The Lippis Report

November 30th, 2006

by DATACOMM RESEARCH COMPANY for Aruba Networks

Fixed-Mobile Convergence (FMC) is touted as the way to provide end-users the same portfolio of services regardless of which devices and networks they happen to be using. There´s just one problem with this definition: It´s long on vision and short on cost-benefit analysis. Fortunately, the FMC value proposition is more compelling. FMC combines different technologies to provide the optimal solution for each requirement. Specifically, FMC harnesses mobile phone networks and wireless local area networks (WLANs) to give end-users the services they want in the places they want, with the best performance and at the lowest cost.

Download this white paper to find out how.

November 29th, 2006

by Research in Motion (RIM)

A new breed of mobile worker is transforming the workplace: roaming the corridors of factories, offices and other business locations, armed with handhelds linked to a WLAN. Referred to as Corridor Warriors, they benefit from mobile voice and data communications within campuses, satellite sites, warehouses, retail outlets, distribution centers, medical facilities and many other environments. Workers within this increasingly important segment of the mobile workforce, who often belong to a team, share a common need: to stay in touch and stay connected to information throughout the day.

The Corridor Warrior vision elevates communication to a new level, where the strategic benefits and business values may not be readily apparent. Understanding the case for the Corridor Warrior requires relaxing some pre-conceived notions and considering different usage scenarios designed to enhance business productivity and improve efficiency. The business case, as presented in the pages of this paper, is strong and compelling.

To understand the Corridor Warrior business case download this white paper.

November 27th, 2006

Jorge Blanco, Avaya’s Vice President of Solutions & Software Portfolio Management joined me on the Lippis Report podcast to discuss Avaya’s Unified Communications (UC) portfolio. Many companies are using the term Unified Communication to describe different things. Some companies use UC to describe the integration of a desktop launch point for communications. Some use UC to describe communications enabled business process. Some use UC to describe both. In this podcast we talk to the man at Avaya in charge of it all and get the scoop on how Avaya defines the term and what’s included in their Unified Communications offering. This is one of our best podcasts with a fresh off the cuff discussion on UC. So listen up.

November 15th, 2006

Where is networking heading over the next three to five years? The supply side of the industry has been serving up a range of new concepts such as:

• Services embedded in network infrastructure
• Communications embedded in to applications
• Low cost wide area bandwidth that eliminate distance and time allowing data centers to be restructured and more
• Security and access control being the norm rather then universal access
• Telecommunications service providers being marginalized by voip, etc.

While there is value in the above initiatives, the big question is this; is Moore´s Law about to collide with Metcalfe’s Law bringing new combinations of companies and restructuring the industry? Will the industry continue to be dominated by one company or will we see a major roll-up occur. Will computing and networking firms combine to tightly link networks and application delivery? Nick Lippis provides you a framework for how the industry may progress over the next three to five years with a set of predictions.

November 13th, 2006

What direction is networking taking? Throughout the 60s, 70s and 80s networking was dominated by IBM´s SNA and to a lesser degree the defunct Digital Equipment Corporation´s DECnet. These wide-area protocols were offered primarily to enterprises while the DoD was experimenting with TCP/IP as a means to provide communications during a cold war nuclear nightmare scenario. Within buildings, terminal servers gave way to LANs, which we started connecting via LAN bridges. These bridges were not structurally stable in scale so the industry offered up routers to segment and control data traffic. This departure from SNA toward TCP/IP was a structural change in the industry, which spawned present day networking. There is no alternative to TCP/IP, no discontinuity technology that promises to alter the status quo. Is the industry on a predictable trajectory of faster, better and cheaper? Or is there a new framework amassing that is rooted in the interaction between Moore´s Law and Metcalf´s Law?

Read the rest of this entry »

November 13th, 2006

Where is networking heading over the next three to five years? Zeus Kerravala, SVP Enterprise Research at the Yankee Group joins me for an industry roundtable discussion on the direction our industry is heading. Is Moore´s Law about to collide with Metcalfe’s Law bringing new combinations of companies and restructuring the industry? Will the industry continue to be dominated by one company or will we see a major roll-up occur. Will computing and networking firms combine to tightly link networks and application delivery? We provide you a framework for how the industry may progress over the next three to five years. Enjoy, Nick

November 13th, 2006

Don Reece the Director of Information Technology at Pembina Trails, a Public School Division in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada joins the Lippis Report podcast to discuss his newly installed unified communications implementation. Pembina Trails has an enrollment of approximately 14,000. They have a network of dark fiber backbone between sites running at a gigabit, Microsoft Active Directory and Exchange, Dell Ethernet Switches and a very old voice system. It was time to upgrade the voice system, so they did it with Objectworld´s Unified Communications Server and saved over $200K while offering a state-of-the-art IP telephony system. Don goes into all the details. It´s a great listen. Enjoy Nick.

November 1st, 2006

By Nick Lippis

The IP telephony industry is quickly transitioning toward a software and service deliver model thanks to Microsoft joining the market with their Unified Communications ecosystem. This means that value offered by the vendor community will increasingly be focused on software applications, integration and services. IP contact centers offer the first view of how communications will be tightly woven into corporate business process. Contact centers are requiring to be linked into back-office database and applications while extending agent expert contacts and customer access. All three demands are being met by software and services delivery model. In this white paper I provide a view of the road ahead and how corporations can prepare their IT organizations for the third phase of IP telephony, the strategic phase.