Unified Communications

While some online services are stepping up their efforts to protect private user data from government requests, there is plenty room for improvement, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) said on Thursday. It is time for all companies that hold private user data to make public commitments to defend their users against government overreach, the foundation said.

IP communications products vendor, snom technology has launched a new e-learning course that is based on session initiation protocol (SIP) fundamentals.

A survey finds that IT leaders are accelerating their plans to invest in unified communications and collaboration technologies. But the systems aren't cheap.

Microsoft has released a government-specific edition of its Office 365 cloud-based email and collaboration suite that offers U.S. public-sector customers a cordoned-off data center infrastructure just for them.

About 4.5 million Catholic school students will get access to Microsoft's Office 365 cloud e-mail and collaboration suite as part of a 3-year deal the software vendor struck with the Catholic International Education Office (OIEC).

The UC market is full of a range of vendors promoting tools that allow organisations to communicate and collaborate more effectively. But according to roundtable attendees, third-party offerings have to integrate successfully if UC is really going to take-off with customers.

The cornerstone of a successful UC implementation is having up-to-date user information. DiData’s Brian Walshe said integrators often took for granted that identity information within a customer’s organisation was accurate and managed properly.

The unified communications concept has been floating around for several years now, but what does it mean today, and where are customers in terms of adoption? ARN recently brought together several industry experts to discuss collaboration and communication, the impact on infrastructure and local opportunities.

Unified communications (UC) technology has garnered a fair amount of attention, much of it due to vendors touting their UC offerings as the answer to problems workers have keeping in touch with colleagues, business partners and customers in a highly frenetic, increasingly mobile business world.

While there are sure to be a lot of new networking and IT companies that emerge in 2012, these nine stood out for their potential to deliver game-changing innovations in a wide array of fields, including Cloud computing, enterprise search, and mobile application development. (These are in addition to seven hot Cloud companies and seven storage companies to watch that we highlighted last year.)

Technology firms wowed us in 2011, delivering tablets, ultrathin laptops, innovative cloud services, and voice command digital assistants. Not so long ago, the technology underlying these products was nothing more than research and development projects. So, in an effort to peek into our not-so-distant tech future, here's a glimpse at ten promising projects percolating in tech research labs.

ORLANDO -- The technology that makes up many of the systems in the ITworld today is at a critical juncture and in the next five years everything from mobile devices and applications to servers and social networking will impact IT in ways companies need to prepare for now, Gartner Vice President David Cearley says.

Researchers and hackers are developing tools to execute a new data-leak threat: sneaking proprietary information out of networks by hiding it within VoIP traffic.

Distributor IPL Communications held a thought leadership event earlier this year specifically targeting 170 dealers that were a mix between telco and system integrators. This was underscored by the need to change. Julia Talevski sat down with IPL general manager, Paul Scanlan, and managing director, Stead Denton.

Scott Frew is a veteran of the IT distribution space, making his mark as owner of LAN Systems, which was sold to Westcon Group in 2000. Five years after the acquisition of his latest venture, Firewall Systems, he talks to NADIA CAMERON about the parent company’s strategies, market challenges and what’s on the agenda.

Videoconferencing is available for desktops and even through specially designed rooms called telepresence systems, but on wireless handhelds? According to Robert Hagerty, who has been CEO of Polycom for 10 years, it could be widely available soon.

Imagine an IP voice and unified communications system that can be integrated into any application and customised to meet business needs. Sounds great, right? Well that project is the Asterisk IP-PBX and it's free to use and you get the source code. A far cry from proprietary PBX systems perhaps, but Asterisk has a vibrant ecosystem and is replacing systems from more established telephony vendors. Following interviews with the leaders of the Horde and Free Telephony projects, the Open Source Identity series talked to Asterisk founder and Digium CTO Mark Spencer about how one application can have such a profound effect on businesses and how open source can be a tough competitive landscape.

What are some of the goals you’ve set your partners going forward?

How do MySQL users feel about Oracle Corp.'s takeover of the open-source database through its acquisition of Sun Microsystems Inc.? Judging by Twitter, anxious -- and snarky.

As the dust settles from the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show, here are four trends worth looking at based on some products that were announced at the show. On my radar screen for the year:

Whether fixed-mobile convergence is for you in the near-term depends in part on how you define it, but for most, there's no rush.

While it's still early days, Australian companies are quickly warming to UC. In fact, Gartner research vice-president, Geoff Johnson, believes we are just as advanced as any economy in Europe or North America. However, as no one vendor is able to provide a complete UC solution - and are not expected to do so for the next three years - there is a vital need for partnering and cooperation between suppliers over the coming years.

VoiceCon 2008 wrapped up in the US last week and the conference was jam-packed with news, announcements, and observable trends so we will spend the next several editions reviewing a few highlights. In his keynote address, Mike Rhodin, Lotus Software general manager gave five predictions about global unified communications and in a follow-up interview, Larry got the chance to find out how IBM will invest up to US$1 billion to help meet the changing business communications requirements.

Every once in a very long while, I get to review a product that strikes me as a stepping stone toward the future. Microsoft Lync 2010 combines instant messaging, VoIP calling, live meetings, and videoconferencing, but it's more than the sum of these parts. Although Lync integrates with almost any PBX, it puts the PC at the center of communications so effectively that it could send your current phone system packing.

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