UCStrategies Spotlight – December 9, 2010

UCStrategies.com is an industry resource for enterprises, vendors, system integrators, and anyone interested in the growing Unified Communications arena. Each week, UCStrategies provides review and analysis of breaking news and significant trends in unified communications (UC). UCStrategies is pleased to provide summaries of its coverage to the Focus community.

UCStrategies.com Article: "No More “G’s” - Please!"

By Michael Finneran

The first TV ad for the soon-to-be-launched Verizon 4G LTE mobile data service appeared over the weekend. It featured birds flying, dogs barking, some top notch special effects and the tag line “Rule the Air.” Verizon also assured us theirs is “the most advanced 4G network in the world,” which raises the interesting question, what exactly is “4G” and should mass market consumers really care? Read the rest of this article on UCStrategies.com.

UCStrategies.com Article: "Mobile Unified Communications: An Unfulfilled Market"

By Russell Bennett

Last month I wrote a paper defining Unified Communications (UC) in which I deferred on the notion of requiring the integration of the mobile phone ‘silo’ into a unified communications system. I did this for several reasons:

1. The challenges of integrating UC into the mobile device are too great for this to be easily achievable.
2. No such offers exist today, despite this being an extremely compelling scenario.
3. The ‘mobile UC issue’ is a complex subject that deserves a paper in its own right.

To point 3 – this is that paper. I am going to attempt to:

• Define mobile UC in terms of a compelling and achievable user experience;
• Address the main challenges to the fulfillment of the mobile UC user experience;
• Attempt to suggest ways to address the challenges in order to be able to enroll the ‘roaming device’ into the UC ecosystem.

Read the rest of this article on UCStrategies.com.

UCStrategies.com Article: Social Media at Cisco Collaboration Summit

By Blair Pleasant

Two years ago it was all about unified communications, last year it was all about collaboration, and this year it’s all about video (with some collaboration, and pretty much no UC). Cisco’s Collaboration Summit in Phoenix was filled with sessions about its collaboration vision and products, with a heavy emphasis on video. It makes me wonder if next year’s conference will be called Cisco Video Summit. The key themes of the conference were pervasive video, desktop virtualization, and customer service combined with social media. Read the rest of this article on UCStrategies.com.

UCStrategies Blog: Speech Technology Roundup for November 2010 – Eyes on Nuance

By Nancy Jamison

While many eyes were on unified communications and collaboration this month, and speech technologies are certainly part of that, speech held its own for announcements in November too. Just taking a look at Nuance alone, there were quite a few. This didn’t even include the tasty, but so far false rumor that Apple was acquiring Nuance. This came about when Steve Wozniak, Apple’s co-founder, misspoke at an event, mentioning that Apple had acquired Nuance. It created quite a stir and a bump in Nuance’s stock price. Read the rest of this blog on UCStrategies.com.

UCStrategies Blog: UC and the Mobile Future: No Optimal Management Solutions Yet

By Lisa Pierce

Since Unified Communications applications and technology include mobility, it’s important to keep abreast of trends that can impact your current or future use of mobile UC applications. I attended  Mobile Enterprise Magazine’s Executive Summit earlier this month (see www.mobileenterprisemag.com). During the conference, several important trends were discussed. Each of the trends highlighted in this posting pose significant management challenges. Read the rest of this blog on UCStrategies.com.

To read the full articles summarized here, and for more UC intelligence and analysis, please visit UCStrategies.com.