Issues that can be anticipated when using a Web 2.0/social media platform in the Enterprise?

To name a few issues that you would face if you do not enforce policies to control the use of Web 2.0 technologies in the enterprise:

• Very difficult for all the systems to interoperate, users may never adopt them - in the real world we have the average teenager using Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, Digg.com, Del.icio.us, MySpace, and other tools. These all need to interconnect to make it successful. Take a look at Facebook's ability to have applications talk to it. For example, Twitter can update Facebook's status, and you can show your diggs in your Facebook profile.
• People get bored of them easily - the fad runs away sooner or later, and MySpace gets displaced by Facebook. Blogs get displaced by Twitter. You may experience a boom of one tool that fades away in a few months.
• Employees leaving the company can't take their networks with them - like a computer backup, you'd like to take your social networks with you, outside of your job, and this needs to be simple and possible
• Employees leaving the company can take confidential information - if you make it easy for employees to fully personalize their web 2.0 environment outside of the company, they may take and share internal information
• Since people like to keep pleasure and work separate, employees may not adopt these technologies in favor of leaving them for personal use - if, for example, you were to use Facebook or MySpace for inside of the company, few employees would like to have their bosses as friends in Facebook.
  

Now, here's my disclaimer. I don't favor policing and strictly enforcing control over Web 2.0 deployments for company use. Quite the opposite, I favor the full freedom for employees to utilize these tools as they see best fit. Also, they should be open to the public; not only for internal use, so that productivity may be expanded in all directions: customers, partners, coworkers, managers, friends, and family.

Cisco Live Summary and Highlights

Last week I spent 4 days at Cisco Live 2008, Cisco System's technical conference. In general, this was a great conference about all Cisco-related industries and markets; e.g. Networking, Collaboration, Unified Communications, Service Providers, Wireless, Data Center…

The main topic for the conference was Collaboration. This, of course, translates into ways to increase employee productivity and reduce operational costs, such as travel, by engaging in collaboration practices. WebEx was a big name and the product spotlight was the Webex Connect suite. I personally was very impressed, and can't wait to start testing it. This is a collaboration client for staying connected with coworkers, friends, and customers from a single place. It is the result of mixing the following ingredients: Skype, AOL IM, Google Calendar, Google Docs, and WebEx's online meetings. It offers a space with Instant Messaging, Presence, WebEx Meetings, Personal Dashboard, Team Spaces, and Business Widgets. This was demoed by John Chambers during the conference; check out how it integrates with the iPhone here.

Almost all Keynote speakers addressed the topics of how obvious it is that to increase productivity you have to collaborate in the Web 2.0 era, and to reduce operational cost you have to go green by collaborating more online and virtualizing the workplace. For example, if you know the presence information of a person you need to talk to, you can be more effective at how to reach him. Say you need to speak to Jim about last week's report. If you know that Jim is at a meeting, you avoid calling his desk or cell phone and use IM or Email instead. That's what a collaboration client can do for improving that.

The entire conference applied the collaboration and going green theme. First, this year they did not provide with printed copies of the technical training sessions, but gave out USB thumb drives with 1GB worth of presentations. Second, and more importantly, they incorporated a virtual component to the conference by having sessions at Second Life and a full blown virtual version of the conference called Cisco Live Virtual.

When it comes to the expo, it was called World of Solutions Expo. Big partners had great booths. In my opinion, the best ones were Intel, WebEx, Lancope, and Nokia. Intel showed their advances in Wireless (WiMax and 802.11n) and their 10Gbps interface for servers. Lancope had a great security appliance for MPLS type of networks, and Nokia had the latest mobile phones. Actually, thanks to my Nokia E61i I was able to log on to the conference site, check my calendar of events, reply to surveys, and Twitt my update in real-time (see my posting with my Twitter Timeline)

Finally, some relevant links for further getting what you missed if you did not attend:

• Official Cisco Live 2008 Site
  
• CISCOPR Channel on YouTube
  
• My Twitter Timeline with my real-time update (Blog Summary Version)

Cisco Live 2008 Twitter Timeline

[This is a collection of my real-time updates of the Cisco Live 2008 event via Twitter]

leoboulton Getting ready to go home. Had a great time, learned a lot, and met new people. 08:29 AM June 26, 2008 from txt     

leoboulton Returning from the Customer appreciation event. Even though the "blue man group" was a fiasco, we ride The Mummy about 5 times... 12:45 AM June 26, 2008 from txt     

leoboulton @padmasree Great presentation this morning. i missed the funny guy during Jim's demo though :) 04:33 PM June 25, 2008 from web in reply to Padmasree     

leoboulton Going back to hotel to get ready for tonight's event: Blue man group. I hope I can see some of my customers. 04:28 PM June 25, 2008 from web     

leoboulton At the Intel super session, under a major thunderstorm. Talking about wireless, security, and mobility 03:07 PM June 25, 2008 from txt     

leoboulton They have booths around the expo to do vloging... Video blogs. 02:41 PM June 25, 2008 from txt     

leoboulton Http://www.cisco.com/go/efficiency 10:43 AM June 25, 2008 from txt     

leoboulton Answering to polls while she speaks.... She encouraged us all 10:30 AM June 25, 2008 from web     

leoboulton Attending the Cisco CTO super session. I like the SMS use for answering questions on the board 10:11 AM June 25, 2008 from txt     

leoboulton Nokia Throws Open Mobile Software http://snipr.com/2ooiy 09:55 AM June 25, 2008 from twitterfeed     

leoboulton You can gain access to the main presentations thru Cisco-Live Virtual. It's an online space created for attendees 08:36 AM June 25, 2008 from twhirl     

leoboulton Attending my first session of the day: Interconnecting Voice and Video Networks with CUBE http://www.cisco.com/go/cube 08:19 AM June 25, 2008 from twhirl     

leoboulton Just left the Network World super session. Going back to hotel to pick up my car for dinner with customer. 04:21 PM June 24, 2008 from txt     

leoboulton At the Network World panel about collaboration. sitting next to Ramesh 03:36 PM June 24, 2008 from txt

leoboulton The AXP session was very good. Explained the entire development process, how to package software, and the Cisco needs to sign the app. 03:15 PM June 24, 2008 from txt     

leoboulton Now... back-to-back Developer track with the AXP Session. Looking forward for this one!. 01:59 PM June 24, 2008 from web     

leoboulton
Now... back-to-back Developer track with the AXP Session. Looking forward to this one!. 01:59 PM June 24, 2008 from web     

leoboulton The MeetingPlace and Presence API session for the developers track was very high-level. It was biref and concise; but too high level. 01:52 PM June 24, 2008 from web     

leoboulton Now: Learning about Presentity, Watcher, and Notify. In other words, Presence API. 01:12 PM June 24, 2008 from web     

leoboulton After lunch, I spent somre more time on the Expo Floor. Great booths at Intel, Lancope, and Nokia. Was disapointed with Fluke 01:11 PM June 24, 2008 from web     

leoboulton @CiscoLive it does rock... 10:59 AM June 24, 2008 from txt in reply to CiscoLive     

leoboulton Webex Connect demo with John and Jim 10:48 AM June 24, 2008 from txt     

leoboulton Listening to Chambers: "why would you invest on IT? Only if you trully believe that a collaboration wave is coming to raise productivity" 10:25 AM June 24, 2008 from txt     

leoboulton There is a full track of MPLS for those who want to deploy an MPLS infrastructure. "MPLS is a technology for delivery of IP services" 08:15 AM June 24, 2008 from web     

leoboulton Off to the first breakout session: Intro to MPLS 07:18 AM June 24, 2008 from txt     

leoboulton Great day 1: orientation was informative; solutions center expo had great partner booths (Intel, IBM, and GlobalKnowledge standed out) 10:30 PM June 23, 2008 from web     

leoboulton Having dinner with some engineers in downtown disney 07:28 PM June 23, 2008 from txt     

leoboulton At the expo. Not that big, but great booths.... Check out the Emergency response vehicle 06:10 PM June 23, 2008 from txt     

leoboulton Registered. The convention center is pretty large. Got my bagpak and lots of notebooks and other goodies 02:56 PM June 23, 2008 from txt     

leoboulton It appears that the Customer appreciation party will be at Universal Studios on Wednesday. 02:56 PM June 23, 2008 from txt     

leoboulton Riding the bus from hotel to the convention center. My room wasn't ready, so I will register and then figure it out. 02:10 PM June 23, 2008 from txt     

leoboulton Arrived early. Will go to hotel first, and take the shuttle 01:21 PM June 23, 2008 from txt     

leoboulton If this is your first time at networkers, attend the Cisco Live Orientation today at 4pm at Chapin Theater. 12:30 PM June 23, 2008 from txt     

leoboulton Done... now printing (on PDF) directions. I'm planning to leave around 11am. It will take me about 4 hours. 07:42 AM June 23, 2008 from twhirl

leoboulton Before we start. I'm filling my Cisco Live Connect profile to collaborate with attendees. You can look for me: leoboulton. 07:20 AM June 23, 2008 from twhirl

Top Twitter institutional accounts to follow

I found out that Cisco-Live, Cisco's annual conference, will broadcast updates via Twitter. I added it to my list of top institutional Twitter accounts to follow:

1. The Wall Street Journal - http://twitter.com/WSJ
   
2. NPR News - http://twitter.com/nprnews
3. BBC News Tech - http://twitter.com/bbctech
4. CNN Breaking News - http://twitter.com/cnnbrk
5. Cisco Systems - http://twitter.com/ciscosystems
6. Network World - http://twitter.com/NetworkWorld
7. Cisco RSS Adivsors and updates - http://twitter.com/CiscoRSS
8. Webex Green - http://twitter.com/WebExGreen
9. Red Cross - http://twitter.com/RedCross

Please send me yours....

Getting your own IP Telephony PBX at home

It's been a while since my last post; and it's been even longer since my last technical post. This time, I've decided to get a Cisco router as my IP PBX for home, and offer SIP service to my family abroad, and I would like to briefly document it all.

It started when I got my Nokia E61i dual mode mobile phone. I wanted to use it with my SIP provider at home, but I discovered that it will not let me have both, my cell-phone and home ATA registered at the same time. Therefore, I decided to bypass it by having a home IP PBX.

Here are the overall steps. This is not a step by step process of how to do it all, but rather as what needs to be setup for getting it done. So here we go:

Ingredients:

• A Cisco router with Cisco CallManager Express and Cisco Unity Express - I am using a UC520 with 8 user license; it has wireless connectivity, 4 FXS ports, 4 FXO ports (I will not use them) and 8 Ethernet ports with PoE.
  
• A third-party SIP phone or adapter - I will be using the Linksys PAP2T.
  
• A dual-mode Nokia E61i - this acts as a third party SIP phone
  
• A SIP provider for the phone line - I use Broadvoice.
  

The overall steps are:

1. Install CME/CUE on the router
   
2. Configure CME
   
   1. Create Data and Voice VLANs
      
   2. Create and setup two SSIDs in the wireless interface: one for data, one for voice
      
   3. Assign IP addressing to the interfaces. The router will have to be set-up using irb (bridging wired and wireless).
      
   4. Configure IP Phones (SCCP phones and SIP phones).
      
   5. Generate a dial-plan that does not require to dial 9 to call the outside world.
      
   6. Configure analog voice ports as e-phones with STCAPP (details here)
      
   7. Configure hunt-groups, so all the phones will ring with the same DN
      
   8. Configure interaction with CUE (Voicemail)
      
   9. Configure SIP Trunking for outgoing line
      
3. Setup the Nokia SIP client as a third-party SIP phone
   
4. Setup the Linksys ATA as a third-party SIP phone

Apple- it's time to stop playing with yourself

Before I start down the path of bashing the fine folks who work on Infinity Loop, let me say that I am a big fan of their products. I own a Mac, use an Airport Express, and stare jealously at the people who casually flick through songs or phone numbers on their iphone. Macs have made computer sexy- easy to use, but powerful enough for almost any task and in some instances superior to their PC counterparts.

However, lately I have been dealing with a number of issues with Apple and wireless. As Macbooks become more prevelant in the home, people are starting to clamor for them at work or bring their own. Just as people want one number, one cellphone, or one microwave, people are starting to want just one computer they can take with them that has everything they need. In this arises my gripe with Apple. They have long implemented their own version of doing lots of things. You want a song for your ipod? Better buy it on itunes. You want access to the itunes store? You need to load the itunes player. You want to do WPA2 WDS with an Airport Express? You better use an Airport Extreme base station. The music ones don't bother me- I mostly still buy CDs and LPs, but the Airport Express issue and wireless in general has bothered me for a long time.

Wireless relies on standards. Heck, most of networking relies on standards. That's why you can rest assured when you plug in one device to another, it is going to work as you please. This kind of interoperability is what drove wireless to where it is today, and why people know that when you take your dell laptop with its Intel chipset you are going to have a connection at your local Starbucks. Apple uses these standards, but then tweaks them just enough so that if you don't use an Apple base station you aren't going to get as strong performance. I understand that you want to protect your company and create that beautiful "Halo Effect," where a desire for one product like an iPod causes us sheep to buy a $3,000 computer to plug it into. It's wonderful and I love capitalism, so cheers.

However, if you are going to make inroads into the enterprise market-and Apple has not been shy about saying that it has the hardware to do it and thinks it can- then you better start doing some interoperability testing. They have no infrastructure play in the enterprise space, and given the fairly high barrier to entry and the inflexibility of most IT staffs, they would have a tough time proving they had enterprise-grade equipment. Apple has high margins based on the fact that it carries a lot of cachet with consumers (I don't want to hear how you can do all these great unix programs on there because the majority of Apple users aren't doing anything more than typing term papers) and its stuff isn't able to handle the beating that companies will put on it. You cannot connect that many people to an airport base station and expect it to work, so there will be a very significant investment there. The hardware that Apple really cares about and believes can be in the workplace is the laptop. Laptops are replacing desktops at a very fast rate, so we know from the trends (and if Apple understands anything it is trends) that Apple will be pushing the laptop as the hardware. Anyway, given that we now have Apple in the workplace and no Apple access points, it means we need interoperability and Apple is not at all fond of working with other partners or companies.

The famous iphone incident at Duke which crushed their network was rightfully blamed on the Cisco infrastructure, which unfortunately had no idea that Apple had implemented DHCP addressing using a different RFC. A quick patch was put out that fixed the issue, but it could have been avoided entirely if Apple had listed the RFCs it was using. Which products were already using those RFCs? Why, Apple's, of course. With this next generation of iphone soon hitting shelves, Apple has turned to using Cisco's VPN technology and seems to be more willing to work with Cisco to ensure it will work in the enterprise environment. Apple has also signed on to the CCX program (or at least trial it for some time).

This is what really had me upset- Apple always backed away from joining CCX, which provides vendors a way of ensuring special capabilities with Cisco wireless equipment), saying that they would rather do it their own way. They didn't see the great benefit to them. This was being said while they were also being touted as the educational device of choice, while most universities were using Cisco APs. Because Apple did things differently or authenticated into the wireless network, most IT staffs refused to support Macs. Since they are becoming a larger part of the population, they have no choice but to support them. Here's where my problem arose- From a wireless perspective, you don't have to follow every one of the 802.11 standards. You may not use 802.11e for Qos, or 802.11d for world domain control, but most chip manufacturers understand that you need to include most of these because you have to work within a number of vendors. Furthermore, macs are notoriously hard to debug without knowing a lot of hidden commands. Wireless is no exception, and a lot of the time it is a matter of hitting a button and hoping for the best.

I am glad to see Apple joining CCX. Not only does it help the people running the network and those of us who have to figure out what is happening, but it ultimately helps Apple. They are pushing into a very lucrative and large market that they will not be able to control from end-to-end and by joining the consortium they are allowing themselves to be successful.....and letting me sleep.

RSS Feeds for your LinkedIn Network

LinkedIn now let's you track updates and connections across your LinkedIn network via RSS Feeds. LinkedIn is growing up!.

read more | digg story

A Globally Distributed EcoPanel with Al Gore

From VoiceCon Orlando 2008, Al Gore joins John Chambers for a discussion of the critical role innovation can play in mitigating climate change. The virtual discussion simultaneously addresses live audiences in London, UK and Orlando, and is hosted in Orlando by Cisco Chief Marketing Officer Sue Bostrom.

The key topics include: Latest observations of the effects of global warming and the impact of IT; how businesses can reduce greenhouse gas emissions through the use of new innovations; and how the technology industry can help create the most sustainable model for addressing global climate change. Using Cisco TelePresence, Mr. Gore participates from Nashville, TN, and Mr. Chambers from Cisco headquarters in San Jose, CA.

Twitter in images

5 Things to look for in a Telepresence System

Telepresence is hot: This week, Al Gore and Cisco's CEO, John Chambers, had a TelePresence presentation at VoiceCon addressing how to get greener in business. The bottom line is that TelePresence is getting all the hype these days. Here are 5 things to look for in a Telepresence system, to ensure that you get the best meeting experience:

1. High Definition Quality Video – It has to be realistic video that looks a lot like a real person, not a binay version of one. Look for scale of the other party and make sure it is real live scale and not a smaller (or larger) version of the person. Have the individual show you his/her wrist watch, you should be able to read it from your end.
   
2. Quick and easy to forget technology – when you are in the meeting, you should forget that you are in a Telepresence meeting in 5 minutes tops. It is supposed to feel like a real meeting, not a Skype call with a webcam.
   
3. No Echo – people tend to talk when others are talking. It's human nature to interrupt the other party. Make sure that there is no echo, reverb, or other annoying effect with the sound.
   
4. Spatial effects – if someone on the right opens a can of Coke, the sound should come from the right, not from the center of the room.
   
5. Not affected by outgoing speakers – if someone likes to move a lot and use hand gestures, these should come to the other end seamlessly, without any delay or effect on the video quality.

One OS or several OSs across your product line? – Which is better

After a long time since my last post; a comment by Juniper's founder about Cisco having too many operating system versions sparked my interest for the subject. I decided to do some research and thought, and came to the following conclusion:

"A single OS across multiple platforms shortens the product lifecycle of the entire product portfolio and is inversely proportional to it in adverse levels"

What this means is that as the product portfolio grows, having one Operating System is unfavorable for the customer who has to upgrade more frequently if he/she wants to stay current. That is, because the product lifecycle gets shorter and shorter as new products affect them. For example, if you have two products with one OS, then it is beneficial: it brings consistency, and helps to solve problems for both products at the same time. When you introduce a third and a forth product, that incorporates more variables that are prone to bugs; therefore new code needs to come more frequently. That is for the entire product portfolio because they are all running the same code. When you have one hundred products, all running the same code, a bug or issue found on one of those 100 product causes the other 99 to get a new OS as well, leaving your customer to update the OS more frequently.

In other words, it simply does not scale. You have to find the balance of how many versions you can have, to satisfy a reasonable update cycle for your customer.

Cellular/WiFi convergence gains momentum

The problem with Cellular/Wifi convergences is the mobile carriers: If a company implements dual mode phones, the carrier loses talk minutes when the phone is used on the wifi network. A loss of revenue is not appealing. However, some companies are coming with creative products, and early adopters are noticing.

read more | digg story

Amazon’s online forum could be a great tool (part 2)

Last time I posted about how valuable a web 2.0 tool can be for almost any business. In particular, I gave the example of Amazon's Forum, and praised how it brings customers and company closer by giving a more human service. In specific, I tell the story of how an unreleased product that I ordered early December has been pushed several times while an Amazon employee keeps us all eager buyers updated in the forum.

Well, the story got so much more interesting in the last couple of days. One morning, all posts of such Amazon employee where removed from the forum. At that point, we all started speculating on whether the employee was real (I got a comment on my post to prove it) or if he got in trouble for telling us that the product was going to be released in late February. Some aggravated customers went ahead and wrote letters to the manufacturer directly, while others wrote about the most effective way to file a complaint with Amazon Customer Service. A great one came from a user called "M. Halstead". He posted a summary of all the posts that were deleted from the Amazon employee (I guess he looked in his archive and put it all together for everybody to read). On my end, I decided to post on the blog again and let my readers and everybody know.

The bottom line is that, today, everybody is upset with Amazon and the manufacturer. Some people blame the manufacturer for taking too long; others defend it because they want to release a quality product. I take the side that puts the blame on Amazon.

An online forum is a great way to keep your customers close and have a friendly tone with them. Especially Amazon, a famous-for-supply-chain store can benefit greatly from it. Myself and others are still hanging in there and approving the pushed forward dates, mainly because there is quite an amount of activity in the forum and R.C., the Amazon employee in trouble, was updating us on the process and his/her talks with the manufacturer. We, as customers, deserve to be informed by Amazon, the intermediary between consumer and manufacturer, on the status of our orders. Instead, we've been getting automated emails of "click here to approve a delay in your shipment"… I wonder why the company decided to put a web 2.0 tool in place, and not use it appropriately…

My next step: a letter to Amazon's customer service, and a template of it to share with the forum. It's worth telling Amazon how to use a forum most effectively.

Amazon’s Forum – A personalized service

As I was reviewing a delayed purchased from Amazon, I decided to do some research as to why my order got delayed for the third time in the last two months. At first, I thought that Amazon was pushing back out of stock products on their highly automated systems. Then I thought that the manufacturer delayed the release of the product (in case you care here's the product I'm buying). Therefore I decided to Google delays related to the product. To my surprise, the first link that pops up is the very same Amazon product page. I click there and notice, at the bottom of it, a forum post about delays in the release of this product. That's right, Amazon offers a forum service, and several angry buyers like me were expressing their frustrations on it.

What a great form of "service personalization"! Amazon, and other online stores and service providers, are using forums, chat-with-a-representative and other web 2.0 services to be more human. In particular, in this forum post, an Amazon representative is keeping everybody up to date with the timings of the release of the product. He is even going the extra mile and asking for feedback about offering free one-day shipping to everybody. For the last weeks, hundreds of eager buyers like me, have been chatting directly and expressing our concerns with a real Amazon sales person (or supply chain manager, who knows the exact title). The fact is that we all feel much better about it than just getting automated emails.

Definitely technology advances like collaboration services (e.g. forums, blogs, twitter, and Facebook) as well as Unified Communication applications (e.g. Chat with a representative, call-me back buttons, and Web-based support systems) are getting business the competitive advantage of becoming more personalized, human and quicker to react.

The best business application of Web 2.0

A post on Twitter's blog reveal what I consider the most useful application of Twitter for businesses: keep track of customers complains on twitter, and fix it quickly.

Of course, ideally you should also keep track of all complains in Web 2.0: Facebook, MySpace, public blogs, digg, rss, etc. Wherever there's a public space where people can complain, they will leave an online footprint. That gives you the opportunity to quickly react and address the problem as soon as you can to increase customer sat.

In my humble opinion, this the best business application of Web 2.0 that I've found of so far.

read more | digg story

Top 10 Digital Signage Vendors

Who are the top players in Digital Signage as of today... here's a great blog post on an analysis of the top vendors of digital signage technology today.

read more | digg story

Work Remotely, without your PC

As I planned for my New Year's trip, I decided that I was not going to take my laptop with me and fully relax. Although, it is nearly impossible to do that, due to job constrains and dependency on it. What if I want to check my emails? or need that contact information? How about if I need to work on a presentation for an important customer? I discovered two excellent tools that will help me carry a USB key instead of a heavy laptop.

The first one is U3 technology from Sandisk. It came with a USB thumb key that I bought during black Friday. The main idea is that you can carry around, not only your synchronized files, but also applications in a USB key. That is, for example, there is a Firefox U3 version that installs the browser in the USB key. There is also Skype, PDF reader, Opera, and OpenOffice (for any Microsoft Office Document) for U3 among others. So, now I am taking my USB key with me. I put my favorite browser (Opera for U3), Skype in case I need to call abroad, the PDF reader and OpenOffice. Of course, I am taking my important files in case I need to work on those too.

The second thing is LogMeIn. It is a free online application that you can use to control any computer in the world. Even behind firewalls. The process is simple: you open an account with logmein.com, pay nothing, and download a thin client for the computer that you want to control. That's it; now the laptop or pc will show up in your list of remote computers and you can control it from any browser. It is an excellent tool for remote control to provide tech support and for gaining access to your full desktop anywhere in the World.

Six online tools to communicate with customers

As most of my readers know me, I work as a Sales Engineer for a large Networking Company. I support sales efforts in my region. That means recommendations on ways to increase productivity, streamline their business, simplify management, and reduce cost, all from a technical perspective. What that means too is that I need to be in constant communication with my customers, in order to be effective. As of this year I have successfully started using innovative ways to stay in touch and be able to offer a better and faster service. So far, I have received great feedback, and my personal productivity has definitely increased. Some of these are:

• Webex – to deliver rich media online trainings and meetings that can be recorded and played back by attendees whenever they want. No need to travel or spend hours in traffic.
  
• Del.icio.us – to have a public source of bookmarks and relevant links for my customers. They can go to my del.icio.us page and get the link for downloading files, whitepapers, and information on a specific product.
  
• Confluence (my blog) – Started it a long time ago, and not only publish articles like this one, but also relevant news, interesting findings, and upcoming products and benefits.
  
• Yahoo Messenger – sometimes it is better than a phone call; especially for those quick questions. I also use Meebo, sometimes, to access messenger from any computer.
  
• Twitter – To communicate my presence information and micro-blog posts on interesting things that I am dealing with. I tend to include links to the stuff I am doing, such as the new router I am playing with in the lab, or that presentation on WAN optimization
  
• RSS – to syndicate my blog posts, presence information, and social bookmarks so I don't flood their mailboxes with emails.

Five reasons why you should deploy Unified Communications in your SMB

Here's a simplistic and to-the-point list of indicators and symptoms that tell you that your small business or start-up should have Unified Communications Apps:

1. No one to maintain the infrastructure. SMB market characterizes for not having many employees and resources; especially for operations and administrative work. Your efforts should focus on product development and sales. Unified Communication is going prime time with small boxes targeted to the SMB setup-once-and-forget-about-it environment
   
2. If you don't do it, your competitors will. A key system, or a bunch of Panasonic phones only give you dial-tone and a telephone line for outbound calls and incoming calls from customers and partners. A full blown UC integrated device brings productivity generation features like auto-attendant (for friendly incoming calls and call-routing), voicemail-to-email (for the ability of checking your voicemail from your email), and soft-phones (for having a phone on your laptop wherever you go). It builds competitive advantage.
   
3. Paying too much for the phone line. Carriers offer IP telephony lines directly to the customer premise at a lower rate than a regular line. Look at Vonage rates versus a regular AT&T phone line.
   
4. You want to look good with your customer. From an image perspective, you want your customers to see that you deploy the latest technology and that you are ahead of everybody.
   
5. You want to be available wherever and whenever for your customers. Advanced call routing functionality in a Unified Communications system allows you to do things like single-number reach, call forwarding, retrieve calls on your laptop, or conference people in with the push of a button.
   

The price of Unified Communication systems has dropped dramatically. It is no longer exclusive for the enterprise. Devices like Cisco's UC500 for the SMB bring wireless, routing, analog and digital phone lines, voicemail and unified communications applications into one single small-form factor platform, at a low cost for the SMB. Also, manufacturers like Linksys have a line of SIP phones for that market too.

IP Telephony benefits morphing trends

IP Telephony used to be about toll bypass only. That translated into cost savings for the company, as its main benefit. Of course, there were other benefits, as a natural consequence, such as ease of administration due to having to operate one single network, and lower maintenance costs. All that fell on the reduced operational expenses bucket.

Once it became mainstream IP Telephony is no longer a competitive advantage, and it was commoditized. Today, companies need more than just cost savings as a benefit: they need increased productivity, improve company image, and raised barriers of entry against competitors. IP Telephony morphed, and opened itself to the world of applications. That is, APIs have been published for programmers to generate new and unprecedented benefits, and vendors are releasing customized voice services on top of the voice network.

IP Telephony even changed its name into Unified Communications. This reflects the convergence of not only IP Data Network and Voice Network, but also the convergence of user applications such as messaging, mobility and presence. Finally, Unified Communications has more to offer than the reduction of costs. ROIs need to incorporate increased profitability due to the gain in efficiency of employees and the competitive advantage gained by the increased speed of reaction to customer needs and trends.

Read a full article about this on Network World, or read more about how Unified Communications can apply to you here.