Organizations are waiting for the “killer app” that will help their employees to embrace VoIP — much the same way that the spreadsheet drove the business adoption of the PC. IP-based collaboration tools just may be that killer application, leveraging the familiar environments of Web, voice, data, and video conferencing while bringing companies the huge cost-savings associated with VoIP. This session will cover examples of how companies are pulling together their ongoing converged network initiatives with the savings opportunities available in IP-based conferencing and collaboration to drive the adoption of VoIP.

IP-based conferencing is certainly not your father’s conferencing solution. It converges real-time voice, Web, and collaboration tools over a single packet-based network, creating a new, productivity-enhancing user experience. IP is turning conferencing into a one-click, on-demand, desktop-centric paradigm. Users will be able to tap into a rich new range of conferencing services, such as presence- and location-based information about conferences, click-to-call scheduling, instant messaging, and document sharing. This session will discuss the experiential differences between traditional PSTN conferencing and the new world of unified IP conferencing. Discussion will focus on recommendations for better preparing users to take full advantage of the technology’s workplace productivity gains.

The culture of anywhere, anytime connectivity is driving the future of conferencing and collaboration making IP a very powerful tool. Integrated seamlessly into the work environment and linked with business processes and enterprise applications, IP conferencing yields tremendous value to an enterprise. This session covers the issues of choosing proper IP conferencing tool for large and medium sized enterprises.

Blended learning is a program designed with the objective of optimizing the learning outcome and cost savings. It is truly a continuous process, and blending Web Conferencing into the mix has various benefits over using traditional learning methods alone including extended reach, optimizing business results, decreasing development cost and time. What tools and media are available to aid this virtual learning? How many companies and institutions are adopting this type of strategy to reduce travel budgets while increasing efficiency and effectiveness? Learn how to achieve strategic learning objectives as they relate to workforce development, sales channel, technical and educational training initiatives. Web conferencing, video conferencing and teleconferencing are among the technologies and solutions that will be discussed.

Communications is critical for the success of any organization, but for government agencies attempting to coordinate national security initiatives, secure borders, or adhere to telework initiatives, it’s imperative. Fortunately, government entities that need to share critical information, increase productivity, or reduce the need for travel and overhead, have technologies available that can help them be more effective and efficient, while still protecting the confidentiality of information shared through Internet communications. This presentation would highlight why real-time, IP collaboration tools are needed, how they can be used to improve local, state, regional, or federal environments, and provide tips on how various technologies can best be used across related applications.

Join this session if you a new to the world of Voice over IP or if you feel you need a refresher course. The speakers will consider the essential technical differences between traditional telephony and IP telephony, the challenges that these differences present and the way that they are overcome in successful real-life deployments. The rules have significantly changed and the way we think about telephony solutions must also change. This is truly a can’t-miss session for attendees looking for a thorough overview.

This panel discussion will feature several telecom dealers talking about their experiences deploying IP in a variety of industries. Among the topics they will address: • Understanding when pure IP telephony is the best choice • Migrating TDM users to IP telephony • Identifying and overcoming technology hurdles • Finding creative solutions • Taking VoIP mobile (wireless phones, softphones, etc.) • Calculating ROI – cost savings and productivity increases.

Presence has the potential to be the unifying thread between different modes of communication including enterprise telephony, IM, video, and mobile telephony. Presence is the essential element in the migration from device centric to user centric systems, as it integrates user’s availability across all their devices and applications. But Presence also has a dark side which may impede its broad acceptance, namely concerns about privacy, time management, enterprise policy and security. Each of these aspects is explored during this session, and solutions in development, standards bodies, and emerging products are discussed.

VoIP is not just for large enterprises. In fact, VoIP plays a significant role in impacting business performance for small- and medium-size businesses. This session will address the drivers that affect the SMB market — such as the growing reliance on outsourcing and third-party vendors, the challenge to utilize remote knowledge workers, and the increasing pressure to control costs. In addition, this session will cover VoIP-powered applications, like presence management, collaboration, messaging, and mobility, and examine how SME customers can effectively leverage these tools to improve business performance.

As more and more customers become accustomed to using VoIP, they’ll begin to expect value-added enhancements and additional benefits, aside from cost savings alone. What types of VoIP-enabled services and applications will be developed to satisfy this demand? What will be the “next big thing” in the VoIP market? How will savvy vendors, service providers, and application developers take advantage of this capability? How will they use VoIP technology to roll out previously impossible or unheard-of applications and maximize the benefits for end users? Come to this session to catch a glimpse of the future of enterprise VoIP.

While VoIP has many positive benefits to corporations, the potential security risks involved should not be ignored and must be effectively addressed before a loss in money or private data occurs. New products and services must be created to eliminate these security threats. The speakers will address the growing need for the communications industry to address and develop VoIP security solutions now and for the future. The session will cover how implementing security at the “core” of the VoIP system, the platform level, and why ensuring that encryption is synched from the device and network is critical.

This panel discussion, moderated by the chairman of the recently formed VoIP Security Alliance will strive to identify and reduce VoIP security risks through a number of ways including educating and providing tools for the IT manager. Security is a critical concern for enterprise looking to deploy VoIP. As such this special session stands a must-attend for professionals charged with managing their company’s VoIP deployment.

Nationwide, an estimated 200 million calls are made to 911 each year. In May, the FCC decided that VoIP providers interconnecting with the PSTN must deliver E911 calls — with location and callback information — to local emergency operators. The decision raises a host of issues: What information, specifically, must be delivered with the call? Is network support in place, and at what cost? Who will enforce the E911 requirement? And how will the requirement apply to enterprise VoIP, where callback and location identification pose special challenges? Finally, will the VoIP legislation pending before Congress supplement or preempt the FCC’s decision? Join public safety administrators and legal and policy experts to hear the latest E911 news from Washington and around the country.

This presentation will examine the market from the perspective on how customers want to purchase and consume voice services and map enterprise communications products into those needs. We will also examine the market shift that has been waiting to happen as an application level conversion instead of the more common view of the shift as a more basic transport level conversion. Ultimately, this presentation will identify the true target for VoIP and other enterprise communications tools need to hit to move the market into the mainstream.

IT professionals have been examining their networks in critical detail to uncover hidden or latent problems since the dawn of networking, with the ultimate goal of improving delivery of mission-critical business applications. This discipline of troubleshooting has grown in importance in the age of VoIP with multimedia applications, global networks, and new protocols. This session will discuss how gaining greater visibility into the network is leading organizations to better management of their converged networks and optimized delivery of all business and voice services. Other topics will include setting QoS policies, data collection/troubleshooting and how applications impact each other when traversing the same network segments.

Throwing voice packets onto a LAN and hoping for the best is easy. Deploying high-quality VoIP is a bit more challenging. This session will address the need for service quality management and how unleashing the network infrastructure, enforcing a centralized policy for end-to-end QoS, and controlling network resources on a proactive basis can deliver high levels of quality for IP communications. The session will also address related issues of bandwidth shaping and equalizing technology that are designed to enable IT professionals to manage their enterprise voice and data network.

Organizations are converging their data and voice systems into a single network, providing them with cost savings and increased operational efficiencies in their offices and branch sites. Today, these enterprises are taking convergence to the next level by integrating mission-critical business applications such as CRM, inventory management, and the like into their IP Communications network. The presenters will explain how this integration makes it possible to create customized IP communications solutions that can increase customer service and satisfaction, improve workforce productivity, and further increase operating efficiencies.

The roll-out of VoIP presents a quandary. The reality of high expectations for voice quality combined with the challenges of running voice on IP networks opens up the risk of serious business failure for the network operations team. How can an enterprise CIO ensure the delivery of QoS that VoIP services demand? This session will look at the specific QoS requirements of VoIP, where those issues arise in the network, and how to measure and deliver high levels of QoS. The presenters will also look at the Ethernet edge and Ethernet core to see how other network elements impact QoS.

With most major telecommunications carriers currently in the process of deploying VoIP services for mass deployment, it’s clear that IP telephony is finally headed for prime time. However, the promise of mass VoIP consumption also increases the risk for widespread security violations, spawning a new sense of urgency to develop secure VoIP solutions now before hackers wreak havoc on corporate voice networks. This session will examine the special demands of enterprise VoIP, with a special emphasis on delivering secure and reliable IP voice over your enterprise network.

Beyond the “traditional” benefits of VoIP such as reduced infrastructure costs, toll bypass, etc…, VoIP offers more sophisticated value through improved productivity, enhanced customer experience, converged applications and the ability to obtain new sources of revenue growth. To define the true value of an IP solution requires examining more than the short-term benefits of upgrading the architecture; it is also about considering its role as a fundamental business asset in a strategic plan designed to generate financial growth and competitive advantage. This presentation will focus on the business goals and benefits of deploying an IP-based enterprise communications solution

Presence, once considered merely an underlying technology to instant messaging (IM), is becoming its own killer application, and is posed to go well beyond instant messaging and deep into the enterprise. The future of presence management is the convergence of VoIP, data, video, IM and location tracking on top of wired and wireless networks to display, in an application, the whereabouts and status of a user’s colleague. This session will explore the role of presence in keeping remote workers and branch offices connected while meeting the updated performance expectations of today’s business environments.