https://ucstrategies.com/rss/comments_all.aspxUnified Communications Strategies - An industry resource for enterprises, vendors, and system integrators. https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/mobile-multi-modal-customer-self-services-less-talk-and-more-action.aspx#comments In 2016, Genesys purchased Interactive Intelligence. For more information on this acquisition, please click here: https://www.genesys.com/ Wed, 10 Jan 2018 13:46:04 GMT Amanda Moore https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/mobile-multi-modal-customer-self-services-less-talk-and-more-action.aspx?guid=2274#comments Comments https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/net-neutrality-dead.aspx#comments Australian Investment Education https://australianinvestmenteducation.com.au/how-to-invest-in-shares/ Tue, 19 Dec 2017 18:52:32 GMT AIE Company https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/net-neutrality-dead.aspx?guid=2273#comments Comments https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/net-neutrality-dead.aspx#comments An alternative view "With Net Neutrality, the overall experience of VoIP has been generally good on the network." Hmm, voice and video worked over the Internet prior to early 2015/Net Neutrality, so the FCC's recent vote does not mean the end of VoIP as we know it. The demands on the Internet infrastructure and thus on ISPs has radically changed in recent years. Streamed media breaks the 200:1 over-subscription model that held true for browsing - and VoIP works because it's a rounding error; by contrast streamed media is not. Providing excess overhead is fine in-building where the cost of cabling is ostensibly the same regardless of speed, but over long distances it has never been the same and vendors have been enabling service providers to provided tiered traffic for decades as a consequence: ATM, MPLS, SD-WAN. Net Neutrality forces all Internet users to pay for streaming media bandwidth, even if they don't use it. And as the use of streaming media increases, everyone's costs will have to go up. However, enabling those providers and consumers of streaming media to request appropriate treatment for their traffic seems quite logical. And for the ISPs to create a tiered service to meet those demands also seems reasonable - and to charge more for that seems equally reasonable. Where Net Neutrality has it right, is the significance of the Internet does mean the FCC should require a minimum level of Internet access that is equally available to everyone - the best effort service that the Internet has always provided. But the FCC should not prevent those who want premium services for paying for that right, so that those of us who don't want it, don't have to. That means ISPs should be able to charge more for premium services, but only while providing the best effort service we enjoy today - and have always enjoyed, irrespective of FCC rulings. Tiered pricing by feature and use is the norm for services, and should be fo Fri, 15 Dec 2017 10:13:01 GMT Alan MacLeod https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/net-neutrality-dead.aspx?guid=2272#comments Comments https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/net-neutrality-dead.aspx#comments I agree with you to some extent VOIP could be impacted without Net Neutrality. Its a complex issue and like you said a range of arguments on both sides. But what the issue boils down to for me is based on historical evidence and fact when government gets involved. History shows that the federal government does not solve problems. They artificially inflate them or create them in order to slowly insert the federal bureaucracy for control-power and to regulate. And while most of our representatives have good intentions at the onset of these bills it usually morphs into something that's does not address its original intentions. Patriot Act, Dodd Frank, ACA, sky rocketing college costs caused Gov subsidies, etc.etc. only a couple examples. I think the bigger concern in a free internet is not having a free internet because of government involvement. Government is the only organization with the unlimited resources, money and influence to assert itself to control a free internet. And once the government asserts itself it never pulls out. Let the ISPs and content providers compel users to value their services or content in an open free market. So I will give up my VOIP QOS for a free internet. Fri, 15 Dec 2017 08:44:54 GMT Brooks Bailey https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/net-neutrality-dead.aspx?guid=2270#comments Comments https://ucstrategies.com/white-papers/a-hybrid-approach-to-cloud-communications-white-paper.aspx#comments It's a great read! The publisher "Interactive Intelligence" are really an authority on this subject. I came across another white paper on the topic which may intrust fellow readers. Here is the link: https://www.ciowhitepapersreview.com/cloud/hybrid-cloud-storage-60.html Wed, 13 Dec 2017 05:54:59 GMT ron williams https://ucstrategies.com/white-papers/a-hybrid-approach-to-cloud-communications-white-paper.aspx?guid=2269#comments Comments https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/getting-started-with-robotic-automation.aspx#comments It’s important to understand that RPA takes on a very different role depending on the process and the industry. Across various industries such as finance, insurance, legal, media, primary infrastructure, hospitality and utilities, RPA is being used to automate mundane, high volume, and time consuming processes. These can include various tasks such as order and AP processing, HR, data audits and migration, service job entry and invoicing. Consequently, RPA is reshaping the ways these organizations can operate and their efficiency levels. Read more about RPA and how it impacts digital transformation on our blog: https://www.cigen.com.au/cigenblog/link-between-robotic-process-automation-digital-transformation Wed, 06 Dec 2017 06:56:05 GMT Oliver Harris https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/getting-started-with-robotic-automation.aspx?guid=2268#comments Comments https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/getting-started-with-robotic-automation.aspx#comments Nice Concept Explain about the Robotics. https://www.orienit.com/courses/rpa-training-in-hyderabad Wed, 06 Dec 2017 03:49:02 GMT ohhani baek https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/getting-started-with-robotic-automation.aspx?guid=2267#comments Comments https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/robotic-automation-what-it-is-and-why-you-should-care.aspx#comments Informative read on the why and what of Robotic Process Automation (RPA).. Good pointers.. Tue, 05 Dec 2017 21:44:41 GMT Option3.io Consulting https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/robotic-automation-what-it-is-and-why-you-should-care.aspx?guid=2266#comments Comments https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/the-case-for-ending-anonymity-strong-authentication-and-granting-permission.aspx#comments The lack of Identity, or more accurately, the lack of verification of identity is undermining the very bedrock of society as you say - but its hardly fair to blame social media. Social media is just the latest platform - spying has relied on anonymity and fake identities for 100s if not 1000s of years. When it comes to the online world, email identities have been unverified for as long as we've had public email servers, and we had anonymous chat rooms before that. I'm not sure we have the technologies yet either. Biometrics are good for local verification, i.e. between you and the device/service to which you've shared your biometric, but it doesn't make for a good "general" verification in an online world, yet. PKI has relied on verified identities and has largely landed in a solid place in terms of the initial verification, but ultimately certificates are for services: the business model and technology doesn't scale to humans and devices. Where we have "got it right" is the protocols that rely on that trust. Hashing and encryption are all good enough, as long as we continue to evolve the algorithms as flaws are discovered - but we've yet to address the identity issue. While I agree, Identity is the root of trust, its also important to understand that trust is the root of identity. Only if we can trust the source of verification, can we trust the identity and thus trust the identified. Its no different human to human - if you can absolutely identify the person you are interacting with - then the level of trust is established. If someone you trust vouches for someone else, then the level of trust can be established - apart from that, its down to your ability to assess the risk. And while we don't have a valid trust model, we need to rely on ourselves, and sadly, that is the thing that social media is really exposing, we're so busy reacting and posting, we forget to think and analyze and "check our source Mon, 04 Dec 2017 07:52:38 GMT Alan MacLeod https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/the-case-for-ending-anonymity-strong-authentication-and-granting-permission.aspx?guid=2265#comments Comments https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/cisco-ai-emerges.aspx#comments Great POV! Whilst I think AI has a long, long way to go, it is the future. What we can learn from simple pattern matching within an organization would be transformative. When blended with Siri/Alexa/Spark and WebRTC/SIP I think we will see the emergence of new communication apps and providers (Telco's are you reading). When you can say, "Alexa call Dad" or "call the bedroom" what do you need a carrier for? Transformative change is coming! Mon, 27 Nov 2017 09:34:07 GMT Bennet Bayer https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/cisco-ai-emerges.aspx?guid=2263#comments Comments https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/blackberry-update-were-not-dead.aspx#comments Spot on Otto! I would augment with a disagreement, the "resource" of his executive team is a shadow of what it was. Sadly, in my dealings the Canadian executives were the ones exhibiting the RIM arrogance which got this company into so much trouble. Perhaps time to split the company based on the standalone abilities. Mon, 20 Nov 2017 15:59:33 GMT Bennet Bayer https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/blackberry-update-were-not-dead.aspx?guid=2262#comments Comments https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/blackberry-update-were-not-dead.aspx#comments While I agree with your assessment of John Chen there are plenty of shortcomings in your article: 1. "..it may be able to work its way back in the MDM market..": BlackBerry already is #2 behind Airwatch in the MDM market 2. "..QNX? I still don’t know understand what that has to do with anything, so it’s probably time to say “goodbye...": Really? QNX is currently among the leading car OS (installed in over 60 million cars) and could become the backbone of autonomous driving if executed correctly 3. You forgot to mention some other growth areas of BlackBerry: - BBM consumer (competes with WeChat and Line) - AtHoc (competes with Everbridge) - BBM Enterprise (competes with Slack and Twilo) - BlackBerry RADAR (competes with Verizion`s fleet management operations) - 40,000 patents When the different divisions of BlackBerry would be valued based on a standalone basis like its competitors you would get a market cap north of $20 billion. The problem is that John Chen might be a good numbers and operational manager, but is really bad when it comes to representing BlackBerry and its products Fri, 17 Nov 2017 23:28:00 GMT Otto Schmid https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/blackberry-update-were-not-dead.aspx?guid=2261#comments Comments https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/robotic-automation-what-it-is-and-why-you-should-care.aspx#comments Nicolas, great overview, well done, I look forward to the next part. The light-bulb for BPA went on for me when providing solutions by Interactive Intelligence, and ININ introduced their BPA (IPA actually) component - a great option and adjunct - but I too have been surprised at the low rate of adoption. But it looks like that is changing now. Great news! -Steve Thu, 09 Nov 2017 09:33:44 GMT Steve Hofer https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/robotic-automation-what-it-is-and-why-you-should-care.aspx?guid=2260#comments Comments https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/cisco-and-broadsoft-does-it-make-sense.aspx#comments Phil, Could this have been a defensive move by Cisco? 3% of your cash is not a high cost to defend against Google, who could expand their market penetration by combing Google Doc's with a market leading voice app. Wed, 25 Oct 2017 14:53:12 GMT Ray Maccani https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/cisco-and-broadsoft-does-it-make-sense.aspx?guid=2259#comments Comments https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/cisco-and-broadsoft-does-it-make-sense.aspx#comments I like your take Phil; however, it's a lot to pay for replicating most of what they have. Is this market increasing over time? Doubt it. Who sells it and why? Impact to Cisco partners, other than losing share they are losing to Microsoft? What about that learning curve. And support...we assume Broadsoft will move over but Cisco has a history of mucking this up. Cisco has been in this game from mid-90's and never really made it work. I would have though investment in a B/OSS player more complimentary to other aspects of the business, especially IoT. How does this complement WebEx? As you said, only a small percentage of cash, but were I running the Cisco business I would have loved $1.7bn and found a way to build in multi-tenant capabilities. Meanwhile, UC is still waiting to "arrive" and VoIP is losing share to mobile, especially on a global basis. Wed, 25 Oct 2017 09:59:11 GMT Bennet Bayer https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/cisco-and-broadsoft-does-it-make-sense.aspx?guid=2258#comments Comments https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/many-cautions-for-the-2017-gartner-magic-quadrant-for-unified-communications-as-a-service-ucaas-mq-worldwide.aspx#comments Great review of the Gartner 2017 UCaaS Magic Quadrant. Your analysis and articulation of the issues affecting different sizes, needs, configurations and geographic reach of organizations is excellent. My takeaway is that what our industry needs is a more focused tool than the current MQ. Really what I think we need is multiple focused tools that apply to different organizational use cases. An example could be at least four Magic Quadrants. The global Quadrant is a great model but many organizations could benefit from a large enterprise quadrant, a SMB enterprise quadrant and even a SMB quadrant. This type of content specialization may have an entrepreneurial value in that it would categorize, focus and therefor simplify the UCaaS partner selection process for different types and sizes of organizations. I doubt that Gartner will cover the entire market of organizational use cases which leaves a void in the market for analytical information for a consultancy to fill. Our peers are probably best suited to that opportunity. Perhaps a dialog should be initiated at the BC Summit. Tue, 19 Sep 2017 14:48:52 GMT John Lambert https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/many-cautions-for-the-2017-gartner-magic-quadrant-for-unified-communications-as-a-service-ucaas-mq-worldwide.aspx?guid=2247#comments Comments https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/many-cautions-for-the-2017-gartner-magic-quadrant-for-unified-communications-as-a-service-ucaas-mq-worldwide.aspx#comments Great insights. No Gartner MQ is one-size-fits-all, no matter what suppliers in the coveted 'upper right' would like customers to think. Mon, 18 Sep 2017 08:49:09 GMT Lorna Garey https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/many-cautions-for-the-2017-gartner-magic-quadrant-for-unified-communications-as-a-service-ucaas-mq-worldwide.aspx?guid=2246#comments Comments https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/many-cautions-for-the-2017-gartner-magic-quadrant-for-unified-communications-as-a-service-ucaas-mq-worldwide.aspx#comments Right, Blair. Also, note the list of "Notable USaaS Vendors" later in the Gartner UCaaS MQ:  Bell Canada  CenturyLink  Evolve IP  Interoute  Jive Communications  Tata Communications  Telstra  Atos (Unify)  Vodafone  Vonage The one I've had the most experience with is Vonage Business, who has a very impressive offer including network connectivity to small offices of a nationwide 'retail' sector company and including some very mature tools for deployment and operational management. Sat, 16 Sep 2017 07:03:28 GMT Marty Parker https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/many-cautions-for-the-2017-gartner-magic-quadrant-for-unified-communications-as-a-service-ucaas-mq-worldwide.aspx?guid=2245#comments Comments https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/many-cautions-for-the-2017-gartner-magic-quadrant-for-unified-communications-as-a-service-ucaas-mq-worldwide.aspx#comments Great perspective, Marty! I totally agree that this MQ is aimed at large multinational enterprises, and omits many vendors that are more regional or target SMBs and mid-sized companies. There are some great UCaaS providers that don't make this list because they don't have infrastructure in Asia, for example. Companies like Nextiva, Fonality, and many others have great offerings especially for SMBs, and should be considered as well. Fri, 15 Sep 2017 14:33:46 GMT Blair Pleasant https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/many-cautions-for-the-2017-gartner-magic-quadrant-for-unified-communications-as-a-service-ucaas-mq-worldwide.aspx?guid=2244#comments Comments https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/calling-all-centrex-users-your-cloud-solution-is-dead-part-2.aspx#comments I would stay with Centrex. I care about call quality, reliability, and feature robustness, five 9s, and the 911 capabilities that come with digital wireline -- circuit seizure, ringback, ROH treatment, security, privacy. Centrex even had AAB keys (auto answer back) which could be useful in 911 situations. If a 911 dispatcher called you back, the phone would answer and go into speakerphone mode on its own. All I hear about VoIP is cost savings -- replace what is perceived to be an older technology with a newer one that is from 1981, is "best effort", and has less features in the voice arena. TDM had "dialable wideband" for videoconferencing. Find Me Follow Me was there, as was Meet Me. Bell's customers got burned with Polycom VVX and their cloud solution. I don't blame customers for not wanting to get off what works and what meets their needs. They're not using even 1/4 of the fancy stuff that's in there. Nortel's Meridian Centrex "p-phones" (ie. Meridian 5316) are actually analog voice with a supervisory signal at 8 kHz to a special p-phone line card in the DMS office -- amplitude shift keying, at a whopping 1 kilobit per second (you can't hear it because of low pass filters). Those phones will outlive us all. I have seen them in service for 27 years straight (since 1990) without ever needing service, like their M2616 twins in the Option x1 world. We had Centrex IP in 2001 with the i2004s (they were purple by the way), and later, the 1140E Unistim sets. Where were you guys then? Time Compression Multiplexing, Time Division Multiplexing, and UDP/IP are all roughly the same age. UDP/IP is 1981. To the phone, TCM didn't happen until 1985. IP was around then -- it was never designed for real time transport. Look at the Option 11 PBXs that ran on VxWorks, for time sensitive applications. The other form of Centrex was through their ISDN BRI sets which were digital to the phone and co Wed, 13 Sep 2017 00:17:38 GMT Dominic B https://ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/calling-all-centrex-users-your-cloud-solution-is-dead-part-2.aspx?guid=2243#comments Comments