ShoreTel Partner Conference - UCStrategies Podcast

If you're still thinking about what to make of ShoreTel's prospects following their partner event event earlier this month, here's how you should spend the next 30 minutes of your life.

Last week's UCStrategies podcast focused on our collective takeaways from the conference, but with a twist. For the first time, ShoreTel invited consultants to the event, so our podcast included perspectives from both analysts and consultants. You may not realize it, but we're in different lines of business with different types of expertise, and we're glad that ShoreTel has embraced both communities.

The twist is that no UCStrategies consultants were at the event, but a couple who are friendly with us were. So, not only do you get a complete picture of the event, but you also get to hear from some new voices. The podcast was ably moderated by Blair Pleasant, and if you can't spare the time to listen, there's a trascript to read as well. Here's the link, and as always, your comments are welcome.

ShoreTel 2012 Partner Conference - Timing Isn't Everything

On Friday, I just had time to post some photos and a short commentary about ShoreTel's 2012 Partner Conference in Orlando. It was good as usual, and on the flight back I wrote a longer recap piece, this time wearing my UCStrategies hat. ShoreTel's UC capabilities are a work in progress, but definitely coming along, and 2013 will tell us how well they're executing on their roadmap.

Yesterday, my writeup was posted the UCStrategies portal, and you may have seen it already via the twitter feeds. The post is titled "Timing Isn't Everything", and you'll just have to read it to connect the dots. Here's the link, and while you're there, please check out the rest of our content. We'll be doing a podcast about ShoreTel's event as well, and hope to have that done by early next week.

Email and UC - the Moose on the Table

Catchy title, huh? Well, that was the topic of this week's UCStrategies podcast. I have often wondered why email doesn't have a more central role to play with UC. Email is just so core to our daily workflows, you'd think it would be a big driver. I'm sure if email had been invented today, it would look a lot different, and certainly be voice-enabled.

The podcast discussion was lively, and if you've been thinking about this "moose on the table" as well, then you'll enjoy our podcast. I was on the call but didn't contribute, and just wanted to share the link with you here. Don Van Doren moderated the call, and here's the link, from which you can either listen to the discussion or read the transcript.

For me, the most interesting takeaway was Blair Pleasant's comment about how social media platforms are part the landscape now, and I've been thinking the same thing. The group talked about some numbers showing how email activity far exceeds making phone calls, but also how email is on the decline. This is largely a generational thing - email still dominates for most of us, but not Millennials.

Their tool of choice is social media and all the short form modes of text communication. Once social media becomes more tightly integrated with UC, I think that shift will accelerate - and at some point, these tools will become voice enabled. When that happens, it will be time to ask some serious questions about the long term value of email. Gee, maybe I should have jumped into the conversation!

In Cloud We Trust - Even for Contact Centers

Wearing my UCStrategies Expert hat, I regularly contribute content to their portal, which I believe to be the best go-to spot for what's really happening in the Unified Communications space. This includes writing sponsored posts, and we're very transparent about that. I was engaged to write the most recent one for Interactive Intelligence, a company I have long followed and always regarded as an innovator - and I'm not alone in that assessment.

The topic was the suitability of the cloud for contact center solutions, and to help our readers better determine if this is right for them. To me, it really boils down to trust, and that's what my analysis is focused on. Sure, ININ has a cloud-based contact center offering - CaaS - but the article isn't really about that. Yes, I think CaaS is a good solution, but others exist too, and my main objective is for readers to look beyond that - and look within themselves to think through what trust really means.

For broader context, I referenced what Google did last week to pull back the veil and let us see what really goes into a cloud infrastructure. It's way more complex than most of us can possibly imagine, and we need more of that instead of the blind trust that seems to be driving this push up to the cloud.

Hopefully, that's enough of a teaser to get you reading my article, titled "In Cloud We Trust", which was posted on the portal late yesterday. From there, I urge you to spend time exploring the UCStrategies portal. I'm just one of many analysts and consultants who follow this space, and if you can't something new from our collective insights, then you're probably in charge of Google's cloud team!

ITExpo Takeaways - Views from UCStrategies

This is a bit late in coming, but for last week's UCStrategies podcast we focused on the recent TMC ITExpo event in Austin, Texas. I did my own posting about the show previously - as many others have - but this podcast was a good opportunity to share our collective thoughts, specifically about what we took away from a Unified Communications perspective. The transcript of our podcast has been posted now on the UCS portal, and I hope you give it a read.

In addition to the UCStrategies takeaways and my blog post, TMC's Paula Bernier did a video interview with me at the show. It runs about 10 minutes, and I cover a wide range of topics around UC, including the challenges of selling it through channels, getting end users to understand the UC concept, the current state of UC offerings, and how UC fits in the contact center. Here's the link to view the interview, and from there, I urge you to view the other interviews conducted by various TMC editors during the show, mostly with vendors, but some keynotes are posted there as well.

One video in particular is Rich Tehrani's interview with Andy Abramson of Comunicano, both of whom should be well known to my readers. Andy, of course, is not a vendor, but he cites some great examples of how he's using collaboration tools to help his clients with their go-to-market plans. UC isn't just for big companies, and if anything, it's a great leveler for businesses of all sizes.

Empower, Engage and Innovate - my takeaways from Cisco's Collaboration Summit

I got back late last night from LA, and really enjoyed this year's Cisco Collaboration Summit. Yesterday I posted some photos and said I'd have a recap coming, and I managed to write that on the flight home.

Lots to think about, and I could have written 5 very different recaps - there was a lot to digest. Well, the first one's free, folks, and that one is running now on the UCStrategies portal. Wearing that hat, I'm looking at the UC implications from the summit, and you might not agree with me. That's fine - just calling it the way I see it, and I hope we can have some dialog, so let's hear from you. So, here's the link, and I'll leave it with you to share your thoughts.

UCS Podcast - Polycom's Makeover

Polycom made a big splash this week with a full makeover - both their offerings and branding. There's a lot at stake, as this is a company that followers in our space are really wondering where they fit long-term in the UC ecosystem. They seem to be positioning themselves as a UC&C solution, and I think that's going to be a stretch for a lot of people, myself included. However, you have to be aggressive and bold in this space, and they've certainly done that.

That was the focus on this week's UCStrategies podcast, and if you want to hear the view from the UC community, this is how you should spend the next 20 minutes of your day. I don't follow Polycom on a technical level, so I didn't comment on the call, but there's a wide range of ideas here to digest. Basically, it's a mixed bag - some strong positives, such as a total shift to software that's channel-friendly, and some missing pieces, but I'll leave that for you to discover. Here's the link from our portal, and I hope you get to it right now! Russell Bennett facilitated the call, and there's a transcript there as well.

Cisco, Collaboration and the Contact Center

Last week, I attended Cisco Canada's Collaboration Update here in Toronto. I'm one of the few analysts who gets to go their collaboration events both in Canada and the U.S. - I'll be at their big collab event next month in L.A. - so I get first-hand updates in both markets.

The Canadian update was pretty upbeat, and Cisco is holding its own here just fine. Collaboration is very much about UC, and the event had a strong focus on the contact center, which is probably Cisco's highest growth priority these days. Selling UC is a challenge for all vendors, and the main takeaway for me is how Cisco has made their contact center offerings both more market-friendly and more channel-friendly.

Also, by focusing on collaboration as the value driver, their offerings are broadening the traditional scope of what a contact center can do, and that's where things get interesting for me. To find out why, I need to steer you now to the UCStrategies portal, where my September contribution is now running. There's a lot to explore in this new world and we'd welcome your take on where you see this space going.

UCStrategies podcast - Gartner UC Magic Quadrant

On this week's UCStrategies podcast, we discussed our views on the latest Magic Quadrant report from Gartner, which was focused on UC. Needless to say, we all have opinions on this, so it was a lively discussion, which was hosted by Marty Parker.

Not surprisingly, Cisco and Microsoft ranked highest on the grid, and each is there for different reasons. Avaya remains up high as well, but am not so sure they'll keep pace next time around. Siemens also fared well, and Mitel stood out again on the innovation spectrum, mainly based on their virtualization focus.

That should be enough to get you over the portal, where you can now listen to the podcast and/or read the transcript.Once there, you should also read Marty Parker's detailed analysis of the key findings, which is posted now on the portal.

Enterprise Social Software Trends - UCStrategies Podcast

Busy week here on many fronts. This week's UCStrategies podcast built on two news items for major players - Microsoft acquiring Yammer, and Cisco rebranding its Quad platform. Both play into the ever expanding/confusing zone where social media and business communications intersect, and within the UCS group, Blair Pleasant has had a strong focus here.

Blair did a great job putting this podcast together, and we did our best to elevate the conversation above the din of social media, and into the more sophisticated realm of "enterprise social software". When the business world comes up with its own language to describe something we're already using, you know there's money to be made and empires to be lost. That's exactly what's driving the news from Cisco and MSFT, and we came at the topic from our usual wide range of perspectives.

We had a very lively discussion, and if you're wondering whether social media will have a legit home in the world of UC, this is what you should do after reading my post. The podcast - and transcript - was just posted to the UCS site, so click here to give it a listen and/or read, and by all means, join the conversation. After all, we're talking about social media here!

Podcast - UC, the channel and the cloud

This week's UCStrategies podcast addressed some big issues that any VAR or system integrator faces with UC - what to do about the cloud? The topic was put together by Steve Leaden, and he did a great job facilitating the discussion with several other UCS colleagues. A number have hands-on experience working with channels, and it was a good validation about how big these changes are, and how quickly they are coming. I added some thoughts at the end, mainly around the opportunity the cloud presents for channels to pursue new markets and customers.

Most of the conversation to that point was around managing existing customers, but that only addresses the defensive nature of what the cloud represents. I think net revenues with these customers will shrink with the cloud, and for that reason I wanted to emphasize how they can leverage the cloud to find new business. Regular readers of my blog will know the storyline I've been advocating for some time around Apple and how the iPad can be their Trojan Horse into the business market. I think there's a business just waiting to happen around an Apple UC ecosystem, and I'm sure many channel players are thinking the same thing.

Enough banter - the podcast is up on the UCStrategies portal now, along with a transcript. Give it a listen - and/or a read - and drop us a line to share your thoughts - we'd love to hear from you.

New post series - helping channels sell UC

Am on a good run right now, writing in a variety of places, and got a couple others coming you haven't seen yet. This is a shout-out about a series we just got going today on the UCStrategies portal, something my regular readers will know about.

In addition to my regular contributions there, I'm writing a series of posts over the next few weeks about channel-related issues/challenges for selling UC. Perhaps "selling" is too strong of a word, but ultimately that's their business, and it's clear that UC is not a simple sale.

To provide some clarity on this, I'm posting my thoughts in this series. The first post is running now, and asks the fundamental question around selling UC - "what business are you really in?". If you're dying to find - and of course you are! - click here, read away, and share your thoughts.

ShoreTel Investor Day 2012 - takeaways and photos

My travels took me to San Francisco on Wednesday for ShoreTel's Investor Day event. Held primarily for financial analysts, a few industry analysts were invited, including myself. It was a great opportunity to hear from the management teams of both ShoreTel and their recent acquisition, M5 Networks.

I posted about this deal recently, and pulled a new set of thoughts together based on what we were hearing on Wednesday. That missive is running now on UCStrategies, and is part of my regular monthly contribution to the UCStrategies community.

Aside from that, thought I'd share a few photos from the event, which was held at AT&T Park, home of the SF Giants, who happen to be a ShoreTel customer. The weather was pretty dreary, but otherwise, I'd say this worked out pretty well all around. Enjoy...

ShoreTel CEO Peter Blackmore kicking things off...



M5 CEO Dan Hoffman doing the same - as per the really cool graphic above him - yeah, he's pretty much hitting it out of the park in terms of having built the cloud model into a successful business over the past 10 years.


Ok, now look carefully - I'm only going to tell you this once. This was during their demo showing seamless 4 digit PBX calling integration with an iPhone. They've got this trick figured out pretty well, but how about what's going on with the IP phone?

If you look closely, you'll see it's a Cisco phone - fair enough, since that's the standard endpoint M5 supports with their customers. However, now that they're here with ShoreTel, the branding needs to be updated, since these are now ShoreTel apps. So, as explained, this was the world's first example of a ShoreTel app running over a Cisco phone. Cool, huh? Maybe a sign of where the market is going? Time will tell...



Ok, these updates were really interesting guys, but hey, the rain has stopped, and being a die-hard Red Sox fan, c'mon, let's get to the fun stuff - the ballpark tour.

So, channel your inner child - you're 7, and your Dad is taking you to your first MLB game. Is there anything more exciting and awesome than emerging from the tunnel and the incredible anticipation of seeing the baseball field explode into full green glory for the first time??? Not a chance. This is probably the first time you've realized that TV is cool, but can't hold a candle to being there in person. Can you think of a more all-American memory seared into your brain? I can't.

This was a halfway experience since the ballpark was empty, and not even groomed for baseball. Still pretty cool, though. I'm in my sixth decade of taking in games at Fenway, so nothing new here, but it took me back to my one and only time seeing the old Yankee Stadium - during a Dialogic event in 2008. I had the same 7 year old flashback there too, so if you want to compare photos, here you go.



It's not everyday you get to wander along the warning track of an empty ballpark, so I took full advantage.


The bullpen phone in the dugout - not very sophisticated, but probably gets the job done. Memo to ShoreTel and M5 - this setup shouldn't be too hard to improve on, right guys?



This was fun - the telecom room deep in the bowels of the building. Don't worry folks, this isn't what they use today - it's what they used to use, and now it just sits idle against this wall. Pretty graphic reminder about how telecom has evolved, and I'm sure ShoreTel has done a good job reminding the Giants about how their Brilliantly Simple solutions are a big improvement.

Enterprise Connect Preview/Big Data

On this week's UCStrategies podcast, the topic was what to expect at Enterprise Connect, coming later this month in Orlando. I won't be attending, but many of my UCS colleagues will be presenting there, so the podcast was a good opportunity to share all this in one place.

It's a major event in the UC space, and all the Tier 1 players will be there. UC is one of several themes they'll be covering, and you'll get a good sense of the landscape from listening to the podcast. While I had nothing to add about the sessions, I was able to contribute some broader thoughts towards the end of the podcast.

Basically, I brought Big Data into the discussion, as I'm seeing this as an emerging need for enterprises get a handle on. I think it's a huge opportunity, especially for UC, which can add a lot of value if used in the right way for Big Data. We're generating far more information than anyone knows what to do with, and the real-time nature of UC puts it right in the middle of where the most vibrant communication is happening in the enterprise. My sense is there will be some discussion of Big Data at Enterprise Connect, but I'll bet it will be right up there with cloud and mobility next year. You heard it here first!

The podcast has been posted now, and was hosted by Marty Parker - here you go, enjoy.

Unified Communications - 2012 Outlook Podcast

Sure feels like ages since my last post, and now that I check, it has been ages! Wow, time flies, esp when you're in holiday mode and have family coming to visit. That's all passed now, and it's back to work - and blogging.

For my first 2012 post, I was part of a great podcast earlier this week on UCStrategies. Our last podcast was the year in review, and this time around it was our look ahead to 2012. Not surprisingly, everyone has an opinion, and this session could have gone on for a long time.

The podcast has now been posted and transcribed to the UCS portal, and if you want a solid sendup of where Unified Communications is going this year, this will be 40 minutes very well spent. My focus was on how UC offerings will continue to move away from being telecom-centric, and I'll have more to say about that in my next UCS writeup this month.

My 2011 Unified Communications Takeaways

Building on our UCStrategies podcast earlier this week on the UC year in review, I've added another take in written form.

In short, disruption was the big driver, and it's hard to imagine this degree of change being the norm for 2012 - but you never know! I've had a chance to gauge the landscape both here in Canada as well as the U.S., and disruption comes in many flavors. Some is welcome and some is not, and my take on what it means for UC is the focus of my summary. It's posted now on the UCStrategies portal, and I welcome your thoughts after you've had a chance to give it a read.

Cisco Summit - Final Thoughts: "What's UC?"

I promise this will be my last post about Cisco's Collaboration Summit! As part of the UCStrategies team, I contribute a monthly writeup to their portal, and aside from everything I wrote around the event, I had some specific thoughts on where UC fits into Cisco's plans.

Well, based on my takeaways, it's not much, and I think that's an important message for the UCStrategies audience. It's not that UC isn't important to Cisco; rather, they have their own language around what most of us would consider UC. More importantly, Cisco's frame of reference for what UC delivers is network-centric, and different from most other vendors.

For my thinking, this raises a few issues and implications for anyone in this space - except, of course Cisco - and if that's on your radar, I think you'll enjoy my latest UCS post. I wrote this last week, and with all the holiday weekend backlog, it's just been posted now - enjoy.

M&A roundup in the UC space

Very timely topic here for this week's UCStrategies podcast. We had a great roundup session reviewing the recent M&A activity and what it means for the UC space. The big one was ALU/Genesys, but I was more at home talking about Avaya buying SBC vendor Sipera, along with Warwick Valley Telecom's pickup of Alteva. WVT's deal was a few months ago, but I wanted to cover it now as they just received an M&A deal of the year award for this acquisition, which I tweeted about the other day.

All told, the M&A landscape is a sign of the times, and to me, this means that UC is reaching a new level of maturity. That's a good thing, as vendors - and bankers - are starting to attach some valuations around companies that enable UC. Alteva didn't cost WVT very much, and sure buys them a lot of future-proofing against continued declines in their legacy business. This is a universal theme among CLECs, and I have no doubt that WVT's peers are out there looking for their Alteva as we speak.

Enough yammering - head over now to the UCS portal and give our podcast a listen - it's all good.

Cisco Cius - Will it Succeed/Can it Succeed?

Many questions around last week's launch of Cisco Cius, and I posted some initial thoughts following the in-person demo I saw here in Toronto. Opinions are all over the map about Cius, and there is no shortage of people who think or want it to fail. That's fine, but I think Cisco has done a lot of things right here, and while they may not succeed right away (or at all), this looks to me like what collaboration will become once the market catches up to this technology.

Some of this is ahead of the market still, but there's plenty there to get excited about if you're a Cisco shop and you think video is the way to go. Of course, if you still think that voice and telecom is the gold standard for communicating, then Cius is a huge waste of time and money. That may be where a lot of enterprise sentiment lies today, but I do believe that video will drive the future, and tablets will be a big part of that.

If you're still with me, then I welcome you to read my longer post today, which runs on the UCStrategies portal. There's a lot to like about Cius for UC followers, and I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Interactive Intelligence - CIC 4.0 Updates - Adding Value with Speech Analytics

I've written about Interactive Intelligence before, and this morning they announced some interesting enhancements to their CIC platform - now version 4.0. I got an in-person briefing in advance last week, and have shared my thoughts now on the UCStrategies portal.

The key focus for me is on speech analytics and their Interaction Analyzer applications. I've been following the contact center space more closely lately, and this is exactly the kind of intelligence that contact center managers need. If you like what Google does with search or what Cisco does with Social Miner, then this should be of interest to you. And if not, let's move on. My takeaways are posted now on the UCStrategies portal, and as always, your comments are welcome.