Network World on Convergence

Managing processes more effectively

Michael Osterman — 2008-11-25T00:00:00Z

E-mail is a fantastic tool for communicating with others, sending and receiving files (albeit with limitations) and managing personal tasks. E-mail is less useful for things like managing projects, particularly when multiple people are involved and responsibilities are shared among them. ActionBase has been designed to correct these limitations. The venture-funded developer of the same name is based in Israel.

How build a successful Unified Communications and Collaboration plan

Steve Taylor,Larry Hettick — 2008-11-24T00:00:00Z

Verizon Business recently published some suggestions about how build a successful Unified Communications and Collaboration (UC&C) plan, focused on what enterprises need to consider when making the move to unified communications. The tips follow the company's launch of UC&C in September this year. Verizon Business has both premises-based and hosted solutions, along with professional services that support UC&C with planning, consulting, deployment, and ongoing management.

Internet's bandwidth health still in trouble, report says

Brad Reed — 2008-11-21T00:00:00Z

Nemertes Research continued to throw cold water on the future of the Internet this week, releasing a study projecting that demand for bandwidth on the Web will exceed its capacity by 2012.

Communications personalities: Vive la difference!

Johna Till Johnson — 2008-11-20T00:00:00Z

One of my favorite advertising campaigns is the one from HSBC that spotlights how differently people can view the same things. You've probably seen it: Two photos side by side, each with a comment — then the same two photos, comments reversed.

Foreclosures, consumer cutbacks freeze carrier spending on VoIP

Tim Greene — 2008-11-20T00:00:00Z

Home foreclosures and a generally bad economy are driving down demand for wired phone lines, which will freeze much carrier spending on VoIP infrastructure until 2011, according to a new Infonetics report.

Unified communications and the economic slowdown

Michael Osterman — 2008-11-20T00:00:00Z

An economic slowdown is an interesting phenomenon. While there are some structural elements of a slowdown that are real, much of a slowdown is a self-fulfilling prophecy: people are afraid of their economic future so they slow spending, which actually creates much of the recession they fear will happen. A similar phenomenon occurred during the first energy crisis in the 1970s: prior to the crisis, the average car had roughly 3.5 gallons of gasoline in its tank at any given time; during the crisis, that figure was more than 14 gallons. That extra 100 million gallons or so driving around did not cause the crisis, but it certainly contributed to it.

Reducing telco costs with unified communications

Steve Taylor,Larry Hettick — 2008-11-19T00:00:00Z

As VoiceCon 2008 wrapped up last week in San Francisco, the usual announcements about new products, more interoperability demonstrations, and end-user case studies were standard fare. But another theme emerged about how unified communications deployments are being affected by current economic conditions as several company executives shared their views. The bottom line: Unified communications can be used to reduce telco costs and improve employee productivity - and proving these in a business case are especially critical in uncertain economic times.

Citrix buys high-def video conferencing player

Tim Greene — 2008-11-18T00:00:00Z

Citrix has bought Vapps, a provider of high-definition voice conferencing services geared for businesses and service providers.

Magic Johnson discusses video phones, Celtics-Lakers rivalry and today's NBA

Jon Brodkin — 2008-11-17T00:00:00Z

Magic Johnson's businesses rely on Cisco TelePresence videoconferencing to communicate, cut costs on plane travel.

IBM and Microsoft demonstrate 'interdomain federation'

Steve Taylor,Larry Hettick — 2008-11-17T00:00:00Z

VoiceCon San Francisco wrapped up last week with more news on the unified communications front. Perhaps the most noteworthy item came from IBM and Microsoft following up on a commitment, made in Orlando in March 2008, to improve interoperability. The companies announced they have now demonstrated "interdomain federation" between Microsoft OCS and IBM Sametime and that the feature will be available in products within the next few months.

Is your data center ready for tomorrow's applications?

2004-04-12T00:00:00Z

Click here to see what Gartner, Network World and other experts say about the new data center.