Editor�s Letter

Take Note

By Paula Bernier, Executive Editor, IP Communications Magazines  |  February 01, 2011

This article originally appeared in the Feb. 2011 issue of Unified Communications Magazine

The wealth of unified communications tools never ceases to grow larger. And now, analysts tell us, the wealth of UC solution providers is on the upswing as well.

New data from Dell' (News - Alert)Oro Group indicates that the unified communications market in the third quarter of 2010 grew to its highest level since 2008.

“The market rebounded strongly in the third quarter due to robust seasonal quarters from several of the larger vendors, especially in North America, which was able to offset weakness in Europe,” says Alan Weckel, director at Dell’Oro Group, which lists Aastra, Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, Cisco, Mitel, NEC, Shoretel, and Siemens (News - Alert) as the top vendors in this space.

He went on to say that he expects the unified communications market to expand significantly going forward as existing UC outfits expand their offers and Microsoft (News - Alert) moves forward with Lync.

Speaking of Microsoft, I understand that Microsoft recently made available to iPhone users its OneNote application, which could be considered a unified communications tool of sorts.

If you have never tried OneNote, it’s a Microsoft Office application that helps folks stay organized by providing the ability to make lists, take notes, and add photos, video and hand-written notes to all of the above. Microsoft quotes comScore (News - Alert) data indicating that 78 million PCs – that’s one-third of all the personal computers in the country –have OneNote.

Takeshi Numoto, Microsoft’s corporate vice president, Office muses in his blog that: “OneNote is a digital notebook that lets you put everything you need to remember in one electronic place and then easily find it wherever you are. I use it every day. Think of it as a digital file cabinet for all the random bits of information that are too hard to keep track of in your head.”

OneNote Mobile for the iPhone now lets people capture and look at notes and lists on their mobiles, and those notes are backed up and synced with free Windows Live SkyDrive online storage automatically. That allows users to access them from their PC, phone and browser.

“People who use OneNote often wonder how they ever lived without it,” adds Numoto. “It gets some of the highest customer satisfaction ratings of any app. For me, OneNote is where I collect and organize notes, ideas, links to websites and pictures. It can also capture handwriting, audio recordings and video clips. From my PC, the easy-to-search format means any of these tidbits of information are always at hand. Online or on my phone, my lists are always up to date and accessible for reference. Now iPhone users can have many of the same advantages as their Windows Phone (News - Alert) counterparts.”




Edited by Stefania Viscusi