At the Blackberry Developer Conference, DEVCON 2010, Research in Motion (RIM) made several announcements, unveiling the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet and associated OS, as well as introducing the BlackBerry Enterprise Application Middleware development platform.
Last week I attended Metaswitch Forum 2010 in Orlando, and continue to come away impressed with their ability to both grow and evolve their value proposition. Metaswitch does not turn up regularly on this portal, as UC is not really a core focus for them. They actually have UC-related offerings - mostly voice-centric, however - and only a minority of their customers have gone down this path so far. I know that will change over time, and as I learned, their partnership with ADTRAN is one way this will happen.
Avaya's subsidiary, Avaya Government Solutions, announced that its new Unified Communications solution, designed to help government and civilian agencies alike communicate with more efficiency and cost effectiveness, has been made available today.
The Avaya Aura Application Server 5300 Release 2.0 provides a secure, next-generation, SIP-based UC solution, while integrating voice, video, multimedia conferencing, and collaboration with capabilities enabled by Instant Messaging, live chat, and other presence-based communications.
In order to improve subscriber experiences for communications service providers, Oracle has announced a variety of new product enhancements. These enhancements, designed to be cost-effective, will affect several of Oracle's Unified Communications products and services, providing a variety of improvements for their customers.
Polycom has expanded its leadership in voice over Wi-Fi products with the introduction of the next-generation Polycom SpectraLink 8400 series handsets for wireless voice and data applications. The new series features a new standards-based application platform, integrated barcode reader, and a wide range of interoperability.
What do Bebo, Cyworld Facebook, and Xanga all have in common? All are currently on a list of major active social networking websites1. Cyworld, a popular social networking site in Korea, has 27,000,000 registered users while Bebo, an acronym for Blog Early, Blog Often, has 117,000,000 registered users ranking it 1,0602 according to Global Alexa, a web information company owned by Amazon.
At a press conference in New York today, Avaya introduced an Android-based tablet-like device called the Desktop Video Communicator. Like Cisco's not-yet-released Cius, the core application appears to be video. However, why they would bother coming out with a jazzed-up desktop touch screen video phone costing $2,000 at this point in time is a bit of a mystery.
What will get more attention from Avaya's announcement - the new video products or the new name for the video experience? Branding has certainly gotten its fair share of attention in the past few months - first the Cisco Cius (rhymes with see us), then Microsoft Lync (rhymes with sink), and now, Avaya Flare (rhymes with - uh, Blair).
Avaya announced today the creation and release of several new solutions, which are intended to transform business collaboration. Among them are a family of real-time enterprise video communications and collaborations products and services, and the Avaya Flare Experience, a new user experience made to deliver unique collaboration capabilities for voice, video, and text.
The majority of voice systems are procured through indirect channels. The old term was "Interconnect," the provider interconnected branch equipment to the carriers. Other terms include Dealer, VAR, Systems Integrator, and Solution Provider. Yes, there are slight nuances, but for the most part they all describe channel partners that resells, installs, and supports voice systems. As a result of new technologies and the notion of convergence, several new channels are emerging. And these non-traditional channels deserve some recognition.