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NATD in the news
Meet the new members
Avaya
Cloud
Conferences
Mitel
NEC
Networking
Partners

NATD in the news

New members elected
Members of the NATD have elected into membership the following companies:
Adtran – USA – Olivia Cole (Vendor Member)
Chicago Tech, Inc. – USA – Steven Saltzman
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Meet the new members

Chicago Tech, Inc.
Chicago Tech, Inc. was founded in 2002. The founders originally started their career with Comdisco, Inc. After the closure of Comdisco, they formed Chicago Tech, Inc. to continue to supply customers with refurbished telecom equipment. Today, Chicago Tech continues to supply quality refurbished telecom equipment. Chicago Tech is unique in offering leasing options for new and refurbished hardware. Our products include but are not limited to Central Office Switches, Backbone Routers, ATM Switches, & Optical Technology. Chicago Tech, Inc. is an ISO 9001:2008 & TL 9000 Registered Supplier.
Visit www.chicagotech.com.
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Avaya

Avaya receives top marks in multimedia contact center test from MierConsulting
Avaya announced that its next generation customer service solution -- Avaya Aura Contact Center -- was chosen as the top contact center product in an independent comparative lab review conducted by MierConsulting. MierConsulting is a leading independent consultancy specializing in the comparative assessment of communications and network products. In the review, MierConsulting looked at products from three leading contact center vendors and gave Avaya Aura Contact Center top marks across the categories. In its assessment, MierConsulting concluded that: "Avaya Aura Contact Center 6.1 raises the bar on the integration of multiple channels, offering one of the most effective agent interfaces we have seen in recent years for cleanly blending a mix of voice calls and text-based contacts." Avaya Aura Contact Center is a multimedia work assignment application for midsize contact centers that connects customers and their information to the right agent or expert via any communications mode (i.e. voice, video, e-mail, chat).
Visit www.avaya.com.
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Cloud

The future of public cloud computing
Public cloud computing revenues are set to increase well over 100% from 2010 to 2014. This staggering increase is changing the IT infrastructure paradigm in small offices/home offices (SOHO) (1-4 employees) and small businesses (5-99 employees).  In-Stat’s research shows that SOHO and small businesses will comprise roughly 65% of the public cloud computing market in 2014. 

"Web hosting and data storage are the most obvious IT needs that can be addressed by public cloud services, such as Amazon Web Services’ S3 and EC2," says Greg Potter, Research Analyst. "With the advent of SaaS (Software as a Service) offerings such as Google Docs, Salesforce.com and Microsoft Live, many businesses are realizing that much of their IT needs can be fulfilled without the need for expensive networking equipment and high-end computers."

In fact, many small businesses are re-visiting the old idea of using thin clients for most of their employees, as the need for increased processing power is rendered moot by the cloud.  This has been spurred on most recently by the introduction of the Chrome OS from Google with computer companies such as Acer, announcing devices which will utilize the OS.  The Chrome OS might not work particularly well for businesses, but with devices such as these there is no reason why virtualization of a more traditional Windows or Linux office environment could not be easily accomplished.  For the SOHO and small business market, there is considerable opportunity for a variety of cloud service providers.  Small business spending on public cloud services in 2010 will be roughly $3 Billion, a considerable amount.  
Visit www.in-stat.com.
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Conferences

Enterprise Connect Orlando 2011 spotlights mock RFPs
Enterprise Connect, formerly VoiceCon and produced by UBM TechWeb, announced that a wide range of vendors will participate in four different mock RFPs, and the results will be presented and analyzed during the conference. Enterprise Connect will be held February 28-March 3 at the Gaylord Palms Hotel in Orlando, FL. The titles and day/times for these sessions are:

• IP Telephony RFP: Who Delivers the Goods? (Mon, February 28, 2-5 pm)

• Comparing UC Options: Who’s Delivering What? (Tues, March 1, 2:30-5:30 pm)

• Cloud-Based UC Services – What’s Real? (Wed, March 2, 2:30-5:30 pm)

• Integrating Mobility and UC – Sizing Up the Vendor Offerings (Wed, March 2, 2:30-5:30 pm)

The RFPs will be available on the Enterprise Connect website prior to the event and will be available to anyone; however, only conference attendees will receive the summaries and analyses of the responses. The mock RFP sessions bolster an already rich Enterprise Connect program that will showcase the full range of platforms, services and applications that comprise modern communications and collaboration systems.
Visit www.enterpriseconnect.com.
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Mitel

Mitel announces new accreditation programs
Mitel announced a Virtualized Datacenter Accreditation program for datacenters, Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) providers. The accreditation program is designed to ensure that any Managed Service Provider (MSP) or Mitel authorizedPARTNERS are able to leverage cloud-based infrastructure to provide world-class managed UC solutions. To receive the Virtualized Datacenter Accreditation, qualified IaaS and PaaS providers must achieve a number of technical certifications from both Mitel and VMware in addition to demonstrating technical competencies that support business continuity, high availability, disaster recovery, and redundancy. Mitel also announced its new Technical Accreditation Program (TAP). TAP is a comprehensive multi-vendor certification program for Mitel authorizedPARTNERS to be recognized for capabilities in deploying virtualized voice, mobility, contact center and UC solutions. Specifically, Mitel channel partners can achieve specialized designations within TAP to differentiate their skill set. These designations can facilitate authorizedPARTNERS in becoming experts in deploying and servicing the Mitel Freedom architecture in today's applications-driven IT world.
Visit www.mitel.com.


Mitel's Paul Butcher to address UC via live webcast
Paul Butcher, President and Chief Operating Officer of Mitel, will address "the impact of unified communications on conducting business with customers" at the Engage | Collaborate | Commune Virtual Xpo.  His keynote will discuss the value of integrated video, voice and text communications on the way businesses can engage with customers in sales and marketing activities. He will cover how telepresence, webconferencing, real-time distributed networks and mobile telephony are ushering in a new era of customer engagement and workflow collaboration. The Engage | Collaborate | Commune Virtual Xpo will go live on February 22, 2011 from 11 a.m. -- 7 p.m. EST and will be available on-demand 24-7 through the event portal for an additional 90 days. Registration is free while seats last. Paul Butcher will speak at noon EST.
Visit www.mitel.com.
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NEC

NEC helps Crown Disposal enhance customer service
NEC Corporation of America (NEC) announced that Crown Disposal Company, Inc. (Crown Disposal), a full service solid-waste transportation company, has implemented NEC’s UC for Business (UCB), using the solution’s contact center performance and activity reports to gain visibility into customer service and dispatch operations departments. The result not only increased employee efficiency, but also heightened the level of customer service. “Crown Disposal improved communication and response time to better assist the tens of thousands of commercial, industrial and residential customers they serve,” said Larry Levenberg, Vice President of Sales & Marketing, National Channel, NEC. “By implementing NEC’s UCB solution, they raised customer service response levels, currently achieving 86 percent for first-ring pick up, and have better positioned the company to attract new customers.”
Visit www.necam.com.
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Networking

KEMP Technologies introduces new load balancing platforms
KEMP Technologies announced the newest members to its family of affordable load balancers. The LoadMaster 2600 and the LoadMaster 3600 are both server load balancing, content switching appliances featuring integrated ASIC-based SSL acceleration. Providing advanced features and high performance at a much lower price point than other competing offerings, the LoadMaster 2600 (replacing the LoadMaster 2500) features 4 GbE ports and delivers improved performance to address increased traffic loads. The 2600 now features a 25-percent improvement for Layer-7 throughput—now at 1.5Gbps. Moreover, the 2600 has improved SSL transactions per second (TPS) to 2,000 TPS. For even greater throughput, the 8-GbE port LoadMaster 3600 (replacing the LoadMaster 3500), a new mid-range platform, offers improved layer 4 and layer 7 throughput of 26 percent to 3.4 Gbps and 25 percent to 2.9 Gbps, respectively.  SSL processing performance on the new LM3600 has been increased to 5,000 TPS. Additionally, the 3600 supports up to 1,000 virtual and real servers and 100,000 L7 concurrent connections or two million L4 concurrent transactions. 
Visit www.kemptechnologies.com.
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Partners

Tigerpaw goes on telecom tour
Tigerpaw Software, Inc. has launched a new initiative to reach out to more than 1,000 telecommunications vendors across North America. Tigerpaw is working with mutual vendors to design several key enhancements aimed at facilitating additional partner interaction to create a powerful public API with the most comprehensive back-end integration and set-up functionality. While visiting industry partners like Mitel, N-able and Level Platforms, Tigerpaw was able to brainstorm functionality that is beneficial to our mutual customer base. Additionally, this new public API will serve all vendor partners who wish to integrate to Tigerpaw’s rich feature set including email security, back-up and disaster, asset discovery and remote monitor management partners, among others. Tigerpaw will launch with a strong educational path to help distributors sell more products and migrate data services into their offering. The company also plans to announce aggressive joint value propositions with multiple partner vendors that hit the market space in Q2 of 2011.
Visit www.tigerpawsoftware.com.
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