UCStrategies Spotlight – October 19, 2010

Updated: October 19, 2010

Turning the Puzzle Pieces into a Complete Picture

By Pam Avila

There is not always agreement on what unified communications is, although there is ever-increasing acceptance of the UCStrategies definition - "communications integrated to optimize business processes." However, what we do all agree on is that the majority of business solutions involving unified communications require the integration of components from multiple vendors. Gartner refers to best of breed solutions as preferable over proprietary solutions, to ensure optimum performance and flexibility. In the past, it was relatively simple on the voice side…voice products were proprietary and additional applications were designed to work within the proprietary environment of any manufacture. On the data side it was more challenging because of open architecture, which could sometimes mean integration challenges for applications and/or hardware, but it was still within the boundaries of data communications. Convergence and unified communications has changed all of this! Now the challenge has become integrating voice, data and video applications and hardware in an environment where standards are still evolving. Oh, and did we forget to include mobility? Now comes the big question - where is the expertise needed to integrate the various elements and components of UC solutions themselves and then UC solutions into the overall framework of a customer's voice, data and video infrastructures? Read the rest of this article on UCStrategies.com.

The Buzz(ient) on Interactive Intelligence and Social Media

By Blair Pleasant

At Interactive Intelligence's partner conference last week, a group of analysts and consultants got to hear about the company's products, strategy, direction, and more. While much of the discussion over the 2½ days focused on Communications as a Service (CaaS), business process automation, and the new Customer Interaction Center (CIC) 4.0, I was most interested in - surprise, surprise - Interactive's foray into social media. With its focus on the contact center, it makes sense that Interactive Intelligence would add social media as another channel for its contact center solution, using its routings and queuing capabilities for social media comments and queries. Read the rest of this article on UCStrategies.com.

Metaswitch and ADTRAN - Bringing UC Closer to SMBs

By Jon Arnold

Last week I attended Metaswitch Forum 2010 in Orlando, and continue to come away impressed with their ability to both grow and evolve their value proposition. Metaswitch does not turn up regularly on this portal, as UC is not really a core focus for them. They actually have UC-related offerings - mostly voice-centric, however - and only a minority of their customers have gone down this path so far. I know that will change over time, and as I learned, their partnership with ADTRAN is one way this will happen. Read the rest of this article on UCStrategies.com.

Microsoft Launches Phone 7

By Michael Finneran

Microsoft officially launched its new mobile operating system called Phone 7 at a press event in New York today. A complete replacement for the earlier Windows Mobile, the new operating system will soon be supported on devices made by Dell, HTC, LG, and Samsung. Those devices should be on the market for the holiday buying season and will be marketed by carriers around the world including AT&T and T-Mobile in the US and Telus in Canada. Read the rest of this article on UCStrategies.com.