Network and Telecom Strategies Blog

Multivendor, Immersive Telepresence

posted by: Mark Cortner

The introduction several years ago of high-end, immersive telepresence systems redefined the collaborative experience available through “videoconferencing.”The telepresence market started to accelerate at essentially the same time that the broader concept of UC started to take hold in the industry. But despite the focus on integrating previously disparate communications applications through UC, the telepresence market continued to develop a silo-based application with limited multivendor interoperability.

The “islands” of telepresence have been slowly disappearing; most telepresence vendors now support the ability for non-telepresence, IP-based videoconferencing systems to participate in visual collaboration sessions with telepresence systems. The utility and value of any video-based communication product is often related to the availability and ubiquity of compatible endpoints, and the ability to room-based videoconferencing systems with telepresence systems was a good step in this direction. But the industry still had not delivered a solution that enabled a multivendor, immersive telepresence experience—this artificial barrier has now been broken down by TANDBERG.

TANDBERG recently announced that its Telepresence T3 is the first immersive telepresence solution that maintains the multi-screen, high-definition telepresence experience when connecting to third-party telepresence systems. The ability to enable telepresence systems from multiple vendors to participate in a visual collaboration session without any degradation in the full immersive experience (that customers have paid for) will impact the market in several ways.

First, expect other telepresence vendors to quickly address this issue. The ability to support a multivendor telepresence environment should immediately become a key consideration for enterprises in future purchase decisions for this technology. Second, look for service providers to develop new services that enable inter-enterprise video communications—essentially providing a trusted, federated service that allows enterprises to extend their investments in high-end telepresence systems outside the enterprise and collaborate with key business partners … sound a lot like UC?

UC and the Cloud: Microsoft BPOS

posted by: Mark Cortner

The industry focus on the delivering cloud-based UC solutions continued to expand this week as Microsoft announced the commercial availability of its Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS) in 20 countries worldwide. Microsoft’s BPOS is delivered via subscription services hosted by Microsoft and consists of Exchange Hosted Services, SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, Office Live Meeting, and Office Communications Online. BPOS utilizes global datacenters located in the USA, Dublin, Singapore, Amsterdam, and Hong Kong to deliver services to customers located in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, and the USA.

With particular respect to UC, the Office Communications Online service includes business-class instant messaging (IM) and presence services, peer-to-peer voice and video services with integrated Office, Exchange, SharePoint user experiences.  The service is delivered with a 99.9% service level agreement and boasts 9 levels of data security and is CyberTrust certified.

In addition to formally announcing the commercial availability of BPOS, Microsoft announced that it has signed a reseller agreement and a go-to-market agreement with EDS, an HP company. The announcement estimated the revenue potential for both companies to exceed $3B in cloud and professional services.

The initial market traction for these services will likely be small to mid-sized businesses, although the potential for enterprises to leverage the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model to augment premises-based UC platform strategies will appeal to many organizations and will factor into future service delivery strategies. The focus for cloud-based UC services today is on non-real time communications applications; how suites such as BPOS can integrate with enterprise telephony applications and how closely they can replicate the functional experience of premises-based platforms will determine their viability with large enterprise customers.

UC and Catalyst 2009 – Part 1

posted by: Mark Cortner

The conversations that I’ve been having recently with our clients related to UC are increasingly focused on several topics. The dialogues have been requested as enterprise IT organizations have initiated the development of their future strategies relative to UC. The process and scope of defining an enterprise’s UC strategy can be a complex task given the inherent convergence and integration of numerous communication and collaboration applications, none of which is occurring in a vacuum as individual UC applications continue to evolve themselves.

The topics frequently include questions related to the business value of UC, the intersection of mobility and UC, and the renewed interest in video technology and its integration into an enterprise’s UC strategy. The strong interest in these topics will be reflected in our planned content related to UC at our upcoming Catalyst Conference in July. The conference sessions focused on UC will address many questions related to this list of topics including:

• How can UC show real value or mitigate costs?
  
• How should you position and take advantage of UC
• What is the relationship between mobility and UC?
• How can an enterprise avoid lock-in solutions with mobile UC?
• What benefits can an enterprise expect from visual collaboration?
• How is technology impacting the utility of videoconferencing?

I’m excited by the program we’ll be presenting at Catalyst … look for more details on our UC sessions over the coming weeks including additional topics that will be addressed.

Polycom Bridges Mixed-Resolution Gap

posted by: Mark Cortner

Polycom recently announced an impressive array of updates to its RMX 2000 videoconferencing platform that delivers several groundbreaking capabilities for enterprises multi-site videoconferencing applications. The new capabilities include 1080p and broadcast-quality 720p HD quality, expanded capacity and increased scalability, and the flexibility to support pure HD or mixed-resolution video environments.

The new version of the platform, the RMX 2000 V4.0 addresses a range of visual collaboration applications including traditional room-based videoconferencing, immersive room and personal telepresence, and broad-scale desktop video collaboration. The platform architecture is IP-based and built upon the Advanced Telecommunications Computing Architecture (AdvancedTCA) and interestingly, also incorporates a modular IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) design—to support highly scalable next-generation visual collaboration deployments via the cloud.

The ability to bridge mixed-resolution environments will be a further catalyst for the videoconferencing market, and in particular, Polycom. The interest in HD technology has been a contributing factor to the revived interest in videoconferencing, but most organizations today have mixed-resolution environments—in fact the vast majority of existing enterprise videoconferencing assets support either CIF or standard-definition video as opposed to HD. Furthermore, the majority of HD-capable videoconferencing systems that have been purchased over the last several years are typically used for non-HD conferencing sessions. Polycom has bridged the mixed-resolution gap was created with the emergence of HD and telepresence video experiences and has delivered a platform that meet a broad collection of videoconferencing applications, from scalable desktop video to a full telepresence experience, within a single platform.

Microsoft OCS and Telephony

posted by: Mark Cortner

Microsoft recently executed an impressive virtual event to launch Office Communication Server (OCS) Release 2 (R2). The launch event included an overview of the new product capabilities included in OCS R2, “break-out” sessions that provided technical deep dives into the product, and customer case studies. OCS R2 includes expanded telephony functionality, simplified multimedia conferencing and collaboration, and the extensibility of OCS to line of business applications and workflows through communications enabled business processes (CEBP). However, taken in its entirety, the marquis additions to OCS are the voice-related enhancements.

The new telephony capabilities include single number reach, advanced call management delegation for administrative assistant applications, and a new Office Communicator soft client interface. In addition, Microsoft has significantly expanded the handset and headset endpoint ecosystem from vendors such as LG Nortel and Polycom. The devices in the ecosystem have been optimized for Office Communicator—translation: these devices support some non-open standard protocols and voice compression techniques that are included in OCS. Microsoft has also added mobile client support for the Java and Symbian operating systems and the ability to connect directly from OCS to the PSTN through SIP trunking.

The enhancements included in OCS R2 address many of OCS’s previous gaps related to telephony functionality, although several key capabilities must be addressed before most enterprises will give serious thought to leveraging OCS as a “phone system”. For example, remote site survivability and support for analog devices will be requirements for many business customers.  By aggressively pursuing the remaining gaps in OCS’s telephony functionality, Microsoft will continue to make progress in converting those that either dismiss or are skeptical of Microsoft’s future role in telephony to believers and OCS’s role will expand from a collaborative-centric to a complete enterprise-class UC platform.

The battle for dominance in the UC market will be intriguing as the major platforms mature, cloud-based services enter the market, mobility continues its explosive growth, and the industry continues its shift to software-based products. The telephony-focused enhancements contained in OCS R2 will place further pressure on the telephony-centric vendors, as silo-based applications are integrated into multi-application UC platforms and enterprises seek the most cost-effective path to address the forces impacting its communications and collaboration strategies. And with a goal of establishing a dominant position in the UC market, Microsoft has signaled the critical importance of telephony in OCS R2 and its intent to not only complement, but ultimately replace what we know today as the phone system.

Nortel’s Bankruptcy: More Thoughts

posted by: Mark Cortner

The high wire balancing act required by Nortel following its bankruptcy filing will crucial to the viability of its enterprise voice business. In a post earlier this month, I predicted that Nortel would not shed these assets while in bankruptcy and would retain these assets unless business conditions significantly deteriorate.

The next several months will be critical as Nortel reaches out to its customer base and attempts to reassure nervous customers of the company’s ability and intention to continue its investments in the enterprise telephony offerings; that channel partners will continue to support customers and maintain expertise in Nortel products; and that its partnership with Microsoft (the Innovative Communications Alliance or ICA) remains fully intact and healthy.

The message that Nortel shares with its customers surrounding the bankruptcy will be the first step to reestablishing credibility. I don’t believe many businesses will accept that the bankruptcy does not affect Nortel’s ability to execute and that why many may want to believe that past product commitments will continue to be met. The pragmatic view may be that even with the best intentions, Nortel may be forced to extend delivery dates and shrink legacy product lifecycle timelines.

In addition to its own product commitments, Nortel must protect its channel partner relationships as the channel partners themselves frequently represent the customer’s indirect relationship with Nortel. The channel partners are undoubtedly also nervous about Nortel’s future, as many may rely disproportionally on product/service revenues dependent upon Nortel products and may therefore be at a business risk as well.  I noticed this week that one of Nortel’s largest non-carrier and highest certified channel partners, Shared Technologies, signed on to Avaya’s business partner program.

The establishment of a unique relationship between Nortel and Microsoft, within the ICA, was positioned as an important strategic milestone for both companies as well as for the UC market.  The reality is that, over the past several years, I suspect neither party has experienced the windfall of joint business opportunities related to UC that they may have anticipated when the ICA was formed in 2006. I expect the ICA to quietly dissolve in the next year and that while Nortel will continue to “partner” with Microsoft; it will work even closer with IBM and its less predatory platform, Lotus Sametime.

The approach that Nortel takes to each of these key areas of concern over the next few months will be pivotal to the future of their enterprise voice business as they navigate the bankruptcy process. I anticipate Nortel’s execution will determine the direction and pace at which the dominos fall …

Lotusphere 2009: Key UC² News

posted by: Mark Cortner

IBM’s key announcements this week at Lotusphere 2009 surrounded LotusLive, a cloud-based portfolio of collaboration and social networking services.  LotusLive is designed to enable customers to extend their investments in premises-based products and connect with a variety of third-party partner services. The new service officially signals IBM’s entry into the software-as-a-service (SaaS) collaboration market and was launched with several partnerships including Skype, LinkedIn, and salesforce.com.

The suite of applications currently included in LotusLive is focused on “click-to-cloud” online meetings, file sharing, file storage, and email. IBM assembled and impressive collection of partnerships as part of the launch; including one of if not the most successful cloud-based services (salesforce.com), a highly-recognized business-oriented professional networking service (LinkedIn), and a well-known Internet-based telephony/video service that enables users to communicate and collaborate (Skype). The future possibility of integration between LotusLive/Skype and Sametime would be very intriguing and could be useful in affirming Skype as a business application.

With respect to unified communications and collaboration, IBM’s Lotus Sametime UC² platform made a splash of announcements at last year’s Lotusphere conference. The focus this year was on sharing data points on Lotus Sametime’s progress over the past year and previewing what new capabilities IBM intends to deliver in 2009.  IBM claims that Lotus Sametime achieved 30% customer growth in 2008, with 60% of all licenses purchased with the most extensive set (Lotus Sametime Advanced) of features, and that 33% of its new customers use Microsoft Exchange (versus IBM Lotus Notes).

The focus of the Lotus Sametime roadmap during 2009 will be on integration of the platform with enterprise telephony platforms (Sametime Unified Telephony [SUT]) and the next major release, Sametime 8.5, which will have an emphasis on meetings. The keynote included an impressive (and entertaining) demonstration involving the integration between SUT and a SIP-based videophone from Polycom, and the Blue Man Group. The SUT application is currently in beta and is expected to be commercially available by mid-year while Sametime 8.5 is planned to ship in the second half of 2009.
The long-term roadmap for Lotus Sametime includes an emphasis on multipoint video, web-based audio/video conferencing, mobility, and integration with LotusLive.

 

Nortel’s Bankruptcy Filing

posted by: Mark Cortner

The recent filing by Nortel for bankruptcy protection is the latest in a steady stream of financial challenges the company has faced over the last several years.  Nortel has a proud and rich history in enterprise voice solutions and is among the global leaders in the market. But given the company’s recent filing, many enterprise IT organizations are raising the question as to how the bankruptcy filing should impact their plans and strategies to continue to use or make new investments in Nortel telephony products.

The first step to answering this question is to assess whether or not Nortel will elect to continue to compete in the telephony market. Nortel will undoubtedly shed several product lines/businesses as a result of the filing although I’m not sure the enterprise telephony business will initially, if ever, be one of the lines of business that is divested.
The enterprise voice customer base would be attractive from an acquisition perspective, but the support liability associated with Nortel’s legacy platforms and the duplication of next-generation VoIP/IPT/UC products from those of a likely acquirer would diminish this value. I expect these assets to remain a component of the “new” Nortel and the line of business to be continued unless business conditions significantly deteriorate.

The second step is to look at customer deployment scenarios. If the enterprise is currently using legacy, circuit-switched technology then the issue of immediate concern should be product end-of-life/support. The vast majority of enterprises who have not started the migration to VoIP/IPT have life cycle commitments for the products they currently own, either from their third-party system integrators or directly with Nortel.
The bankruptcy filing enables Nortel to break any existing contractual commitments, so Nortel could potentially eliminate any warranties or support. The prior support commitments an enterprise has received from Nortel are likely a key component to the timing of its migration strategy to VoIP/IPT. Although it is unlikely that Nortel would completely eliminate its existing support commitments (unless it completed exited the enterprise voice business), the risk is rather if and by how much will the end-of-life/support timeline shrink. For example, those enterprises that are starting now with a 7-10 year migration plan may want consider accelerating this to minimally a 5-7 year migration.

Lastly, for many businesses that have chosen to use Nortel products for VoIP/IPT, they likely have an installed base of Nortel legacy voice products and may have a significant economic advantage to continuing to use Nortel solutions. If possible, these enterprises should consider slowing or delaying any continued migration to VoIP/IPT until Nortel has sufficiently restructured its business and is executing on a new operational plan. The enterprise IT organization should take this time to execute due diligence and revisit the rationale for selecting Nortel as a key partner. The process should be aimed at validating that the product selection has been made on the basis of key competitive advantages that Nortel is perceived to maintain over other competitive offerings. The next several months will be challenging. Nortel’s future position and success in the voice market will be determined by the actions they take, more than the words they say, in the coming months.