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Avaya
Book review
Cisco
Conferences
Forecast
IBM
MACs
NEC
Nortel
Unified communications

Avaya

Avaya names new CEO and pledges continued overhaul
Avaya has announced the appointment of Kevin Kennedy as president and CEO of the company with effect from January 2009. Kennedy is currently CEO of JDS Uniphase and is a member of its board of directors. He is also a member of the board of directors of Polycom and KLA-Tencor. Prior to joining JDSU, Kennedy served as COO of Openwave Systems and senior vice president at Cisco's business and software technologies division. Before that he worked for 17 years at AT&T Bell Laboratories. Avaya president and chief executive Charles Giancarlo will now become chairman of the board. Giancarlo took charge as president and CEO of the company when Lou D'Ambrosio stepped down as president and CEO due to medical reasons in June.

Avaya is pushing forward with a three-year overhaul it began by going private last year by improving operational efficiency and shifting product development to focus more on the needs of end users. The company is increasingly designing its products with usability and the ability to integrate with other applications in mind. In the first year of private ownership, Avaya has changed its entire sales structure, shifted its service management strategy, and begun to make changes in project development processes. Guiding Avaya through the next phase of its transition will be incoming CEO Kevin Kennedy. Kennedy and Giancarlo worked together at Cisco and know each other well. The next year will be marked by ironing out the wrinkles in the change in operations strategies and getting employees to “understand how to work within the environment.”
Visit www.avaya.com^Back To Top

Book review

Fax, Modem, and Text for IP Telephony
Since just about every IP telephony installation includes at least one fax machine and larger enterprise applications often include many fax machines, as well as modems and text telephony devices, it is important to understand that they cannot be treated like voice applications. In fact, they have different transport requirements and usually require unique transport protocols if communications are to be reliable. If you operate in a Cisco environment, this thorough and well-written book is a technical resource that should be on your bookshelf…when not in your hands.

Fax, Modem and Text for IP Telephony
Authors: David Hanes and Gonzalo Salguiero
Publisher: Cisco Press
ISBN-10: 1587052695
ISBN-13: 978-1587052699
Price: $55.00 ^Back To Top

Cisco

Cisco battles meltdown with mobile and video
Cisco CEO John Chambers claims to have a ‘playbook’ for coping with recessions, and two of its principles of survival are to prepare for the upturn in order to benefit more than rivals, and to use customers’ own pressures during the bad times to deepen relationships with them. Both of these principles will be tested in the company’s strengthening push into the wireless and converged carrier market, for which its new ASR 9000 edge router – designed for the ‘zettabyte era’ – is a flagship product. Cisco argues that carriers, in order to survive themselves, will have to progress towards all-IP networks, despite the investment required during lean times, as these networks will allow them to deliver attractive services such as video cost effectively. They will also cut their operating costs and will position them strongly for the recovery. The move to all-IP has always represented a natural opportunity for the internet router giant to make a stronger mark in the telecoms world, as the closed technologies dominated by Ericsson and others start to wane. So Cisco aims to exploit this opportunity at the earliest point, saying it will create long term strategic relationships with carriers by giving them an IP route through recession. In line with its playbook, it will invest particularly heavily in the US, which it believes will emerge first from recession, and in China and India, which should be the most resilient.
Visit www.cisco.com.
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Conferences

ITPX conference and trade show to meet needs of 10.7m Centrex customers
At the request of end users, the International Telecommunication Professionals Exchange (ITPX) has merged the former National Centrex Users Group into their annual Conference and Trade Show taking place March 23-26, 2009 in Las Vegas.  According to the Eastern Management Group there are over 10.7 million lines of Centrex in service in the United States.  The majority of lines are in government and large organizations.  Over 70% of the ITPX memberships are end users working in government and 20% are in higher education.  Knowledge on the migration of Centrex and integration with other systems like VoIP/IP has been lacking and will become a track within the annual conference and trade show.  Recognizing the buying power of this group, AT&T has signed as a Platinum Sponsor of ITPX 2009.  ITPX invites all VoIP/IP, Centrex, Telemanagement System, IVR, Messaging, Wireless, and Convergence Manufacturers, Service Providers and Solution Providers to reach these decision makers and showcase their services and solutions at the 2009 show.  Enhance the exhibit experience by becoming a presenter. 
Visit www.itpx.org.
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Forecast

Worldwide IT spending growth to slow significantly in 2009
Worldwide spending on information technology will slow significantly in 2009 as a direct result of the global financial crisis. According to a newly revised forecast from IDC, worldwide IT spending will grow 2.6% year over year in 2009, down from IDC's pre-crisis forecast of 5.9% growth. In the United States, IT spending growth is expected to be 0.9% in 2009, much lower than the 4.2% growth forecast in August. According to the report, titled "Economic Crisis Response: Worldwide IT Spending 2008-2012 Forecast Update," on a regional basis, spending growth in Japan, Western Europe and the United States will hover around 1% in 2009. By contrast, the emerging economies of Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Latin America will continue to experience healthy growth, but at levels notably lower than the double-digit gains previously forecast. On a sector basis, software and services will enjoy solid growth while hardware spending, with the exception of storage, is expected to decline in 2009.
Visit www.idc.com.
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IBM

IBM unveils resources to help entrepreneurs innovate
To help entrepreneurs tap the global marketplace, grow and harness new, intelligent technologies to their competitive advantage, IBM announced a variety of resources for entrepreneurs. The announcement is timed with IBM's sponsorship of Global Entrepreneurship Week -- an initiative taking place in 75 countries from November 17th through the 23rd -- designed to inspire, connect, inform, mentor and engage entrepreneurs. In collaboration with the World Bank's International Finance Corporation, IBM launched new resources and a Spanish language version of a web-based Small Business Toolkit tailored to women and Black, Hispanic, Native American and Asian owned businesses in the United States. Already available in 30 different sites and 16 languages, the toolkit provides entrepreneurs with the kind of professional human resource, legal, marketing, and finance-related information templates normally available to much larger companies. IBM is also putting entrepreneurs with the best business plans in touch with venture capitalists. As part of its Global Entrepreneurship Week "Digital Challenge," IBM is challenging participants to submit ideas for dynamic business models that will link venues on the 3D Internet to their real-world counterparts. Five finalists will be selected to present their business plan to a panel of venture capitalists chaired by IBM's Venture Capital Group during the Spring of 2009.
Visit www.unleashingideas.org or www.ibm.com.
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Moves, adds & changes

AVST promotes Tom Minifie to Chief Technology Officer
Applied Voice & Speech Technologies, Inc. (AVST) announced the promotion of Tom Minifie to the position of Chief Technology Officer (CTO). As AVST's CTO, Mr. Minifie's primary responsibility will be defining and driving the strategic direction of AVST's world class CallXpress product line. Prior to his promotion to CTO, Mr. Minifie served as the Vice President of Product Management for AVST since its inception in 2003. Additionally, the company announced that Martin McKendry has joined AVST's executive team as Senior Vice President of Research & Development (R&D). Mr. McKendry’s short term focus will be on managing the next release of CallXpress in 2009, as well as delivering expanded platform capabilities in the areas of mobility, presence and communications-enabled business processes. He has over two decades of experience in technology related organizations, most recently with Avaya, where in his position as Vice President, R&D, Unified Communications Division, he was responsible for the development functions associated with Avaya's Unified Communications product portfolio.
Visit www.avst.com. ^Back To Top

NEC

NEC and Tellme to offer on-demand voice services
NEC Unified Solutions, Inc. (NEC) and Tellme, a Microsoft subsidiary, announced an agreement to offer on-demand, customizable enterprise-class voice services. Through the agreement, NEC leverages its expertise in enterprise voice, contact centers and communications integration to bring to market innovative voice application services running on the Tellme platform. NEC and Tellme intend to provide end-to-end services from network planning and design through testing, tuning and ongoing customer support. NEC’s Advanced Applications Services group combines extensive knowledge of interactive voice response (IVR), speech technologies and systems integration to develop intuitive voice applications that optimize live agent call handling in contact centers. NEC’s deep knowledge in various vertical industries, including healthcare, hospitality, higher education and government, will also be key success factors in the relationship. Tellme's voice services platform, the world’s largest VoiceXML platform, handles billions of calls for Fortune 100 clients every year, providing carrier-grade reliability, superior speech technologies and on-demand capacity for managing call traffic spikes.
Visit www.necunified.com/partner/tellme.
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Nortel

Analyst: Nortel bankruptcy possible
Nortel may be considering cutting up to 5,000 jobs as part of its restructuring plan, according to market analysts.  Nortel will have to rely on asset sales to fund its battered operations, and risks running out of money and collapsing under its debt load before 2011, an analyst warned.  "Considering the worsening macro environment, Nortel's challenged industry position, and concerns related to liquidity while the capital markets are basically closed, we think bankruptcy is a distinct possibility down the road," RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Sue wrote in a note. Sue made the remarks days after Nortel posted a $3.4 billion loss and announced another round of sweeping cost cuts that included 1,300 layoffs, or about 5 percent of its 30,000-strong work force. The Toronto-based company is also trying to sell its Metro Ethernet Networks unit, which includes its optical and carrier ethernet technology, but has thus far been unable to find a buyer.
Visit www.nortel.com.
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Unified communications

Spanlink accelerates business communication with bundled UC solutions
Spanlink Communications introduced three pre-packaged UC solutions designed to give small to mid-sized businesses affordable, comprehensive and easy-to-manage collaborative communications solutions. Built on hardware and software solutions from Cisco Systems, the bundled offerings integrate collaboration tools such as email, voicemail, desktop video, fax, instant messaging and other communications capabilities, making it easier than ever to communicate with customers and colleagues. The SpanCom 50, SpanCom 200 and SpanCom 200Flex provide cost-effective options for businesses that want to simplify their telephony solution while still accessing advanced UC call and voicemail features. Each bundled offering is based on Cisco Unified Communications technologies and includes Cisco Unified Communications Manager, a powerful call processing solution, as well as Cisco Unity, an integrated voice messaging, greeting and interactive voice response solution.
Visit www.spanlink.com
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