INTERNET TELEPHONY — October 2012

It's Time for ITEXPO!

ITEXPO West 2012, where you will gain new insight and learn about new products and networking solutions that will keep you and your company ahead of the curve, takes place at the Austin Convention Center. The event brings together enterprise, government and SMB end users, resellers, service providers, manufacturers, developers, media and analysts gather to examine solutions in conference sessions, demo products and services live on the expo floor, and forge beneficial relationships.

Getting Vertical

The Appeal of Automation: LoBue Citrus Picks FoodLogiQ, Intermec Inventory & Labeling Solution
LoBue Citrus is a family-run grower and distributor of oranges accounting for 4 to 5 percent of the California citrus industry. That equates to between 4 and 5 million boxes each year, with 40 percent of the product exported to Asia. Based in Lindsay, Calif., the company recognized the need to automate its produce traceability program. Formerly, the process was manual, which tied up critical resources and increased the likelihood of error.

Departments

The Channel
On RAD's Radar

A Brief History of Telecom Disruption
Telcos were making billions every year on TDM services - POTS, T1, PRI and long distance. In 1986, Sprint's pin drop commercials were launched. This signaled the race to the bottom for LD for the big three IXCs - Ma Bell, Sprint and MCI - declining from over a dollar per minute to a nickel per minute in about six years.

Network Infrastructure

The Cloud, Mobile, New Database Technology & VoIP Offer Business Added Reliability
Whether you're talking about a database or a voice system, keeping such critical systems up and running at your business is obviously of key importance. The good news is that new models and technologies on both the database and voice fronts are enabling organizations to better ensure that their information and employees are accessible even in the event of environmental, technical or other issues.

Call Recording Captures Value for the Contact Center
In discussing call recording, the first thing that typically comes up in my interviews is how it helps companies comply with various regulations. But call recording offers a wide variety of other benefits, from helping lower call center employee turnover, to improving contact service rep training, to allowing for the capture and usability of information that can drive sales and customer satisfaction.

Security

BYOD & IPv6: The Secret to Providing a Secure Network
Some network security engineers are already calling BYOD, "bring your own disaster." With the proliferation of Internet-connected mobile devices that consumers and employees alike use to access public and private networks every day, the bring-your-own-device trend definitely affects the data center in unforeseen and potentially very damaging ways.

Understanding the Challenges and Opportunities of Next-gen Firewalls
Next-generation firewalls have come a long way in a relatively short period of time, building on the evolution of application firewalls, which have started to feature ever-more complex rule sets for standard services, such as sharing services. The next-gen firewalls have the advantage of supporting application firewall features that rely on mandatory access control (MAC), also referred to as sand boxing, in order to protect vulnerable services.

Security Awareness - Once is Never Enough
Unless IT security is a core element of someone's job, it's not necessarily considered an ongoing development need. All too often employees get just an initial presentation from the IT department when they start, and are expected to remember it, keep up to speed with changes, and adhere to ever-changing IT security policies and procedures.

Unified Communications

Cicero's Garner Offers Wealth of Knowledge about the Evolving Customer Experience
IP-based communications, social media and mobile communications are changing the face of the contact center and the customer experience at large. To learn more about the changing tide, INTERNET TELEPHONY recently spoke with Mike Garner, chief customer officer with Cicero, Inc.

Cloud & Data Center

Cloud Continues to Gain Strength
Cory von Wallenstein, chief technology officer at Dyn, in a recent interview with this magazine noted that no one is afraid of using Salesforce or other cloud-based solutions, and that cloud technology will only continue to go deeper in the market as time moves on. North Bridge Venture Partners in June unveiled new research in which 50 percent of respondents stated their belief that the cloud makes sense even for their most important business applications.

Getting the Most out of Managed Services
Cloud services, mobility, security - these trends pose some of the most significant challenges facing IT departments today. For enterprises looking to effectively and efficiently navigate this complex and changing landscape, turning to a managed services provider may very well be a strategic choice.

Open Source

The Elephant in the Room: What's the Scoop on Hadoop
Conventional wisdom would lead you to believe that the more data and data types are involved, the more expensive and complex it is to analyze data. But that's not necessarily so, says Jack Norris, vice president of marketing at MapR.

Wireless

Ethernet and Small Cell Solutions Relieve the Spectrum Crunch
Digital-content consumption is on a steep incline with more consumers downloading large amounts of data via smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices. Consider these sobering facts: By 2015 there will be 15 billion network connections, the number of mobile devices will be two times the world's population, app downloads will reach 47 billion per year, and one million minutes of video will cross the Internet every second.

Four Trends and Revenue Opportunities to Monetize through Mobility
Beyond developing innovative, differentiated products, the number-one challenge today for software makers globally is finding new sustainable sources of revenue. For most, mobilizing their products offers significant new monetization opportunities.