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Microsoft OCS 14 Release Candidate — Microsoft Lync — Available Today

Posted by Henry Dewing on September 13, 2010

  • 290 Recommendations
Henry Dewing

It was common knowledge that Microsoft was releasing a new version of its communications and collaboration suite this year, but behind the traditional development cycle, the Microsoft marketing machine was operating at full speed as well. The name “Communications” has been replaced by “Lync” broadly across the traditional OCS product line, reflecting in my opinion, the fact that enterprise communications and collaboration is all about linking the people, processes, and thoughts that drive creativity. I am fond of saying that there is the verb “to collaborate” (what humans do to create new and better ideas together) and the noun “collaboration” (what many tech vendors sell in the form of collaboration platform software). By adopting the name Lync, I believe that Microsoft is taking to heart the requirement for communications software to link people, processes, and ideas, while SharePoint remains the place where those ideas are stored and shared on enterprise networks for companies that have adopted Microsoft’s unified communications and collaboration (UC&C) products broadly.

 

Beyond the name, I believe that the most compelling news is that Microsoft is now getting serious about its Microsoft Lync Server being ready to replace the private branch exchange (PBX). Many Microsoft execs — from Gurdeep Singh Pall, corporate vice president for the Office Communications Group, through BJ Haberkorn, OCS senior product manager responsible for voice — have spent extensive time telling me about the reliability and scalability of Microsoft’s voice services within its UC&C solutions. Microsoft continues to expand its feature set to compete robustly with other communications vendors. New capabilities of the Microsoft Lync Server include:

  • Rich presence providing access to things like location or user skills.
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Sprint Stakes A Claim In The 4G Wireless Network Market Using WiMax

Posted by Michele Pelino on August 22, 2010

  • 234 Recommendations
Michele Pelino

During the past few months, telecom service providers including AT&T, Sprint and Verizon have highlighted their roadmaps and deployment plans for 4G network technologies. These 4G technologies include Long-Term Evolution (LTE) and WiMax networks. Enterprises in North America and Europe are in the early stages of 4G network adoption based on results from Forrester’s SMB and Enterprise Networks and Telecommunication survey. Approximately 4% of surveyed enterprises currently implement or are expanding their implementation of fixed or mobile WiMax networks, and 3% of firms are implementing or expanding their implementation of LTE networks. These implementation percentages are expected to increase as the service providers pursue their 4G deployment initiatives.  

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Cisco: Wall-To-Wall Video

Posted by Henry Dewing on August 20, 2010

  • 274 Recommendations
Henry Dewing

When Cisco first announced its intent to acquire TANDBERG in October of last year, I talked about how that acquisition was about much more than just video. I still believe that this single event represents the beginning of the converged (audio, video, and Web) conferencing era; but the combined company has indeed been on a streak of video activities. In 2010, Cisco has made more than a dozen video-related announcements about new products and capabilities, including TelePresence Exchange hosting by partners, the Cius HD video-capable collaboration device, new interoperability capabilities delivered via its proposed Telepresence Interoperability Protocol and Intercompany Media Engine, new home DVR capabilities delivered by Cox using Cisco set-top boxes , the Flip SlideHD video camera, video networking for NBC at the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, as well as the use of telepresence by ESPN at the FIFA World Cup in South Africa.

 On top of all this video activity, I was recently briefed by Cisco about its new business solution for video (Cisco Prosumer Video) based on the Cisco Flip MinoPRO video camera, and I was struck by two things

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Polycom And Microsoft Announce Strategic UC&C Plans

Posted by Henry Dewing on August 9, 2010

Henry Dewing

Today (August 9, 2010) Microsoft and Polycom made public their future-looking plans to continue to work together to develop and deliver unified communications and collaboration (UC&C) solutions. The two companies have worked together for some time in the UC&C market, for example:

  • Polycom has long designed and sold universal serial bus (USB) and voice over IP (VoIP) phones tuned for Microsoft’s Office Communications Server (OCS) server.
  • Polycom CX5000 began life as the Microsoft RoundTable.
  • The two companies were joined by HP, Juniper Networks, and Logitech/LifeSize Communications as founding members of the Unified Communications Interoperability Forum (visit UCIF at www.UCIF.org)

So what’s different and why the public announcement? The two companies are making plain their intent to work together in a strategic fashion.

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Software AG On The Critical Path

Posted by Stefan Ried on August 3, 2010

Stefan Ried

Software AG announced today a significant change in their executive structure. After the acquisition of webMethods back in 2007, the second largest software vendor in Germany acquired IDS Scheer last year, at topic we explored already in this report. 

If you follow Software AG over this time, you might realize that the way CEO Karl-Heinz Streibich runs a post merger process may involve dramatic disruptions in the executive structure of the company. Dave Mitchell, the former webMethods CEO left some months after that acquisition. Today, the Chief Product Officer, Dr. Peter Kürpick surprisingly left the company. Peter was a member of the executive board since 2005, and, although his contract officially runs until 2013, he is leaving at his own request immediately. He stood for the successful turnaround of Software AG’s product strategy and repositioned Software AG from an outmoded mainframe shop into a leading global integration player. The successful merging of Software AG’s mainframe and integration know-how with the newer webMethods product stack into one interoperable integration stack was one of Peter’s major achievements. Peter also took over the responsibility for Software AG’s ETS (mainframe) product strategy after the integration business reached a solid stability. He would have had the skills and experience to create a consistent technology stack spanning from the mainframe over the WebMethods integration up to the business architecture tools of IDS Scheer (ARIS).

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ShoreTel Champions Conference – Brilliant Simplicity

Posted by Henry Dewing on July 23, 2010

  • 247 Recommendations
Henry Dewing

I’ve just returned from ShoreTel’s Partner Conference in San Diego, and while the weather was uncharacteristically gray, the executives were exceedingly bright. ShoreTel continues to capitalize on its SMB momentum with its “Brilliant Simplicity” tagline, emphasizing the ease of deployment of its solution for IT administrators, users, and buyers alike. ShoreTel executives were exuberant about their five straight quarters of revenue growth and committed to investing heavily in R&D and sales, highlighting current products (including the announcement of ShoreTel 11) and future directions for the company. Here are several significant items that ShoreTel stressed:

 

ShoreTel for IBM Lotus Foundations. Already available on the market for four months, this self-healing UCC appliance is easy to deploy, configure, and maintain. IBM has had problems developing market momentum with other partners — Mitel, NEC, and Nortel — but current CEO John Combs stressed that the value of the solution combined with the strength of ShoreTel’s partners would set it apart. I believe this appliance will be a winner.

 

ShoreTel Virtualization. Ed Basart, chief technology officer spoke about future ShoreTel deployments having the ability to be centralized or distributed depending on the customer’s unique communication patterns and needs as the software for server and switch components is ported to run on VMware. I think ShoreTel will do well to capitalize on the market interest in virtualization, and that capability will provide a calling card for ShoreTel at potential enterprise accounts as it continues to increase the potential scale of its solution.

 

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The partner opportunity in cloud computing - Microsoft WPC

Posted by James Staten on July 20, 2010

James Staten

What is the opportunity for Microsoft partners (or other VARs, SIs, ISVs and technologists) in the emerging cloud computing space? Don't think of cloud as a threat but as an opportunity to ratchet up your value to the business my evangelizing and encouraging their transition to the cloud. How? At the recent Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference I addressed this issue in an Expo Theater presentation. Missed it? Now you haven't:

Watch the video here.

Share your thoughts here by commenting below.

- James

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NTT Aims To Be An ICT Superpower

Posted by Henry Dewing on July 16, 2010

Henry Dewing

NTT is set to buy Dimension Data (DiData) for US$3.2 billion. For decades, customers have lamented their traditional telco service providers’ lack of IT integration depth — today, NTT appears to be putting its money where its customers want. Following in the footsteps of more focused deals like BT’s acquisition of Wire One or AT&T’s acquisition of VeriSign’s Global Security Consulting Business, the acquisition of Dimension Data signals NTT’s intent to be a superpower in worldwide information and communications technology (ICT) solutions delivery. But, make no mistake, it is still only a small acquisition for NTT — as one of only three telcos in the world with more than US$100 billion in revenues, the US$3.2 billion acquisition price will have only incremental effect on the firm’s balance sheet.

Other than the right to say NTT owns a highly respected global ICT integrator, what’s in the deal for NTT?

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Forrester Forrsights For Business Technology: Launch Of Enhanced Global Data Set On Cloud, M2M, Services, Mobility And More

Posted by Ellen Daley on July 16, 2010

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Ellen Daley

Every day, I chat with tech strategists about how they can stay ahead of a market that is shifting under their feet. We see from recent economic news that tech companies are leading the way through this recovery. In particular we are discussing the new models of delivery (cloud), the shifting buyer/influencer (business, IT AND the employee) and new technologies (new compute models, etc.). The buyer is the key to knowing what will happen in the next 5 years — not rearview shipment results. 

We have just launched Forrester’s Forrsights for Business Technology — our new global business data offering providing a 360-degree view of all buyers/influencers at firms (from 2 employees to global multi-nationals). Forrsights replaces and enhances our previous Business Data Services offering and is designed to help you predict and quantify tech industry growth and disruption.  

We made this change to orient our data insights around the questions that strategists need to answer:

  • “What is the global adoption rate of disruptive technologies like cloud computing, M2M, and virtualization?” . . . “How will this change over time?” . . . and “How do adoption rates vary by industry and around the world?”
  • “Who are the key influencers of major tech buying decisions?” . . . and “What are their priorities?”

You will see Forrester’s Forrsights data pop up in this blog from time-to-time, but if you’d like some more info right now, check out the Forrester Forrsights portion of our Web site. Let us know what data you need to help make your decisions!

Selling The Cloud

Posted by Stefan Ried on July 15, 2010

  • 233 Recommendations
Stefan Ried

Many cloud computing services in the consumer space are per se for free. Even sophisticated platform-as-a-service (PaaS) environments are coming from most vendors with a free sandbox environment and start charging finally the productive use. The obvious question I hear from many vendors today is how to monetize platforms and applications in the cloud. The situation for established ISVs of business applications can be even worse: The cloud might significantly cannibalize existing license revenue streams. Thus a transformation of existing business models and vendor strategy is anything but easy.

Addressing this challenge, I'd like to point you to a Forrester workshop “Selling The Cloud” on 30th September in London.

The workshop will focus on a evaluating your “cloud readiness” and consequently help develop your cloud strategy through the use of a self assessment tool. This is a great opportunity to learn an effective method for improving the business results of any migration to a cloud-based service. You can actually predict which, if any, of your products will be successful in a cloud deployment.

The workshop will be hosted by Stefan Ried, Senior Analyst at Forrester and in case you’re interested, here’s a Web page with an agenda: View Workshop Details.

You can register right on the site or, if you’d like more information, you can contact an Event Sales Representative at +1 888/343-6786 or events@forrester.com

You can also simply leave a comment to this blog, asking any question to the event agenda and value.

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