The Intercompany Media Engine will let users make IP video calls over existing phone numbers
Cisco Systems plans to extend unified communications beyond individual enterprises, introducing a new appliance and a protocol that the company hopes will become an industry standard.
Long-awaited road map for merged networking and unified communications player
Avaya tomorrow will reveal a road map that shows how its customers – in particular its newly minted Nortel customers - can move to unified communications technologies without ripping out existing gear.
Best-of-breed approach may impact scalability
With around 750,000 customers and 3 million calls a year, pay TV provider Austar has improved its customer service through unified communications by reducing average call handling times by 15 per cent.
No word on when a commercial version of the product will be released or how much it will cost
Cisco Systems Chairman and CEO John Chambers demonstrated on Wednesday how the company's TelePresence videoconferencing technology could be developed into a consumer product, showing off the long-awaited system at a press conference ahead of the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Open source softphones can be deployed on as many devices as required throughout the enterprise -- without additional licence fees.
The steady rise in people using IP telephony to communicate -- for personal and business reasons -- has led to the development of a number of different VoIP "softphones" that can be used on a PC or notebook.
A subset of features of this telephony management service will be available for cell phone numbers
To take advantage of Google Voice's telephony management features, users have had to fulfill a tricky requirement: convince their contacts to call them using the single "phone number for life" that comes with this free online service.
Currently in a controlled beta that everyone wants to try out, Google Wave has enormous potential -- and serious limitations
Google Wave is a groundbreaking real-time collaborative tool that has the potential to be an ideal way for members of a group to work with one another. But it's not clear how useful it will be in the real world. It's the kind of tool that you want to use, but one that you may not be able to figure out how to fit into your work life.
12 security flaws are fixed in the semi-annual update
Cisco Systems has released its twice-yearly set of security patches for its router firmware, fixing 12 security flaws in the products.
The SkyRoom software for application sharing and high-definition video also will be sold for $US149
Hewlett-Packard is building collaboration software with video, application-sharing and 3-D graphics support into several of its workstation models, giving the high-definition conferencing market an option well below the cost and scale of telepresence.
Debra Chrapaty to switch sides to head up collaboration efforts at networking giant
Cisco is reportedly tapping a high ranking Microsoft executive to be the new head of its collaboration software group.
Nortel enterprise customers will be able to buy the company's current line of products for 12 to 18 months after Avaya officially takes ownership of Nortel's enterprise division that it won at auction for $US900 million.
Nortel enterprise customers will be able to buy the company's current line of products for 12 to 18 months after Avaya officially takes ownership of Nortel's enterprise division that it won at auction for $US900 million.
Unified communications can save time, cut costs and improve collaboration, but the tricky part is choosing the right combination of tools.
It's hard to find anyone who likes audio conferences. Sure, worker bees can put themselves on mute to chat with fellow cube dwellers. Or play Facebook Scrabble and check e-mail until it's their turn to talk. Yes, for true lows in productivity, the fuzzy, disembodied, dial-in audio conference is hard to beat.
How unified communications are expanding today
The shimmering oasis called "unified communications" has been on IT horizons for so long, it's almost surreal to think we might actually arrive there one day.
Curtin University adopts Microsoft’s Live@edu email solution
Western Australia-based Curtin University of Technology will soon begin its roll-out of Microsoft’s Live@edu hosted email platform, taking over 192,252 students and alumni across 11 global campuses, into the cloud for a future collaborative learning environment.
Networking giant Cisco Systems has a secret gem hidden within its global operations – a $120 million technical assistance centre (TAC) in the northern Sydney suburb of Chatswood. One of only four such centres in the world, the Sydney TAC handles Cisco’s customer support load for six hours of each day. Support calls are answered by the multi-lingual team and can be escalated to the company’s tier-1 engineering operations if required. Cisco has invested some $270 million on TAC labs in the Asia-Pacific (including Japan) region. Globally, the Sydney TAC joins North Carolina and San Jose in the US and Brussels in Europe for 'follow the sun' support. The Sydney location also has a data centre which is used for development, problem solving and interoperability testing. The data centre is the first in Australia to demonstrate Cisco’s entrance into the server space – the Unified Computing System. Computerworld went on a tour of the TAC and data centre and spoke with Cisco engineers about the role of the centre and the new technology it houses.
Networking giant Cisco Systems has a secret gem hidden within its global operations – a $120 million technical assistance centre (TAC) in the northern Sydney suburb of Chatswood. One of only four such centres in the world, the Sydney TAC handles Cisco’s customer support load for six hours of every day. The Sydney location also has a data centre which is used for development, problem solving and interoperability testing. The data centre is the first in Australia to demonstrate Cisco’s entrance into the server space - the Unified Computing System.
