Upcoming Meeting Notice


SAVE THE DATE:

ANNUAL WINTER CONFERENCE
MARCH 9 - 11, 2011
Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino - Hollywood, FL

(Click here for more information.)

Avaya
Awards
Contact center
Economy
Mitel
NEC
Survey
Unified communications
VoIP

Avaya

CSI’s Virtual Observer quality optimization solution now rated Avaya Aura compliant
Coordinated Systems, Inc. (CSI) announced that its Virtual Observer is compliant with Avaya Aura Communication Manager 6.0 and Avaya Aura Application Enablement Services 5.2.2. from Avaya Inc. Virtual Observer helps call centers optimize quality assurance processes, leveraging call recording, quality monitoring and speech analytics tools to deliver complete quality optimization.  Coordinated Systems, Inc. is a member of the Avaya DevConnect program—an initiative to develop, market and sell innovative third-party products that interoperate with Avaya technology and extend the value of a company’s investment in its network.  As a Gold member of the program, CSI is eligible to submit products for compatibility testing by the Avaya Solution Interoperability and Test Lab. 
Visit www.csiworld.com and www.avaya.com/devconnect.
^Back To Top

Awards

Vertical receives INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine’s 2010 Excellence Award
Vertical Communications announced that Technology Marketing Corporation (TMC) has named the Wave IP converged telephony system for branch and small offices as a recipient of its 2010 INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine Excellence Award. The Wave IP Business Communications System is a comprehensive IP business phone system family designed for enterprises of all sizes.  Cost-sensitive small- to medium-sized businesses and larger distributed organizations seeking to reduce overhead associated with managing business communications can easily transform their legacy telephony infrastructure into an application-rich, next-generation VoIP solution by deploying Wave IP.  As a fully integrated solution, Wave IP offers customers ultimate flexibility and features – unified communications, contact center, call recording, reporting, networking, management, custom call routing applications and IVR – in a single system.
Visit www.vertical.com and www.itmag.com.
^Back To Top

Contact center

Calabrio to support Cisco's media capture platform for call recording, quality management and analytics
Calabrio, Inc. announced that its Calabrio Call Recording and Calabrio Quality Management software products will support Cisco's media capture platform recently announced by Cisco. Calabrio customers will have the flexibility to leverage this new recording architecture across the enterprise for call recording, contact center quality management and speech analytics applications. The new recording option will be available to Cisco customers through Calabrio's network of more than 35 Cisco-certified partners selling Calabrio applications for the Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise solution. Through an OEM relationship with Cisco, the software is also available through the global network of partners selling Cisco Unified Contact Center Express.
Visit www.calabrio.com.
^Back To Top

Economy

GE Capital survey: CFOs say worst of crisis behind them
GE Capital's latest survey of U.S. chief financial officers (CFOs) showed that middle-market companies believe the worst of the crisis is behind them and expect to grow at a low-to-moderate pace over the next few years. The third-quarter 2010 survey covered 530 CFOs of companies with revenues ranging from $50 million to $1 billion, operating across seven major industries. While maintaining a cautious tone, 84% of the CFOs said they expect the U.S. economy to be stable (47%) or improving (37%) over the near term. Companies in the food industry expressed the highest level of positive sentiment, followed by technology, metals, and healthcare and retail, which shared the same level of sentiment.

Looking forward, 86% of the respondents see low-to-moderate growth for their businesses continuing over the next few years. Technology companies were the most optimistic, with 59% expecting moderate-or-better growth in the next few years, followed by metals (50%) and general manufacturing companies (45%). Credit market conditions are seen as generally improving, with a full 85% of CFOs surveyed expecting the amount of credit available to them in their next round of financing to remain the same (56%) or improve (26%). A larger share (75% versus 60% in January) expects their company's cost of capital to improve or remain stable this year.
Visit www.gecapital.com.
^Back To Top

Mitel

Telecor's healthcare and security solutions added to Mitel DataNet CommSource portfolio
Telecor Inc. announced that Mitel has agreed to add Telecor's VS-600 Staff Call solution and Security call station to Mitel's DataNet CommSource comprehensive product portfolio. Mitel's DataNet CommSource division designs, distributes and supports an integrated, comprehensive solution offering, comprised of 3rd-party products and applications, for their customers' data and telecommunications needs. The complete integration and validation of Telecor's healthcare and security units allows Mitel customers the opportunity through Mitel DataNet CommSource to benefit from tailored solutions for medical clinics, retirement, assisted living facilities, schools, colleges, universities, parking garages and other security applications.
Visit www.telecor.com and www.mitel.com.
^Back To Top

NEC

NEC collaborates with Stanford, Georgia Tech and Raytheon BBN to realize the benefits of OpenFlow technology
NEC Corporation is partnering with Stanford University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Raytheon BBN Technologies and other major research institutions to build OpenFlow networks by providing engineering expertise, research, deployment consultation and NEC’s ProgrammableFlow switches. NEC ProgrammableFlow multilayer switches, now in limited-release availability, support the OpenFlow protocol developed at Stanford. OpenFlow allows network applications and controllers running on external servers to define packet handing within each switching element in a network, allowing faculty and students from participating campuses to conduct experimentation and research on production networks. The ProgrammableFlow switches have been deployed in over 20 research organizations worldwide such as Stanford, Raytheon BBN and Georgia Tech. OpenFlow is an open standard that enables a new generation of network control software. The OpenFlow Switch specification version 0.8.9 was created in 2008 by the OpenFlow Consortium, and its version 1.0 was created in 2009 to evangelize and support OpenFlow. Although hosted at Stanford University, it is their goal for OpenFlow to be owned by the community – for the betterment of research and innovation in networking.
Visit www.nec.com and www.openflowswitch.org.
^Back To Top

Survey

IT professionals predict mobile and cloud technologies will dominate enterprise computing by 2015
Information technology professionals predict that mobile and cloud computing will emerge as the most in-demand platforms for software application development and IT delivery over the next five years, according to a new IBM survey. The 2010 IBM Tech Trends Survey, conducted online by IBM developerWorks, provides insight into the most significant enterprise technology and industry trends based on responses from 2,000 IT developers and specialists across 87 countries. According to the survey, more than half of all IT professionals – 55 percent — expect mobile software application development for devices such as iPhone and Android, and even tablet PCs like iPad and PlayBook, will surpass application development on all other traditional computing platforms by 2015. With the proliferation of these mobile devices, industry analysts are predicting mobile applications sales will undergo massive growth over the next three years, with estimates of mobile application revenues expanding from $6.2 billion this year to nearly $30 billion by 2013. Supporting the growing number of software developers creating new applications for mobile devices, IBM now offers no-cost mobile computing technology resources, through IBM developerWorks, for application development on mobile platforms such as iPhone, iPad, HTML5 and Android. IBM also launched the first developerWorks mobile application for the Apple iPhone, providing developers around the world with mobile access to build skills and network with colleagues using the professional social networking platform, My developerWorks, built on IBM Lotus Connections.
Visit www.ibm.com/developerworks.
^Back To Top

Unified Communications

Dialogic releases Survivable Branch Appliance for Microsoft Lync Server 2010
Dialogic Inc. announced the release of Survivable Branch Appliance (SBA) software to run on the Dialogic 4000 Media Gateway Series (DMG4000 Gateways). The SBA software is an important part of Microsoft Lync Server 2010, the latest release in Microsoft’s unified communications (UC) offerings.  The software provides communications and connectivity for branch office users even if the WAN connection is lost to the centralized data centers hosting Lync Server 2010. The ability to make and receive voice calls, use voicemail, intra-office screen sharing and instant messaging, and attend audio conferences, continues to be available on the DMG4000 Gateways using the SBA software. As a Microsoft Certified Gold Partner, Dialogic is releasing the SBA software upgrade on all DMG4000 Gateways for immediate availability through authorized distributors and their resellers. Existing DMG4000 Gateways can also be field upgraded via a software package, also available through Dialogic authorized channel partners.
Visit www.dialogic.com/microsoftuc.



Infonetics Research: Unified communications gaining appeal among North American enterprises
Market research firm Infonetics Research released excerpts from Unified Communication Product Features and Vendor Leadership: North American Enterprise Survey, part of its Continuous Research Service (CRS) series of analyst notes and surveys on the enterprise VoIP and unified communications market.“In our most recent survey of companies that use multi-modal communications, a stunning 96% plan to eventually integrate the various modes into a single unified user experience,” notes Matthias Machowinski, directing analyst for enterprise voice and data at Infonetics Research. Among North American medium and large enterprises interviewed by Infonetics:

• The top reasons for deploying UC are improving employee productivity, reducing operational costs and executive demand.

• The fastest rising stars in the UC market are video, short messaging and social networking, a testament to the changing nature of communication.

• UC is most commonly delivered over a desktop computer today, but that is changing in favor of smaller and more portable devices such as laptops, tablets and smartphones.

Visit www.infonetics.com.
^Back To Top

VoIP

Food for the Hungry deploys 8x8 Virtual Office phone services to support relief efforts in 26 countries worldwide
8x8, Inc. announced that Food for the Hungry has deployed the 8x8 Virtual Office VoIP phone service to streamline communications between its domestic and international locations. Founded in 1971 to provide on-site disaster relief in crisis-stricken locations such as Bangladesh, Nicaragua, Vietnam and Guatemala, Food for the Hungry helps poor communities in more than 26 countries improve their way of living through sustainable programs in areas such as education, agriculture, health, water and leadership training. To keep domestic and overseas staff and volunteers connected, Food for the Hungry chose the 8x8 Virtual Office phone solution, which not only offered the geographic coverage and flexibility it needed, but also saved the non-profit organization significant capital and ongoing operational expense. Food for the Hungry currently subscribes to over 150 Virtual Office Unlimited extensions along with 8x8 virtual and toll free numbers and fax extensions.
Visit www.8x8.com and www.fh.org.
^Back To Top