INTERNET TELEPHONY — Q2 2017

Avaya Files Chapter 11: What Now?

This year started out with a bang. That's not just because it marked the inauguration of a new and, many believe, controversial president. There was also lots of noise around Avaya's Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection filing in January...Read More

Strategic Solutions Series

Better, Faster, Simpler: Dash Helps Organizations Be More Efficient
We're all trying to do more - more quickly - with less. That means organizations need solutions that are easy to use. They want to work with suppliers that are responsive to their needs. And they like to know what to expect in terms of pricing and reliability.

Special Supplement

Why Hasn't UCaaS Taken Off?
At ITEXPO 2017, there were new VoIP logos both in handsets and in service providers (ITSPs). White-label providers like CoreDial are powering MSPs to offer their own brand of VoIP. There are so many providers of hosted VoIP, but not that many that actually sell UCaaS.

The Continued Evolution of the Contact Center
The contact center has always been technically innovative. The quest to both improve customer service while reducing expenses at the same time, while potentially oxymoronic, gets pulled off in this space because of technical innovation.

How Unified Communications Is Connecting With the IoT
Unified communications and the Internet of Things are intersecting in a variety of very interesting ways.

Team Collaboration: Why Everybody Is Rushing to Pick Up the Slack
Companies are designing open workspaces in an effort to better enable collaboration. Just look at the new donut-shaped campus Apple is building. Its design mirrors the move away from top-down bureaucracy and emphasizes the idea of teams (or circles) of employees.

Key Business Communications Trends & Players
Business communications has changed a lot in recent years. In other ways, however, it hasn't changed much at all. But more change is coming, at a more rapid pace, and that could really change the way people do business and get their work done.

Messaging, Slack, and Facebook - It's Complicated
My last Rethinking Communications article focused on CPaaS - communications platform as a service - and how it seems to be displacing UC as we've come to know it. The collaboration space - however you define it - is a moving target, and as much as CPaaS may provide comfort for representing the current state of things, it's not.

What's Happening in Real-Time Web Solutions
As many may have noticed, California is getting drenched this year. After 5 years of drought, the floodgates are opening, and we are getting inundated. Over a single day we got about 6 inches of rain; I had to drain the pool twice. While the effects of the drought are still being mitigated, for now it is a great sign.

Go Big or Go Home: Why More UC Outfits Are Going Global & Upmarket
The definition of business communications continues to expand. So do the players in the business communications enablement business.

The Time Could Be Right for Embedded Communications
APIs, CEBP, digital transformation, UCaaS 2.0, WebRTC - all of the above point to a fundamental change that's happening in business communications. Whatever you want to call it, and whatever technologies you employ to make it happen, the fact is that communications is expected to increasingly become part and parcel of existing business processes and applications, not supplements to them.

Departments

Video

Video Briefs
Many of us tap into Facebook with our computers and smartphones. And now the company wants to make it easier for us to tune into Facebook on our televisions as well.

Recognition

INTERNET TELEPHONY, TMC Name NFV, SDN Award Winners
Network functions virtualization and software-defined networking are two of the biggest trends in communications infrastructure today.

Security

How to Keep Hello Barbie from Becoming a Hacker????
What a time to be alive! Computers are talking to cars, and Barbies can connect to your phone. Even connected shirts are getting some skin in the IoT game. Some of these devices can make our lives easier by creating a world in which you can get freshly brewed coffee right when you wake up, and you can check your fridge from the grocery store to ensure there's milk for breakfast.????

Enterprise Communications

Enterprise Briefs
Unified communications software-as-a-service company BroadSoft in February announced 22 percent revenue growth between 2015 and 2016. The company's total revenue last year was $341 million. BroadSoft President and CEO Michael Tessler also noted that the company ended 2016 with its first-ever greater than $100 million revenue and billings quarter.

Combatting Software Audit Angst
When under the microscope, unprepared organizations can have their carefully planned budgets disrupted by punitive true-up fees and heavy fines incurred through lack of compliance, often unbeknownst to them. Like in any situation of appraisal, lack of preparedness quickly becomes evident during a vendor software audit, causing worry for many. It's no wonder software and IT asset managers around the globe shudder at the thought of an audit request letter from Microsoft, Oracle, SAP and other like providers.

Why Cisco Is Spending Billions on AppDynamics
Business processes and communications are increasingly moving to applications. As applications proliferate, so do management challenges related to them.

Networks

Network Briefs
Comcast Business recently announced plans to invest $25 million to expand its fiber-based network in Boston and Cambridge. That, the company said, will enable it to reach more than 3,000 businesses directly and reach tens of thousands more with 100 gigabit per second capacity. The build will entail the deployment of more than 40 miles of new fiber optic cable in the Back Bay, the Financial District and parts of Cambridge.

Study Assesses NFV MANO Vendor Offerings
Netcracker Technology made a big impression in the network functions virtualization management and orchestration arena market research recently published by Current Analysis.

Cabinets, CORD & OCP: Making Carrier Facilities More Like Data Centers
The desire for more agility, the move to open systems and virtualization, and the need to scale more efficiently are changing networking as we know it.

The Channel

Channel Briefs
GloboTech Communications has added VMware's software-defined data center to its portfolio. This solution enables organizations to self provision virtual machines in their private environments and have those resources available on demand. VMware Cloud Foundation is the name of the SDDC solution. It brings together VMware's NSX, vSAN, and vSphere. And it supports qualified vSAN ready nodes from Dell, HP, and QCT.