Upcoming Meeting Notice


SAVE THE DATE:

ANNUAL USA CONFERENCE
JANUARY 21 - 24, 2009
Hard Rock Hotel - San Diego, CA

ANNUAL EUROPEAN CONFERENCE
JUNE 24 - 26, 2009
Park Hotel Amsterdam - Amsterdam, The Netherlands

(Click here for more information.)

NATD in the news
NATD website
ACUTA
Avaya
Book review
Hosted
MACs
Nortel
UC

NATD in the news

Computer and telecom resellers band together to fight counterfeit IT equipment flow
ASCDI and NATD appear before US Government Hearing
The Association of Service and Computer Dealers, International (ASCDI) and the North American Association of Telecommunications Dealers (NATD) have banded together in an effort to work with IT manufacturers and law enforcement to eliminate the increased flow of counterfeit equipment into the IT supply chain.

Background: In 2008, the ASCDI established a Counterfeit Task Force to establish a plan to identify and attack the flow of counterfeit equipment into the computer resale industry.  They were joined by the likes of IBM and the FBI in this effort.  In an effort to broaden the coalition the ASCDI invited the NATD to join the effort.

Recent events: A public hearing on a proposed federal rule to require government agencies to only accept bids from manufacturers or their authorized agents shutting out thousands of secondary market resellers in the process was held on Thursday, December 12th in Washington D.C.  The proposed rule change represents a seismic shift in the federal government’s acquisition practice affecting thousands suppliers of goods and services to the federal government.  A copy of the proposed ruling can be found at http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2008/E8-27275.htm. Most of the 100 people were in attendance at the hearing held at NASA Headquarters were employees of the federal agencies promoting the proposed rule change.  Six presentations were made by the following agencies or organizations: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (“NASA”); The Society of Automotive Engineers (“SEA”); The Department of Defense (“DOD”); The Department of Commerce; World Data Products, Inc.; ASCDI & NATD.
 
During 6 hours of testimony, no one challenged the need to eliminate counterfeit products.  Rather, the question boiled down to whether, in order to avoid counterfeit products, is it necessary and appropriate to move the federal government to a policy of sole source acquisition for all IT products eliminating competition for price, quality and terms.  Read the ASCDI and NATD position.

The Civil Agency Acquisition Council and the Defense Acquisition Regulations Council closed the Public Hearing expressing appreciation for the presentations and acknowledged the fact that the proposed rule change was too narrow in focus and did not meet the acquisition needs of all government constituents which may require secondary markets to continue to provide support.

Both ASCDI and NATD have been called upon to submit supplemental public comment by Tuesday, January 20, 2009 together with proposed language addressing the concerns expressed during the hearing.

Contact: For more information about the ASCDI and NATD please go to www.ascdi.com and www.natd.com or contact Joseph Marion at [email protected] or 561-266-9440.^Back To Top

NATD website

Features added to NATD website
The NATD website has been enhanced with a page to allow people to file Ethics Complaints online.  Members or Non-members may file an Ethics Complaint with the NATD by linking to www.natd.com/public/pages/ethicscomplaintonline.asp.  Additionally, a BLOG has been added to the website home page. 
Visit www.natd.com.
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ACUTA

Ruth A. Michalecki Leadership Award
The ACUTA Awards Committee is pleased to invite nominations for the 2009 Ruth A. Michalecki Leadership Award.  This annual award recognizes an outstanding leader among the institutional and corporate affiliate membership. The person selected for this award:

• Engages in activities that have produced results directly benefiting the ACUTA organization and/or the broader higher education community

• Motivates and fosters collaboration to accomplish goals, objectives and the mission of their institution while demonstrating exceptional leadership qualities

• Actively participates in and promotes the education, professional development, and mentoring of other professionals

• Demonstrates initiative – the ability to take charge by creating or developing a program, project, or activity that impacts the community

• Demonstrates leadership in the communications technology industry

ACUTA encourages you to nominate someone by completing the nomination form online at http://www.acuta.org/relation/ downloadfile.cfm?DocNum=436.  Deadline for nominations is January 23rd.  Nominees must be representatives of ACUTA institutional member schools, corporate affiliates or associate members.

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Avaya

Avaya leads worldwide unified communications market in key industry report
Avaya Inc. leads the worldwide unified communications (UC) market in revenues, according to a new Dell'Oro Group Enterprise Telephony Report. This is the first time the Dell'Oro Group -- a research firm that provides market information about the networking and telecommunications industries -- included unified communications research in its quarterly report on the enterprise telephony market and its vendors. According to the report, Avaya led in unified communications revenues in the third quarter of 2008 with 22 percent of the global market share, more than 3 points ahead of its nearest competitor. The total market in revenues for UC in the third quarter was $3.1 billion, according to Dell'Oro Group. Dell'Oro Group's report also measured third quarter 2008 results for the worldwide Total PBX market, a category that includes IP telephony, traditional TDM technology and hybrid telephony combining both IP and TDM technologies. Their report concluded that Avaya led the Total PBX market in revenues with 20 percent market share, 6 points ahead of its nearest competitor. This marks the fifteenth consecutive quarter that Avaya has led in the overall enterprise telephony market, based on Dell'Oro Group's reports.
Visit www.avaya.com or www.DellOro.com. ^Back To Top

Book review

Technician’s Guide to Fiber Optics, 4E
There are a lot of good books on the subject of fiber optics. The vast majority of them are highly technical and written by and for engineers or physicists. When it comes to books written for technicians, the pickings are slim. There are some good books about cabling systems that contain a chapter or two about fiber optics, but there are only a very few written exclusively about fiber optics and intended for installers, cable splicers and others who actually do the work. Technicians Guide to Fiber Optics is one of those few.

Written in sparse and plain English, this book is for working folks who need a solid understanding of the subject. I liked the book when I first read it in 2003. I still like it and recommend it highly, but suggest that you buy one copy per workgroup and share it.

Author: Donald J. Sterling, Jr.
Publisher: Delmar Cengage Learning (December 2003)
ISBN-10: 1401812708
ISBN-13: 9781401812706
Reviewed by: Ray Horak
Price: $108.95Back To Top

Hosted

Alteva partners with Polycom to offer HD voice technology to small and medium-sized businesses
Alteva announced that it is a certified Polycom Reseller, offering premium voice service with Polycom’s HD Voice SoundPoint IP 550 and 650 models to its customers. With a network designed and built specifically for superior voice quality, Alteva is one of the only service providers that enhances voice quality with Alteva’s HD voice, delivering the clarity, consistency and reliability that is critical to business. By partnering with Polycom, Alteva is able to offer the best value in VoIP service for small businesses. The Alteva IP phone service provides affordable, easy-to-use, high quality hosted IP PBX and calling functionality to small and medium-sized businesses over a single IP network interface. With a powerful yet easy-to-use interface, businesses are free to maintain, update and expand their telephony system in their own time and at no extra cost. Users can enjoy state-of-the-art telephony and powerful options such as HD voice, call recording, call log reporting, conference calling, call forwarding, mobile access and other phone and network features.
Visit www.altevatel.com.
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Moves, adds & changes

Brocade completes acquisition of Foundry Networks 
Brocade announced it has completed its acquisition of Foundry Networks. The addition of Foundry's products and technologies enables Brocade to better address the needs of its customers and strengthens the company's position as a proven, high-performance networking leader. "The close of the Foundry acquisition will significantly enhance our ability to deliver on our mission of connecting the world's most important information," said Mike Klayko, Brocade CEO. "Brocade will now be able to offer a comprehensive IP and data center networking solution portfolio capable of addressing emerging market technology trends while meeting the needs of the world's most demanding, data-intensive organizations." Foundry was founded in 1996 and has approximately 1100 employees with operations in all major geographies. Foundry employees and the company's products and technologies will be integrated throughout Brocade according to function.
Visit www.brocade.com.
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Nortel

Troubled Nortel looking to sell metro Ethernet unit
As speculation continues over Nortel's future, the Canadian company is reportedly entertaining bids from three companies for its Metro Ethernet Networks (MEN) business unit. According to a report in the Canadian national newspaper, companies most likely to bid on the $2 billion business include Cisco, Huawei, Ericsson and Nokia Siemens. Nortel earlier this year said it would seek buyers for MEN in an effort to raise cash to fund other businesses the company considers more strategic. Various analysts estimate that Nortel could fetch between $1 billion and $2 billion for MEN, though the current economic climate might lower that value. It has also been reported that Nortel is looking to sell more assets instead of filing for bankruptcy.
Visit www.nortel.com.
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Unified Communications

Telephony market to crimp Unified Communications market growth
While Unified Communications (UC) has become a high tech marketing buzzword and the focus of major enterprise vendors including Avaya, Cisco, IBM Lotus, Microsoft and Nortel, a new study released by Wainhouse Research concludes that UC product revenues will actually decrease by over $1B over the next two years before the market rebounds. According to the study, the drop in telephony revenues, currently the largest portion of the UC market, will not be matched by growth in other areas such as IM, presence and videoconferencing. The study forecasts that total UC product revenues will decline until 2011 due to the falling average selling price of telephony, audio bridges and unified messaging. Enterprise video, coming on particularly strong with a compound growth rate of over 20%, will more than make up for telephony decreases by 2012 and beyond. IM/presence servers and team workspaces will also fuel a growing market, ultimately offsetting early declines and give the entire UC products market a significant total revenue increase near the end of the forecast period. When all the UC components and dynamics are included, the market is forecast to grow from $15.4B in 2007 though a low point in 2011 to $16.3B in 2013.
Visit www.wainhouse.com/reports.
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