are expected to be ready for deployment within the next few years.
"IP traffic on the AT&T network is growing at about 45 percent year over year, so groundbreaking research efforts like this are critical to our ongoing efforts to stay ahead of our customers' rapidly evolving and expanding needs," said Peter Magill, executive director of optical systems research, AT&T Labs. "In setting this new bandwidth capacity record, we used a transmission method that enables better management of the interference that can result from operating 320 wavelengths over a single fiber-optic link. To do so, we used a new way to generate such signals and a new signal-processing algorithm to receive them again. We're looking forward to further testing of these techniques and the additional bandwidth advances that may come from it."
The laboratory link was composed of seven spans, each containing a single-stage Erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) for both the C- and L-band and a section of Corning® SMF-28® ULL fiber, an ITU G.652 compliant ultra-low-loss optical fiber.
"NEC has been relentless in pushing forward-looking research and development of advanced optical networking technology to help carriers meet the growth in network traffic," said Ting Wang, department head, Optical Networking, NEC Labs America. "This exciting achievement demonstrates the feasibility of packing 320 channels on one fiber with 25GHz spacing."
"There are still several challenges, including maturity and cost efficiency, to overcome before the deployment of such a high transmission rate over a single fiber, but we are definitely closer," added Milorad Cvijetic, vice president and chief technology strategist, Optical Network Systems Division, NEC Corporation of America.
"As the foundation of telecommunications networks, optical fiber innovation can help enable carriers to cost effectively keep up with ever-growing traffic demands", said Barry Linchuck, director of marketing, Corning Optical Fiber, Corning Incorporated. "Corning's recent innovation of ultra low-loss, high-performance fiber enables network operators to achieve higher capacities per fiber at the operating distances they need."
per second, which exceeded the previous record by 25 percent and was transmitted over more than twice the distance. This advances the companies’ development of 100 gigabit technologies, which are expected to be ready for deployment within the next few years.
"IP traffic on the AT&T network is growing at about 45 percent year over year, so groundbreaking research efforts like this are critical to our ongoing efforts to stay ahead of our customers' rapidly evolving and expanding needs," said Peter Magill, executive director of optical systems research, AT&T Labs. "In setting this new bandwidth capacity record, we used a transmission method that enables better management of the interference that can result from operating 320 wavelengths over a single fiber-optic link. To do so, we used a new way to generate such signals and a new signal-processing algorithm to receive them again. We're looking forward to further testing of these techniques and the additional bandwidth advances that may come from it."
The laboratory link was composed of seven spans, each containing a single-stage Erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) for both the C- and L-band and a section of Corning® SMF-28® ULL fiber, an ITU G.652 compliant ultra-low-loss optical fiber.
"NEC has been relentless in pushing forward-looking research and development of advanced optical networking technology to help carriers meet the growth in network traffic," said Ting Wang, department head, Optical Networking, NEC Labs America. "This exciting achievement demonstrates the feasibility of packing 320 channels on one fiber with 25GHz spacing."
"There are still several challenges, including maturity and cost efficiency, to overcome before the deployment of such a high transmission rate over a single fiber, but we are definitely closer," added Milorad Cvijetic, vice president and chief technology strategist, Optical Network Systems Division, NEC Corporation of America.
"As the foundation of telecommunications networks, optical fiber innovation can help enable carriers to cost effectively keep up with ever-growing traffic demands", said Barry Linchuck, director of marketing, Corning Optical Fiber, Corning Incorporated. "Corning's recent innovation of ultra low-loss, high-performance fiber enables network operators to achieve higher capacities per fiber at the operating distances they need."
Posted on Mon, May 16, 2011 @ 08:42 AM
This blog first appeared on Best in UC.
The buzz at this week's LifeSize Americas Partner Conference was around the company's announcement of the LifeSize Learning Exchange. Wayne McCulloch, global director of education services, received an enthusiastic round of applause after his demo of the company's new social platform to learn, collaborate and share knowledge via video.
McCulloch and Kevin Buechler, program manager of sales enablement, told Best in UC how LifeSize partners and their clients can use Learning Exchange to receive training, solve problems, and enhance their results with LifeSize Learning Exchange.
The LifeSize Learning Exchange (LLX) mobile app is an interactive portal for the sharing of knowledge -- and the discussions that surround that knowledge -- on the full line of products from LifeSize, a division of Logitech. Inside the LLX, you can learn about the latest product features, ask questions of product experts, access videos on product training, and even follow your favorite contributors. The mobile app allows you to view recent and popular content updates, as well as search for and specific content on LifeSize learning Exchanage - anytime, anywhere. The mobile app is available for free at the Apple App store. (You must have an account on the LifeSize Learning Exchange to get full use of the app.)
For new LifeSize buyers, the Learning Exchange includes an adoption kit with a series of three-minute training videos on the most-requested topics. New users are also given opportunities to practice using their LifeSize solution, eliminating the fears and concerns about a new technology.
For LifeSize resellers, the Learning Exchange includes certification training and testing, as well as a knowledge base that can be leveraged to solve problems. This will allow for peer-to-peer collaboration and problem solving by people on the ground who use the solution every day.
Posted on Fri, May 13, 2011 @ 09:10 AM
Face-to-face telehealth services will soon be a reality for patients of American Well.
The company already offers an Online Care Suite, which allows patients to receive medical consultation by phone or the Internet. Now, American Well has partnered with Vidyo to add videoconferencing capabilities.
American Well partners with health plans, delivery networks and pharmacy chains to enable online care services. This allows patients to connect live and on-demand with primary care and specialty physicians, as well as other clinicians, whenever they have a health need, from their homes or workplaces.
Providers are able to review the patient’s clinical information, discuss symptoms, diagnose, and prescribe medications as appropriate, for anything from common illnesses such as colds, flu, and sinus infections to chronic care management, behavioral health or nutrition. At the end of the consultation, the patient is encouraged to share a full record of the conversation with his or her primary care physician, maintaining continuity of care.
“Telehealth is playing an increasingly important role in American healthcare delivery, and at the heart of that shift is the high quality of the Online Care interaction – offering both patients and providers a confidential, convenient, and immersive experience,” said Roy Schoenberg, MD, MPH, president and chief executive officer of American Well Systems. “Vidyo’s platform will enhance all of these dimensions through its ability to deliver robust, HD video quality over the Internet.”
American Well’s Online Care Suite will begin incorporating Vidyo technology in the summer of 2011.
“Vidyo for healthcare provides quick and easy video communications and collaboration access to those who need a high-quality, affordable telemedicine solution,” said Ofer Shapiro, Vidyo co-founder and CEO. “Using Vidyo’s platform, partners such as American Well can build client applications using the VidyoTechnology APIs. Their client organizations, in turn, can enable customers to deploy video conferencing from anywhere, allowing patients and practitioners to use their existing laptops or desktops.”
If you would like to demo the VidyoDesktop Client from the comfort of your own office, give Xtelesis a call at 888-340-9835 or fill out our request a demo form.
Posted on Thu, May 12, 2011 @ 09:00 AM
Your potential integrator is walking slowly through his presentation. He shows a slide with logos of his clients. He flips to another page that lists capabilities. Finally, he flashes you the awards.
It’s tempting to ignore those medals that boast excellence. After all, can’t any integrator find a way to win some kind of award from a friendly association or desperate equipment manufacturer?
That may be so. But in some cases, awards really do matter.
Consider this example from our industry. Among small and mid-sized businesses, ShoreTel is a vendor of choice that manufactures unified communications solutions. ShoreTel does not sell these systems directly, instead relying on a network of integrators to install them for customers.
Each year, ShoreTel presents 10 of its integrators with the Circle of Excellence Award. These partners are chosen based on two factors:
- Revenue success, meaning that the integrator is installing a significant number of ShoreTel systems
- Customer satisfaction of 90 percent or better, as measured by an independent third party
This provides a prime example of when an award is an excellent indicator of vendor quality. First, ShoreTel ensures that these vendors are working at a high volume, demonstrating they have extensive experience installing its solutions. Then, it uses an objective organization to determine customer satisfaction levels.
In fact, ShoreTel’s customer satisfaction scores are particularly challenging to keep at an elevated level. Customers rate their happiness on a scale of 1 to 4. While a rating of 4 is 100 percent, a 3 is only 75 percent. It takes only one or two mostly satisfied customers who rate the integrator with a 3 to quickly bring their rating down to a number under the required 90 percent threshold.
In addition to awards, vendor certifications are an often-ignored sales point that can be a good indicator of integrator success. For example, we ensure that our technicians and engineers earn the highest certifications offered by our key partners. Rather than relying on team members with general telecommunications experience, we provide our customers with ShoreTel Certified Installers and ShoreTel Certified Engineers.
How can you decide whether awards and certifications matter? In short, awards and certifications are important when they affect how your implementation and ongoing support will be performed. To help you choose a high-quality integrator, ask these questions when you are shopping around:
- Have you earned any recognition or awards from this UC manufacturer (ShoreTel, Avaya, Cisco, etc.)?
- What specific qualifications does the manufacturer use when handing out these awards? Is it based on revenue alone, or does service quality come into play as well?
- What is your customer satisfaction number, and how did you arrive at that number? Was it determined by an independent third party?
- Does your team have certifications for this manufacturer’s products, or just general industry experience?
Posted on Wed, May 11, 2011 @ 10:48 AM
This blog first appeared on Best in UC.
First, companies were obsessed with protecting wired connections to their networks. Then, the focus shifted almost exclusively to wireless connections. And now, users are hammering the network with more diverse devices than ever, looking for a network connection.
What’s the solution? Aruba Networks has developed several new technologies to ensure that network access is easy for users, no matter their technology, while corporate infrastructure remains secure.
Recently, the company launched a new series of Power over Ethernet (PoE) switches designed to provide secure, role-based network access for users, no matter their location, device or application. The Aruba S3500 Mobility Access Switch is a wired access switch, which authenticates users and their devices the same way wireless access points already do in thousands of organizations. As a result, there is no need to manage and provision separate policies for wireless and wired access.
These wired access switches are especially useful for companies that need to manage the safety and security of every single connection, whether wired or wireless. These might include military offices, medical offices and brokerage houses. When a user plugs into a wired jack on site, they can be recognized as a guest and only allowed a connection to the Internet – and not inside the network.
In addition, Aruba is greatly enhancing the number of wireless gadgets it supports. When a user’s device reaches out to the network, Aruba can validate the device type, ask for user login information, and authenticate the user. It can even determine the user’s location.
All of this is accomplished with Aruba’s Mobile Virtual Enterprise (MOVE) architecture. MOVE makes access privileges available based on user, device, application and location. All of these factors are examined to decide what kind of network access the user is entitled to have.
As a result, the entire mobile enterprise workforce has consistent, secure access to the appropriate network resources based on who they are – no matter where they are, what device they’re using or how they’re connected.
Aruba has embraced the handheld world, allowing for each authentication of iPhones, Blackberries, Droids, iPads and other mobile devices. This offers several benefits for devices whose knowledge workers rely on smartphones and tablets. For example, in a medical office, doctors with easy network access are more likely to perform medical coding on-the-fly during patient exams. The upside? Studies have shown that physicians do a dramatically better job than a clerk coding various medical procedures, which speeds the billing and collections process along with insurance companies.
Posted on Tue, May 10, 2011 @ 09:00 AM
This blog first appeared on Best in UC.
“Don’t touch that wire! It might void your warranty.”
That’s just one of the many understandable fears businesses have about their phone systems. When a problem comes up or the system goes down, the options are rarely attractive. You can delve into the issue yourself in hopes of saving money, but rarely have enough information to diagnose and solve the problem. Or, you can call in your integrator and pray for quick service.
As an integrator, we are always happy to provide fast, reliable maintenance to our customers. After all, that’s part of how we make a living.
But we also recognize that many customers prefer to take a do-it-yourself approach, when possible. Thanks to ShoreTel, DIY phone maintenance is a reality for many of our clients.
ShoreTel Director offers a single, centralized view of the phone system via a Web browser. This is the same interface that our clients use to manage features like voicemail, automated attendant, adding and dropping lines, and more. ShoreTel Director also provides proactive maintenance. In a single screen, Director provides a view of the entire phone system, including indicators of any problem areas. When a critical issue arises, Director will even automatically email one or more administrators of the phone system.
Director sends a heartbeat out to every device on the network. If a signal is not received back, that device is taken out of service and a notification is immediately sent to the administrator. At the same time, traffic that would have gone to that device is re-routed to an available resource. This built-in redundancy prevents downtime while the administrator fixes the problem.
As a result, clients can see, diagnose and fix service issues without ever picking up a phone to call us. In fact, they can solve phone outages before anyone else in the office has had time to notice – or complain. Internally, this creates customer satisfaction levels that are sky-high.
In addition, ShoreTel’s System Monitor provides even more in-depth network monitoring. System Monitor provides daily, weekly, monthly and yearly information. It can localize errors and even expose the likely cause of these aberrations. It then makes suggestions for correcting the problems.
System Monitor sends out a Daily Network Weather Report, which shows the status of the network and helps prioritize daily administrator activities. Finally, ShoreTel System Monitor collects utilization and error information across the network to identify potential problems that may impact VoIP call quality.
With these tools, clients have more choices. By diagnosing the problem in real-time, they can determine what repairs are needed and understand any service costs in advance. Plus, they will know which repairs they can make themselves, and when they need to call in an expert. This time-saver and budget-saver is a ShoreTel advantage, and one our customers love.
Posted on Mon, May 09, 2011 @ 09:00 AM
This blog first appeared on Best in UC.
Video conferencing isn’t just for big corporations any more.
Over the past several years, video conferencing technologies have grown much more affordable. Today, small businesses, schools and not-for-profits can at last afford to leap into video conferencing. Yet there is still a misconception among many that this technology is best left to large corporate boardrooms.
For smaller organizations, video conferencing can provide immediate benefits by lowering costs, improving communication and even driving revenue. Here are just a few examples:
- Training across multiple offices. Human resources personnel and sales managers often need to provide training programs to several locations. This can be the case at many types of organizations including schools, small and mid-sized businesses and more. Rather than spending the time and money to travel from office to office, the trainer can conduct a single session video video conference with all offices. Participants can ask and answer questions in real time. Best of all, the trainer can actually see his students and know whether they are engaged – or texting, typing and working on other projects.
- Flexible training and communication times. Sometimes, it’s impossible to get a team together at the same time. Salespeople are on the go, workers are booked into conference calls and meetings, and teachers are tied to the classroom. With video conferencing, a manager or trainer can record a session that is later viewed by anyone with Internet access. Simply walk into the room, look into the camera and hit record. If you make a mistake, start over. When you’re finished, send a link to the team. They can click and watch at their convenience, and everyone will receive the training or communication they need. This particular application is great for sales, healthcare, and any organization with a large team that needs to hear a message from the top.
- Everyone gets there on time, with ease. One of our clients is a school district that required its department heads to gather at one location for a weekly meeting. Unfortunately, the end-of-day rush combined with traffic gridlock ensured that many teachers were missing or significantly late each time. By video conferencing in real time, teachers can stay in their own building, be prompt, and avoid the hassles and rush of traffic. Then, if needed, they can head back to the classroom after the meeting to put in more work before the day is through. Productivity rises, and everyone can still interact as needed.
The possibilities are endless. With a small investment in video conferencing equipment, your business can find its own ways to make life easier, more productive, and more profitable.
Posted on Fri, May 06, 2011 @ 09:00 AM
This blog first appeared on Best in UC.
ShoreTel has been awarded the five-star designation in CRN’s Partner Programs Guide for the second consecutive year. CRN’s Partner Programs Guide and 5-Star Partner ratings serve as the definitive list of vendors who have robust partner programs or products that solution providers offer directly to the IT channel.
ShoreTel’s channel strategy is 100 percent indirect. Within its global two-tier distribution strategy, ShoreTel’s Champion Partner Program features a reasonable cost of entry, fast return on investment and a high customer close rate to drive reseller partner profitability and success.
By providing world-class support to its partners, ShoreTel also gives its end users a better experience and ensures better service, from the buy through installation and maintenance.
“The companies listed on the 2011 Partner Programs Guide represent the best channel programs in the market today. Of those, only a few get our five-star award, based on their commitment to the channel, breadth of program offerings and services offered to their partners. We congratulate ShoreTel for earning yet another five-star honor and in driving business opportunities and revenue among their channel partners,” said Kelley Damore, vice president and editorial director for Everything Channel’s CRN.
This honor builds on several prominent awards and distinctions that ShoreTel has recently received for its ongoing commitment to the channel and reseller partners. Last month, ShoreTel’s director for worldwide channel marketing, Annette Lorenz, was named a CRN Channel Chief for her role in building a successful and profitable channel partner program. CRN also highlighted ShoreTel as one of their “2011 Need To Know: UC & VoIP Vendors” and recognized the ShoreTel Voice Switch 50 as “VoIP Product of the Year” for 2010.
“ShoreTel’s commitment to our partners provides the opportunity to build a profitable business with world-class products and customer satisfaction ratings, as well as the most competitive programs and tools available,” said Tom Hamilton, senior director of worldwide channels at ShoreTel. “We are honored to be distinguished with CRN’s five-star designation for the second year in a row and value this affirmation of our partner commitment and success.”
Posted on Thu, May 05, 2011 @ 12:59 PM
This blog first appeared on Best in UC.
We hear the mantras from hardware and software vendors, as they encourage our clients to:
- “move to the cloud”
- “get real-time business intelligence”
- “own less, do more”
- “drive revenue by enabling real-time collaboration”
There are valid strategies and concepts beneath the marketing veneer of these catch-phrases, but what is the foundation for even considering these pitches? How does a small business or mid-sized enterprise evaluate if there is any relevant meaning attached to these calls to action?
My recent experience with a sharp-minded CIO of a regional company provided a good example of how to evaluate and navigate the myriad of options when considering network architecture and communications strategy.
The problem: A mechanical engineering firm with offices in multiple cities faced what at first was an annoyance. The company’s phone system had required expensive upgrades, yet it still was not fully reliable. Plus, the system lacked intelligence-gathering to provide reporting on call volumes, peak calling times and worker productivity.
No big deal, right? Except that occasionally, the company lost the phone system for a short time. It didn’t communicate with the e-mail system, and the company didn’t know what it was missing in regard to call reporting and CRM integration. Meanwhile, the focus of the company’s IT infrastructure had been on other applications, which had been moved to a data center. The phone system was aging, but not a priority.
However, the relatively new CIO immediately recognized that while this was obviously a mechanical engineering firm, more importantly it was a sales organization. The majority of the personnel weren’t in accounting, human resources, administration, or management. They were salespeople.
Sales for the organization required soliciting and investigating multiple opportunities by talking on the phone and advancing to the proposal stage largely via e-mail. Vaguely familiar with the details of VoIP phone systems, the CIO sought information on ShoreTel to compare against other systems. (He had a managed/hosted system with Cisco phones in one location.) Also, in thinking of VoIP, he reflexively thought of the data center to provide hardware redundancy and failover connectivity to keep the phone system up.
Thus, the CIO identified “phones and e-mail” as the company’s critical applications. He did not focus on CRM, ERP, or developing internal applications (although he came from the software developer-world), but simply communications. On the surface, ShoreTel, among others, seemed like a good fit. It was VoIP with rich integration, and its ease of management meant he could delegate to one of his managers. Most of all, the idea of VoIP as simply an application that runs across your LAN/WAN became clear. Moreover, it was a critical application, even more so than their CRM and ERP.
This may seem obvious, but not all IT professionals would feel the same way given the same environment. A lot of times, we tend to focus on our strengths at the expense of other projects or areas that are behind the technology curve.
The solution was two-fold:
- ShoreTel could provide reporting and redundancy that integrated with the company’s e-mail, CRM, and network.
- The company could utilize SIP trunking for cost savings, supporting their MPLS, along with analog back-up for failover. As a result, the company could connect six sites together with only one ShoreTel management interface.
After initially discussing the existing infrastructure and some options, our engineers sat down to discuss the ShoreTel solution, network architecture, and a range of strategies. In a three-hour session, we were able to identify exactly how to leverage the data center and existing network to massively increase information flow. We also determined the next steps to test equipment and deploy the solution.
The benefit: When factoring in the cost of upgrades and maintenance to the phone system, current call trunks, and potential productivity gains, the company determined it could implement superior ShoreTel technology to improve connectivity, provide redundancy, and satisfy management’s need for solid ROI.
Now, a small regional company with several offices has its critical applications integrated to provide incredible connectivity between their clients, prospects and sales team. Plus, with ShoreTel N+1 redundancy, their up-time will be virtually 100 percent. Also, any time a customer calls, their client or prospect information pops up on the sales or engineering personnel’s computer screen, giving meaning to the phrase “business intelligence.” Voicemail is delivered to smartphones and desktops, and management understands who is calling, when, how often, and why – more business intelligence.
Ultimately, the goal was achieved. The CIO and his staff do not have to spend time micro-managing or reacting to phone system failure and shortcomings, salespeople never miss a call, management sees the immediate benefit, and the critical applications are integrated. Also, the ShoreTel Operator Console makes it easy for the four administrators to handle multiple calls.
IT professionals are literally barraged with slogans, new-speak technology nomenclature, and utopian promises. In the end, it is all about how you choose to look at your existing world and how you can make it better and more profitable. The catch-phrases don’t matter.
Posted on Wed, May 04, 2011 @ 12:44 PM
Ordered by The governor of California Jerry Brown, for all state employees “No travel, either in-state or out-of-state, is permitted unless it is mission critical or there is no cost to the state. Exec.Order B-06-11
Meetings can be conducted by phone or videoconference.
It is estimated that by 2013 Videoconferencing in most companies will increase by 75%.
Xtelesis HD videoconferencing solutions is a green product for the government. We are a certified small business and one of the top Video Conferencing Resellers in the state of California for “Lifesize®Video Center” and “Vidyo.com”. We are known for our proven expert engineers and account executives. In addition we carry the CMAS certificate for any government contracts.
Videoconferencing has come a long way since its infancy in the early 1980’s, when a high speed digital channel was only 56Kbps which could cause an audio delay of a few seconds. Which meant what you would see on the screen was a talking head with moving lips but no sound. The sound would catch up a few seconds later.
Now with much larger bandwidth and immersive technologies, Videoconferencing is on the forefront of technology and very much needed by the government and business communities. Everyone is communicating using their phones, desktops, iPads, etc. Most of these methods are platform independent allowing more and more users onboard.
Other factors contributing to the growth of Videoconferencing are sky-high gasoline prices, over crowded highways filled with stressed-out employees traveling to and from work and meetings, high airfares and jet-lagged employees. There is no doubt that Videoconferencing would increase company productivity. It is precisely these benefits and more that would give the Government a green solution.
While Free options like Skype and Google are available. They are not for companies and government agencies that are conducting critical business, requiring secure networks and their employees’ and customers’ undivided attention. Companies may have several locations or customers a few miles away, in different states or even globally as many financial enterprises do. Saving on airfare, plus saving the added personal wear and tear of traveling to different time zones, getting to and from airports is another major consideration favoring Videoconferencing.
What if some attendees are unable to attend a video conference? Live feeds or Live Streaming from “LifeSize®Video Center” let users upload a Hi-Definition video conference so they can watch it on demand anywhere on any device.
Recently, Massachusetts General Hospital installed “Vidyo’s” Hi-Definition Videoconferencing Technology for the Hospital’s telestroke center and their
state-of-the-art secure remote doctor-to-patient and doctor-to-doctor telehealth system.
You can depend on Xtelesis and our partners such as Vidyo’s (Hi-Definition videoconferencing technology), and LifeSize (Life-feed and life-streaming solutions for on-demand access), to optimize the benefits of videoconferencing for your organization.