Which mobility issues are most critical for your enterprise: Integrating PBXs with cellular devices? Standardizing on a single type of end-user mobile device? Controlling cellular costs and negotiating better deals with the carriers? We'll gather to assess the state of mobility in the enterprise, and answer some questions about how to advance mobility and begin integrating it with Unified Communications.
Moderator - Michael Finneran, Principal, dBrn Associates Inc
SIP trunking is the hottest technology trend in enterprise communications , but how do you procure the services and equipment to make it a success for your organization? In this Deep Dive session, Lisa Pierce, the industry’s leading expert on carrier services for the enterprise will offer detailed presentations on the services and technologies you will need to acquire in order to roll out SIP trunking.
In the first portion of the session, Lisa will reveal the results of her research into the details of carriers’ offerings—pricing, service availability, service level agreements, and much more. She will follow up this presentation by leading a discussion with representatives of leading carrier organizations.
In the second portion, Lisa will describe the equipment that may be required for a SIP trunking implementation—IP-PBXs, VOIP gateways, Session Border Controllers, etc. Once again, she will follow her presentation by discussing the state of the industry with representatives from the leading vendors in the equipment space.
You will come away from this session with a clear understanding of the service and CPE elements that make up a SIP trunking implementation, and you will walk away more prepared to start developing RFIs and RFPs for SIP trunking for your enterprise.
KEY QUESTIONS:
Part 1
* What is the current state of availability of SIP trunking from the major carriers? Are secondary carriers a viable option in places where the largest providers are not?
* What are the pricing trends and structures from the carriers? What specific “gotchas” are you likely to encounter
* What is the status of service level agreements (SLAs) for SIP trunking services?
* What are the elements you should include in an RFI/RFP for SIP trunking services?
Part 2
* Are IP-PBX vendors’ platforms able to support SIP trunks natively? If not, what must be added to these systems to accommodate SIP trunks?
* What is the role of the Session Border Controller (SBC) in SIP trunking? Are SBCs mandatory?
* How do you typically procure equipment that you may need to acquire to implement SIP trunks—do you implement them as CPE you manage yourself? Does the carrier provide them as part of its offer?
* What network management/monitoring capabilities do you need in house in order to validate carrier SLA compliance?
Speaker - Lisa Pierce, President, Strategic Networks Group
Reactor Panelist - Alan Percy, Director Market Development, AudioCodes
Mr. Percy is Director of Market Development at AudioCodes, a leading provider of Voice over IP Telephony products and enabling technology. In this role, Mr. Percy is responsible for identifying market trends and building relationships to foster new business opportunities. Mr. Percy joined AudioCodes in 2001 and brings over two decades of experience in the telecommunications, networking and wireless equipment industries. Mr. Percy is a frequent industry speaker and contributes to a number of industry journals and blogs including “The SIP Invite” and “NoJitter.com”
Reactor Panelist - Seamus Hourihan, Vice President of Marketing and Product Management, Acme Packet
Reactor Panelist - Kevin Isacks, Product Marketing for Voice and Mobility, NET
Reactor Panelist - Rupesh Chokshi, General Manager, Product Management, AT&T
Rupesh Chokshi is responsible for bringing new technology capabilities and emerging services into the market place to meet growing Customer needs. He leads the product management team, and is focused on SIP based Trunking and features. Business VoIP services offer economic benefits of network convergence by providing a fully managed Voice over IP communication solution that supports inbound and outbound calling, toll free, local, long distance, and international reach over integrated data networks.
Mr. Chokshi has held several leadership positions in key functional areas like Global Business, Customer Service, Enterprise Architecture, Network and Systems Development. He has a wealth of experience and background with SIP, VoIP, Voice, IP Data, VPN, and Wireless Technologies. Mr. Chokshi began his career with AT&T Labs in 1997. Mr. Chokshi has published and presented at several leading industry conferences and events including VoiceCon.
Mr. Chokshi holds a M.S. in Industrial Engineering from Clemson University, South Carolina and BS in Engineering from S.P. University Gujarat, India.
Dan Jacobson is Senior Portfolio Manager for Converged Voice Services at Sprint Nextel. He leads a dynamic team of individuals responsible for the product strategy, development and life cycle management of integrated wireline and wireless services. His team launched Sprint SIP Trunking (VoIP solution for Business) and Sprint Mobile Integration, a product which extends the PBX/UC functionality to a mobile handset. Dan has over 20 years of industry experience across a diverse set of disciplines including VoIP, FMC and TDM product development, network, information technology, business development, operations, marketing, regulatory and customer service.
Dan received his Masters in Business Administration from Baker University and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science with a minor in Mathematics from University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Reactor Panelist - Greg Zweig, Director of Access Product Management, Sonus Networks
As Director of Access Product Management for Sonus Networks, Greg Zweig is responsible for Sonus’ portfolio of CLASS 5 replacement products, including their SIP Trunking offers. Greg has 18 years of experience in telecommunications supporting both carriers and enterprises. He has diverse experience with IP phones, user features, PC Clients and contact centers. Prior to joining Sonus, Greg held senior roles within 3Com Corporation’s Enterprise Voice Division. Greg joined 3Com after they acquired NBX Corporation, a start-up that is credited with shipping the first commercially deployed IP-PBX as well as the first IP based business telephone. Greg started his career at AT&T/Lucent in their Business Communication Organizations.
Reactor Panelist - Thomas Dalrymple, Director, Global Voice Services Product Management, Verizon
In this session, a leading analyst will offer her assessment of the current state of the contact center market—the progress enterprises are making on migrating to IP and SIP-based systems, and which vendors they're selecting as partners for this migration. There will then be a roundtable discussion in which executives from the leading vendors react to the analyst assessment and offer their own views on where the market is headed, and how IP-based systems can make the contact center more cost-effective in a challenging economic environment.
KEY QUESTIONS:
* How has the economic downturn affected the migration to IP? What percentage of the new contact center systems being deployed is now SIP-based?
* Where do the vendors stand in terms of market share and technology leadership?
* Can the migration to IP and SIP be cost-justified either through network savings or potential increased sales or faster problem resolution?
* How are media such as text/instant messaging, video and social networking applications like FaceBook and Twitter being incorporated into leading-edge contact centers, and what are the challenges and benefits of these new media types?
* Is the contact center market in danger of being absorbed into other application areas, such as Unified Communications and Business Process Automation? Would this be a good thing or a bad thing?
Panelist - Chris Botting, Director Product Management, Cisco
Christopher G. Botting is the Director of Product Management for Cisco's Customer Contact Business Unit. In this capacity, Mr. Botting is responsible for Cisco's contact center product strategy and all aspects of bringing the company's contact center solutions to market. Previously, Mr. Botting was the Director of Business Development for Cisco's Voice Technology Group, leading world-wide business development and field engagement activities. Prior to joining Cisco, Mr. Botting was most recently the Vice President of Marketing and co-founder of PakNetX Corporation. Previously, Mr. Botting was the Marketing Manager of Multimedia Call Centers for MultiLink, Inc.; National Marketing Director for L.M. Ericsson; and a Senior Product Marketing Manager at Northern Telecom. Mr. Botting started his career at Motorola.
Mr. Botting holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering (1983) from Grove City College, a M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering (1989) from North Carolina State University, and a MBA (1991) from the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University
Panelist - Tim Passios, Director, Solutions Marketing, Interactive Intelligence
Panelist - Nicolas De Kouchkovsky, CMO, Enterprise Applications, Alcatel-Lucent
Panelist - Andy Bezaitis, Senior Vice President of Product Management, Aspect
Andrew Bezaitis
Senior Vice President of Product Management
Aspect
As senior vice president of product management at Aspect, Andy Bezaitis is responsible for product management and strategic partnerships. This includes overseeing an industry-leading team responsible for driving unified communications product enhancements through research, analysis, customer engagement, and driving corporate development activities, including the company’s global strategic alliance with Microsoft.
Andy brings more than 20 years of leadership experience in business development and communications technology, and was most recently vice president of corporate development at Aspect. Prior to joining Aspect, Andy was the senior vice president of business development at Cantata Technology. While there, he led ongoing business development and strategic partner initiatives, and established mutually beneficial relationships with industry-leading organizations in the carrier and enterprise markets. Andy has also held executive positions at several High Tech startup and large companies, and built businesses in communications for Wireless and landline customers.
He has been awarded nine United States patents for various technologies, including mobile Internet protocol (IP), point-to-point protocol (PPP) connection, wireless networking authentication, and voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Andy has a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Carnegie Mellon, a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Illinois Institute of Technology, and a master of business administration from The University of Chicago.
Jorge R. Blanco Vice President, Product Marketing
Contact Center Solutions
Jorge Blanco is the Vice President of Product Marketing for Contact Center Solutions at Avaya. Avaya is the worldwide leader in business communications systems and solutions. Avaya is also the worldwide leader in contact center solutions.
Jorge is responsible for the positioning, promotion, and placement of its extensive contact center solution portfolio. He is also a member of the Contact Center Business Unit’s Leadership Team that guides the overall direction of the portfolio, as well as Avaya’s corporate marketing council.
In his previous role, Jorge led the Product Management organization in Avaya’s Unified Communications Business Unit. During his tenure, Avaya delivered its next generation communications application platform – Avaya Aura™. He has also held leadership positions in solutions marketing, strategy, and planning.
Jorge is a twenty-year industry veteran who has led through multiple market transitions – voice to unified messaging, digital to IP telephony, IP telephony to unified communications. He is now taking that expertise to Avaya’s most important suite of applications for the contact center.
Jorge is a resident of Clinton, New Jersey. Jorge is a member of the Board of Directors at the Hunterdon Art Museum. Jorge was selected as a member of the Young Global Leaders program sponsored by the World Economic Forum in 2006.
This Deep Dive will provide you with the details you need if your firm is considering or planning Unified Communications investments any time soon. You will get the details you need to make your Unified Communications decisions, to select the best vendors, and to plan your implementation.
This session will show the specific Unified Communications configurations and investments that are required for three of the most common cases for Unified Communications investments:
Case 1: Expand Voice Systems: You want to add applications to your voice communications system, such as presence, mobility support, in-house conferencing (audio, web and/or video conferencing), and desktop communications (possibly including instant messaging or other tools). Optionally, you may choose to integrate the selected elements with your installed desktop applications.
Case 2: Expand Desktop Systems: You want to add communications to your desktop application systems (such as e-mail, calendar, instant messaging, or collaborative workspaces) such as presence, click-to-communicate, conferencing (audio, web and/or video), and mobility. Optionally, you may choose to integrate the selected elements with the your installed PBX systems.
Case 3: Communications-Enabled Business Processes (CEBP): You want to integrate communications with core business applications in your business, such as with applications for sales, service, logistics, human resources, or specialized vertical market apps such as in health care, financial services, manufacturing, transportation, education, or government. This focus is on presenting communication tools in context of the applications and within the business application user interfaces (on a PC, laptop, mobile devices, or telephone).
In each case, the Deep Dive will review the system configurations, the added software and hardware elements, and the systems integration scope of work likely to be required to achieve the desired outcome.
This session is organized by UCStrategies.com, moderated by Marty Parker with panelist support from the UCStrategies.com team -- Don Van Doren, Blair Pleasant and Jim Burton – and selected Systems Integrators. The Deep Dive content will include solution elements from Avaya, Cisco, Siemens, NEC, Microsoft, and IBM as well as suppliers of gateways, Unified Communications end-points (SIP phone, Bluetooth and USB devices), and wireless elements (access points, devices, etc.).
Speaker/Moderator - Marty Parker, Principal Consultant, UniComm Consulting
Marty Parker is a leading industry consultant in Unified Communications. Marty and his UniComm Consulting teammates are committed to advancement of Unified Communications (UC) to produce new benefits and efficiencies in enterprise communications and to stimulate and justify innovation in the business communications industry.
Using the UC definition of "Communications integrated to optimize business processes," Marty sees Unified Communications as transforming the highly manual, unmeasured, and relatively unpredictable world of telephony-based-voice and e-mail communications into software-assisted, coordinated, simplified, and predictable processes that will deliver high-value benefits to customers, to employees, and to the relevant enterprises.
Marty is co-founder of UniComm Consulting, the industry’s premier independent consulting firm providing UC strategy, planning and implementation support for large enterprises in all industry segments.
Marty is also co-founder of UCStrategies.com, the industry’s leading forum for UC information and dialog. Marty also offers UC training such as the workshop, “Planning and Implementing Unified Communications”, offered though Telecom + UC Training.
Marty’s background provides the foundation for his work in Unified Communications, including positions with IBM in enterprise computing; with a leading north American communications VAR (dealing with Siemens, Toshiba, Mitel, Nortel, and other PBX product lines); as leader of two venture-funded voice mail and unified messaging startups; and with ATT/Lucent/Avaya for unified messaging, conferencing & collaboration, and the earliest versions of unified communications.
Please join him in VoiceCon sessions: "Implementation Options: Deep Dive", Monday, 9 AM; "Comparing UC Options: Who's Offering What?", Monday, 2 PM: and "How Much Voice Mail Do You Really Need?", Wednesday, 8 AM.
The range of options for smart mobile devices continues to expand as do the choices for the underlying operating systems. With the move to unified communications, the mobile device will be doing more than just voice and push email. While consumers load their smartphones with entertainment features, enterprise users have to grapple with issues of security, device management, and a development environment that will support organizational objectives to mobilize line of business applications. However, users are pressuring IT departments support their familiar mobile devices raising issues of security and support. RIM, Apple, Symbian, Windows Mobile, Android, WebOS, and LiMO all vying for a slice of the pie, and users face a daunting decision about which environment(s) they should embrace. In this session we will overview the major issues that will factor into that decision and hear from the vendors who will have a hand in making this vision a reality.
KEY QUESTIONS
• Which wireless devices are best suited for supporting enterprise Unified Communications, and—perhaps more importantly—which devices have users already chosen?
• If you support multiple operating system environments, how will that impact application development and support costs?
• How important is it that the mobile device be integrated with the overall Unified Communications solution, what functions are most important to mobilize, and which Unified Communications platforms will be most important to support.
• Should we develop mobile applications that are O/S specific or is it better to host the application on a server and simply use a mobile browser?
• Is it possible to effectively manage user-owned devices (“I want my iPhone/Pre/whatever”)?
• Can a solution that utilizes both Wi-Fi and cellular be implemented if those two technologies are managed by different groups? Who should be in charge?
• Will the combination of Google Voice and Android make Google a real option for the enterprise and how soon?
Speaker/Moderator - Michael Finneran, Principal, dBrn Associates Inc
Reactor Panelist - John Cash, Enteprise Voice Advocate, RIM
As enterprise communications moves from the legacy PBX-centric architecture to one based on IP networking and software applications, the architectures supporting these systems will also change. Enterprises have the opportunity to integrate communications systems more tightly into their corporate datacenters, taking advantage of Web Services, server virtualization and Cloud Computing, among other technology trends.
So how should enterprises plan to take advantage of these trends, and what pitfalls await them as they do? And how will technology vendors attempt to leverage these trends in their own product or services offerings?
In this VoiceCon Summit, CTOs and other technology leaders will discuss and debate the various approaches to next-gen communications architectures. You'll leave with a better understanding of how your enterprise's communications systems will fit into the larger IT environment, and how these new architectures will support end users to provide higher productivity and great business benefits.
Companies Invited: Avaya, IBM and Alcatel-Lucent
Panelist - Warren Barkley, Director of Partner Engineering, Microsoft
Warren Barkley is Director for the Partner and Devices development team in the Office Communications division at Microsoft. Mr. Barkley’s team is responsible for the development of the communication devices such as Roundtable, and working with the hardware, software, service provider eco-system to complete Office Communications solutions.
Mr. Barkley joined Microsoft in early 1997 and has held various positions in the field and product development organizations. He has worked primarily on networking technologies including TCP/IP, Network Location Awareness, Wireless (WLAN and WWAN) and security. Warren was extensively involved with the development of native wireless support in Windows XP including the automatic configuration and security components and worked broadly with the WiFi industry to define and implement new security standards. Barkley holds US and Worldwide patents in various networking and real time media technologies areas. He has several degrees from University of Victoria and University of BC. In his spare time he tries to keep up with his two boys on their mountain bikes or skis.
Panelist - Manfred Arndt, HP Distinguished Technologist, Hewlett-Packard
Manfred Arndt is a Distinguished Technologist and the UC & C Solutions Architect for HP ProCurve Networking. He is responsible for architecting the IP telephony and multimedia roadmap for HP networking solutions and with alliance partners. He also participates in several TIA and IEEE subcommittees, helping defining networking and telecommunications standards and is a co-author of the ANSI/TIA-1057 (LLDP-MED) standard.
Arndt has over 20 years experience with several networking startups and the high-tech industry. Arndt holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Computer Engineering from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He also holds three networking patents.
Panelist - Mike Seto, VP, Business Development and Applications, Polycom
Panelist - Jack Jachner, Vice President, Cloud Communication Solutions, Alcatel-Lucent
Panelist - Phil Edholm, Vice President, Innovation and Technology Strategy, Avaya
Panelist - Pat Galvin, CTO Unified Communications & Collaboration Software, IBM
Moderator - Eric Krapf, Editor, NoJitter.com, Co-Chair, VoiceCon
Eric Krapf is co-chair of the VoiceCon events, helping to set program content and direction for the leading conference events in the enterprise IP-telephony/convergence/Unified Communications marketplace. In addition, Krapf serves as editor & lead blogger for the website No Jitter, TechWeb’s online community for news and analysis of the enterprise convergence/Unified Communications industry. He is also responsible for electronic content including webcasts and e-newsletters.
From 1996 to 2004, Krapf was managing editor of Business Communications Review magazine, and from 2004 to 2007, he was the magazine's editor. BCR was a highly respected journal of the business technology and communications industry. Before coming to BCR, he was managing editor and senior editor of America's Network magazine, covering the public telecommunications industry. Prior to working in high-tech journalism, he was a reporter and editor at newspapers in Connecticut and Texas.
Moderator - Zeus Kerravala, SVP, Enterprise Research, The Yankee Group
For the past three years, the theme of Unified Communications has grown in importance, as it is the vanguard of a fundamental transition that is shaking up the enterprise communications marketplace: The industry is evolving from a focus on hardware to a focus on software - software architectures, software-based systems and services.
The good news is that the inevitability of this transition is widely accepted. However, the bad news is that the promise of Unified Communications remains largely unfulfilled. Implementations of "true" Unified Communications, while growing, remain relatively small in number. There is still considerable confusion in the market about what Unified Communications is and what it isn't. And there are tough issues like interoperability that inhibit wider adoption and deployment. The rocky economic climate doesn't help matters either.
This VoiceCon Summit will take examine the Unified Communications market from a variety of perspectives: How far along has the market really evolved? What are the issues facing both buyers and sellers as they adapt to this new regime? What obstacles need to be overcome as enterprises try to mesh Unified Communications with their existing network design and procurement procedures, network operations and organizations?
Companies Invited: Avaya and IBM
Panelist - Brian Dal Bello, Senior Director of Systems & Solutions, Voice Technology Group, Cisco
Panelist - Moz Hussain, Director of Product Management, Microsoft
Panelist - Peter Greco, Director, Strategic Solutions, Siemens Enterprise Communications Group
Panelist - Tim Passios, Director, Solutions Marketing, Interactive Intelligence
Panelist - David Downing, Vice President and General Manager, Unified Communications and Collaboration, Avaya
David DowningVP & GM, Unified Communications and Collaboration
David Downing is VP & General Manager, Unified Communications and Collaboration for Avaya. In this role, David is responsible for portfolio strategy and product management of the company's Unified communications product group. He is charged with driving world-class results for technology innovation, product quality and Plan of Record predictability, as well as new efficiencies and economies of scale.
David's nearly 30 years' experience in telecommunications and energy industries includes experience in R&D, manufacturing, service operations and Information Systems. A former chemist who established and managed his own sales and service business early in his career, David believes that an organization’s success is built on people who understand the principles of innovation with focus, a positive work environment, continuous learning, customer-oriented solutions, and continuous improvement through performance measurement.
David earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Science from Florida Atlantic University. He participates in a variety of outdoor activities, which includes competing in running and triathlon events. He is based in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.
Panelist - Bruce Morse, VP Unified Communications & Collaboration Software, IBM
Moderator - Fred Knight, GM/Co-Chair, VoiceCon, Publisher, NoJitter.com
Fred Knight is GM/Co-Chair of VoiceCon, and the publisher of NoJitter.com. Fred was part of the team that launched the VoiceCon Conference in 1990. He served as Program Chairman through 2003 when he also became VoiceCon General Manager. Since then, VoiceCon has grown into the leading event for enterprise IP Telephony, converged networks and unified communications.
Fred also led the evolution of VoiceCon from a single event into a 12-month per year operation, comprising conferences, the VoiceCon Webinar series, VoiceCon Virtual Events, and VoiceCon eNews, a weekly e-newsletter. From 1984-2007 Fred was editor and then publisher of Business Communications Review. In December 2007, BCR magazine ceased publication and shifted to the Web with the creation of NoJitter.com.
Jim Burton is Founder and CXO of CT Link, LLC and Co-Founder of UCStrategies.com. Burton founded the consulting firm in 1989 to help clients in the converging voice, data and networking industries with strategic planning, mergers and acquisitions, strategic alliances and distribution issues.
In the early 1990s, Burton recognized the challenges vendors and the channel faced as they developed and installed integrated voice/data products. He became the leading authority in the voice/data integration industry and is credited with "coining" the term computer-telephone integration (CTI). Burton helped companies including Microsoft and Intel enter the voice market and helped AT&T (now Avaya), Mitel, NEC, Nortel, Siemens and Toshiba with their CTI strategies.
In the late 1990s, venture capitalists turned to Burton for help in evaluating potential investments in IP PBX start-ups. He went on to help these and other companies with strategic planning and partnering, including NBX (acquired by 3Com, Selsius (acquired by Cisco), ShoreTel and Sphere Communications.
In the early 2000s, Burton began focusing on wireless services and technologies. In 2005 Burton started helping vendors with their Unified Communications strategy and in 2006, along with several colleagues, created a web site, UCStrategies.com, to provide information for enterprise customers and vendors.
While Open Source PBXs now account for as much as 18% of stations shipped (for all size segments) in the U.S., the vast majority of the implementations remains in small businesses. But with Skype and others offering connectivity to Open Source systems and vendor interest broadening, will Open Source be part of your next procurement, or at least included in RFIs and RFPs?
This session will present the major systems and offerings, discuss how to get started with Open Source, the benefits you can expect to gain, and what (if any) enterprise-grade features and functions you'll have to give up.
KEY QUESTIONS:
* Why has open source PBX been growing in popularity?
* Can these systems scale, and can they support all the features and functions that enterprises get with proprietary systems?
* Is open source PBX "free?" What costs are associated with researching, obtaining, customizing and deploying an open source PBX?
* Can you deploy open source PBX as a subset of an enterprise communications environment that also runs proprietary systems? What are the pros and cons of doing this?
* What level of post-deployment support and ongoing involvement in the open source community is required in order to ensure a successful implementation and manageable system?
Speaker - Jeronimo Romero, Managing Partner, EUS Networks
Speaker - Steve Sokol, Director of Product Marketing, Custom Telephony Solutions, Digium
Moderator - John Malone, President and CEO, The Eastern Management Group
The recession has taken its toll on market demand for enterprise communications systems and solutions. It may be bad time for suppliers, but a good time for buyers who can enjoy lower prices, increased system performance, and no/low interest financing as buying incentives.
The market has been rocked as competitors focus on winning business from Nortel’s customer base, and the industry is preparing for the next OCS release from Microsoft that is likely to further disrupt historical market rankings. Meanwhile, the trends towards Cloud-based Computing and greater reliance on mobile communications each create new options for how enterprises communicate internally and externally.
This session will include updated telephony system market forecasts and supplier share estimates; a discussion of which enterprise communications system features and applications are hot (selling) or cold (stagnating); a review of major market trends, such as Cloud Computing and hosted solutions, virtualization, and Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC); and a critical analysis of the leading system suppliers and their flagship offerings.
KEY QUESTIONS
* How will Nortel’s demise affect the future direction – and leadership rankings – in the enterprise communications market?
* Will Cloud-based solutions from new competitors, such as Google and Amazon, replace the need for enterprise hardware equipment and software?
* How are the traditional system suppliers adjusting to changing market conditions and who may not be around when the smoke clears?
* Are customers actually buying and implementing SIP and Unified Communications offerings or is it still all hype?
* When will alternative devices and software make desktop telephone instruments obsolete?
Speaker - Allan Sulkin, President, TEQConsult Group
Allan Sulkin is founder and president of TEQConsult Group, a consultancy focused on the enterprise communications market. Sulkin is recognized as the leading product/market industry analyst for core communications systems, i.e. IP telephony systems and related peripheral applicaitons, with more than three decades of experience. His client base includes virtually all of the leading system suppliers and a variety of large enterprise customers.
Sulkin is the author of the textbook PBX Systems for IP Telephony (McGraw Hill) and was a contributing editor to Business Communications Review for more than two decades; he continues to regularly contribute articles and posts to its online version at www.NoJitter.com. He has also been a featured speaker at each VoiceCon conference since its inception in 1991. He has also written articles for many other industry publications and has presented at numerous industry trade shows, such as Interop.
Sulkin was a member of the board of directors of the Enterprise Communications Association, and researched/edited its annual market study.
The majority of video conferencing systems today are in conference rooms. For video to move into everyday use, different devices will be required for different users. In addition to high-end room systems and telepresence systems, people can use so-called executive systems (dedicated video systems on a user’s desk), their laptops or even video phones.
Key Questions:
*What are the key video device options today and the pros and cons for each device?
* Which device is the best suited for what types of workers, locations or use cases?
* What are the key tradeoffs in terms of quality, price and productivity considerations?
* How are the different device alternatives evolving and what will the future look like in 2 years,
5 years and 10 years? How would this change the mix of video devices used within
the enterprise?
Legacy PBX systems are being retired and new functionality is essentially only available with IP-based systems. Enterprises are not faced with the question of whether to migrate to Voice over IP (VoIP) and IP Telephony (IPT), it's a question of when. And the emerging capabilities for Unified Communications increase the complexity this transition.
Despite the growth of these technologies, many enterprises have limited experience with IP Telephony and VoIP, and once the decision to migrate is made, there are a host of challenges to face - from inventorying the readiness of LANs and wiring closets, to WAN performance, IT organizational and staffing issues, security, utility costs and software support, patching and version control.
This workshop analyzes these issues with recommended actions and best practices that will lead to successful VoIP/IPT/Unified Communications deployments. It cuts through the hype to the real advantages and presents how VoIP/IPT and Unified Communications work and how they operate. This session will also guide the attendee through the rest of the VoiceCon conference with suggested sessions, exhibits and other resources that will make the conference attendance experience as valuable as possible.
This workshop will provide a comprehensive overview of the options available for Unified Communications along with an assessment of suppliers for each option. It is intended for enterprise CXOs, decision-makers, IT managers, communications managers, and business managers who are planning to install Unified Communications -- either via a new system or by adding Unified Communications to existing PBXs, email systems and business applications.
The session will highlight the five most popular Unified Communications enterprise deployment options. The functions of each option will be outlined, and savings and ROI elements will be highlighted. The five deployment options are:
1. IP-PBX augmented with supplier's Unified Communications modules -- Integrate to e-mail, office, and business software packages.
2. Unified Communications software system as the primary communication platform for all or selected users -- Integrate to PBX(s), e-mail, office, and business software packages.
3. Unified Communications software product(s) as overlay with integration to existing communication tools - PBX(s), e-mail, office & business software packages. Use Internet-based/hosted consumer Unified Communications packages (non-integrated).
4. Mobility Unified Communications package as an overlay to existing PBX(s), e-mail, office, and business software packages.
5. Add Unified Communications functions to your business software packages for specific jobs and roles.
Top-ranking vendors for each option will be compared and evaluated, and estimated pricing of each approach will be included in the analysis. Vendors that are reviewed will react and respond to this analysis. This tutorial will provide attendees with:
* A basis for comparing and selecting the Unified Communications options best suited to their enterprise.
* A framework for decision-making about investment choices for Unified Communications, along with ROI information.
* Descriptions and diagrams of solutions applicable for each Unified Communications deployment option.
Hear from representatives of Aastra, Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, Cisco, IBM, Interactive Intelligence, Microsoft, Mitel, NEC, RIM, Shoretel and Siemens Enterprise Communications Group.
Instructor - Marty Parker, Principal Consultant, UniComm Consulting
Marty Parker is a leading industry consultant in Unified Communications. Marty and his UniComm Consulting teammates are committed to advancement of Unified Communications (UC) to produce new benefits and efficiencies in enterprise communications and to stimulate and justify innovation in the business communications industry.
Using the UC definition of "Communications integrated to optimize business processes," Marty sees Unified Communications as transforming the highly manual, unmeasured, and relatively unpredictable world of telephony-based-voice and e-mail communications into software-assisted, coordinated, simplified, and predictable processes that will deliver high-value benefits to customers, to employees, and to the relevant enterprises.
Marty is co-founder of UniComm Consulting, the industry’s premier independent consulting firm providing UC strategy, planning and implementation support for large enterprises in all industry segments.
Marty is also co-founder of UCStrategies.com, the industry’s leading forum for UC information and dialog. Marty also offers UC training such as the workshop, “Planning and Implementing Unified Communications”, offered though Telecom + UC Training.
Marty’s background provides the foundation for his work in Unified Communications, including positions with IBM in enterprise computing; with a leading north American communications VAR (dealing with Siemens, Toshiba, Mitel, Nortel, and other PBX product lines); as leader of two venture-funded voice mail and unified messaging startups; and with ATT/Lucent/Avaya for unified messaging, conferencing & collaboration, and the earliest versions of unified communications.
Please join him in VoiceCon sessions: "Implementation Options: Deep Dive", Monday, 9 AM; "Comparing UC Options: Who's Offering What?", Monday, 2 PM: and "How Much Voice Mail Do You Really Need?", Wednesday, 8 AM.
SIP Trunking is one the hottest issues in enterprise communications because it promises cost savings and true end-to-end IP voice connections. But few enterprises are actually using SIP Trunks to their full potential yet—partly because of the way in which carriers are offering these services, and partly because technical/interoperability challenges remain.
This workshop will examine the architecture options involved with deploying SIP Trunks, review the carrier offerings and ordering procedures, analyze the role of Session Border Controllers and options for configuration and present the critical issues – and best practices – for troubleshooting and managing SIP Trunks.
Instructor - Sorell Slaymaker, Communications Architect, Unified IT Systems
Sorell Slaymaker has 20 years of experience designing, building, and operating networks and the communication services that run across them. Particular areas of expertise include; unified communications, contact centers, CRM, tele-medicine, and SIP Trunking. He was the chief architect for a 25,000 seat virtual contact center and moving it to IP/SIP. He has been a member of the Cisco and Avaya technical advisory boards. He graduated from Texas A&M with a B.S. in Telecom Engineering, and went through the M.E. Telecom program at the University of Colorado.
On the weekends, Sorell enjoys the outdoors – bicycling, camping, and gardening.
Instructor - Jim Allen, Global Unified Communications Architect, Medtronic
Jim Allen is the Global Unified Communications Architect for Medtronic Corporation. In his current role, Mr. Allen is responsible for overseeing architectural alignment across diverse organizations to ensure stronger design integration, impact, and execution of Unified Communications across Medtronic. In this capacity he has been instrumental in the design and integration of SIP trunking domestically as well as the deployment and standardization of IP Telephony and IP Contact Centers globally. Mr. Allen has over 20 years of experience in network architecture and engineering with multiple fortune 500 companies and consulting firms. He is a graduate from Chico State CA with a B.S. in Business Marketing and previously earned the Cisco Certified Internetworking Expert certification.
Behind the basic questions --How big is the Unified Communications market, and which vendors are winning/losing?—lurks a more difficult question: What "counts" as Unified Communications when we're measuring this market? In this session, a leading Unified Communications analyst will present research that looks at the market's size, players and prospects, the impact of Unified Communications on end users and future trends.
KEY QUESTIONS:
* Who are the principal players, and how are they positioning themselves?
* How is Unified Communications defined, and who—according to this definition—is really selling in this market? Who's buying?
* What are the drivers behind the growth from a customer perspective?
* What are the current and likely future patterns of adoption—e.g., by job type, mobile work, business process?
* How is the current economic climate affecting adoption? When will this market take off?
Speaker - Blair Pleasant, President & Principal Analyst, COMMfusion LLC
As President and Principal Analyst, COMMfusion LLC and
Co-Founder, UCStrategies.com, Blair provides consulting and analysis on Unified Communications and voice/data convergence markets and technologies, aimed at helping end-user and vendor clients both strategically and tactically.
The issue of security in communications has gone well beyond concerns over vulnerabilities in IP networks. The issues of securing your enterprise's communications systems now extend into mobility, connections with other networks (public and other private networks), as well as the latest concern--issues around security and policy regarding social networking. In this wide-ranging session, we'll briefly review the state of VOIP security, but will then move on to these new, more complex issues. The session will give you a foundation for understanding the universe of security challenges you face in the new communications environment.
KEY QUESTIONS:
* Is IP network security still the primary concern in converged communications networks? If so, what specific vulnerabilities are causing real-world issues?
* What security challenges are added as mobility systems are integrated into IP telephony/Unified Communications? How do you protect against these challenges?
* Can enterprises maintain security while connecting their "islands" of VOIP via SIP trunks? What about opening up their voice systems to business partners or to hosted providers that are delivering discrete elements of the enterprise's voice system?
* What are the biggest security concerns relating to users' adoption of social networking? Are the major issues related to corporate policies, or are there ways in which the security of the communications system itself can be threatened when social networking is integrated with enterprise systems?
Speaker/Moderator - Mark Collier, CTO & Vice President of Engineering, Securelogix
Speaker - Irwin Lazar, Vice President Communications Research, Nemertes Research
Speaker - Dan York, Director of Conversations, Voxeo
Speaker - Mark Cortner, Senior Analyst, Burton Group/Gartner
Mark Cortner is a senior analyst with Burton Group, which was recently acquired by Gartner. Mark’s research is focused on real-time communications, including telephony and visual collaboration applications, as well as unified communications. With over 25 years of experience in the communications industry, he has served in a variety of development, product marketing, consulting, and senior management roles. Mark is an expert in enterprise strategies related to convergence of telephony, networking, messaging, presence, videoconferencing, telepresence, and wireless-based communications solutions.
Personal video conferencing is a very different paradigm from traditional room-based or telepresence video. Acceptance of this technology is being driven by a geographically disparate or travelling work force, company partnering and an incessant need to quickly establish personal relationships and execute business at a faster pace. Network bandwidth and desktop power are finally able to support a high quality experience. The market is rapidly evolving and many hardware and software deployment choices exist. How does the enterprise IT team decide which approach best works to support its specific business needs? This session will review different models of desktop deployment and highlight demonstrations of desktop solutions to help you make your decisions.
Moderator - Andrew Davis, Senior Partner, Wainhouse Research LLC
As companies spread out across towns, states, nations and the globe, the challenges of interconnecting locations becomes more complex. And with more employees working from home and on the road, the question of which systems, services and personal devices becomes more challenging. There are new options for centralizing core communications facilities with distributed subnetworks, and the options for mobile communications are expanding almost daily. This session will review the newest options for connecting smaller/ branch locations and at-home and mobile workers.
KEY QUESTIONS:
* What design configurations make the most sense for distributed network architectures?
* What's the emphasis on current developments--more features, more security, more availability?
* What are the real capabilities for ensuring system reliability, security and back-up?
* What's the pricing trend?
* Should you be thinking about on-premise equipment or using "the cloud"?
Speaker/Moderator - Robin Gareiss, Executive Vice President and Senior Founding Partner, Nemertes Research
Reactor Panelist - Bernard Gutnick, Sr. Dir. Product Marketing, ShoreTel
Reactor Panelist - Gary Gordon, Portfolio Manager for Core Solutions, NEC
Gary Gordon, Portfolio Manager for Core Solutions at NEC Corporation of America, has been with NEC since 2004. In his role, Gary manages all facets of the UC product line including NEC’s software-based solution, UNIVERGE Sphericall. Gary has more than 18 years experience working with emerging technologies, including presence based applications, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), and Communication Enabled Business Processes (CEBP), all foundation technologies for UC. He has over seven years’ experience in managing PC and Web-based applications on a large IP network. Gary brings strong knowledge and management skill in presence-based applications and has additional expertise in sales and marketing.
Reactor Panelist - Chris Thompson, Senior Product Manager, ADTRAN Inc.
Reactor Panelist - Stephen Brown, VP US Systems Engineering, Mitel
This session will help you understand the latest approaches to providing E911 coverage for an IP Telephony-enabled enterprise. We'll examine the infrastructure you need to add to your deployment in order to ensure accuracy, resiliency and high-availability in your E911 coverage. We'll also look at related emergency-notification technologies aimed at pushing information out to end users in times of disaster or other crises.
KEY QUESTIONS:
* How have enterprises tackled the challenges of providing location-specific E911?
* What cost will an E911 deployment across the enterprise add to an IP Telephony deployment?
* What are the risks of a piecemeal E911 deployment?
* How can you add emergency notification to your system to inform users of crises (e.g., school/workplace shootings, natural disasters, etc.)
Speaker - Nicholas Maier, Senior Vice President, RedSky Technologies
If users are mobile across a wide area, cellular is the only available option. However, if the range of mobility is constrained to the building or campus, there are several options that could be considered. If the choice is to go cellular, then the facility might require a distributed antenna system (DAS) or possibly femtocells to ensure adequate cellular signal coverage. If the facility has wireless LAN (WLAN) in-place, you can consider voice over WLAN technology, but the Digital Enhanced Cordless Telephony (DECT) option also comes into the picture. This Coffee Talk will put the options on the table and we invite everyone who has had to come up with – or is looking for -- a solution to come and describe their experiences.
Moderator - Michael Finneran, Principal, dBrn Associates Inc
How are the new technologies and trends in contact centers affecting your plans? Topics will include SIP and Unified Communications in the contact center, self-service, support for home-based agents, multimedia, and whatever other issues you bring.
Moderator - Sheila McGee-Smith, President/Principal Analyst, McGee-Smith Analytics
Standardized in 2007, scalable video coding (SVC) promises to deliver incredible benefits for personal, room, and mobile videoconferencing. While hampered by backward-compatibility issues, SVC is already shaking up the industry because it promises highly scalable, low-cost, high-performance video over standard, non-QoS IP networks. This session will investigate the pros and cons and risk factors facing today’s decision makers.
Key Questions:
*What is scalable video coding (SVC) and why does it matter?
*Are the current videoconferencing products about to become dinosaurs?
*Should enterprise buyers invest in this new technology or continue with their legacy systems?
*What are the risks here of making the wrong decisions?
Moderator - Andrew Davis, Senior Partner, Wainhouse Research LLC
Kevin Kennedy is the president and chief executive officer of Avaya. Avaya is a leading global provider of business communications applications, systems and services.
Prior to joining the company in January 2009, Kennedy served as president and CEO of JDS Uniphase Corporation, a position he held since September 2003. He had also served as a member of the JDSU board of directors since November 2001.
Before joining JDSU, Kennedy served as chief operating officer of Openwave Systems, Inc., a position he held from August 2001 to September 2003. Prior to joining Openwave Systems, Kennedy spent close to eight years at Cisco Systems, Inc., most recently as senior vice president of the Service Provider Line of Business and Software Technologies Division.
Earlier in his career, Kennedy spent 17 years with AT&T Bell Laboratories, serving in a number of assignments in the Lincroft, Holmdel, and Middletown, New Jersey locations. During his Bell Labs tenure, he also lived and worked in Columbus, Ohio as part of the Conversant voice information system team, in the AUDIX Voice Messaging organization.
In 1987, Kennedy was a congressional fellow to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology. He was a member of the board of directors of Polycom, Inc. until January 2009. He currently serves on the board of directors of KLA-Tencor Corporation and is a member of the board of regents of Loyola Marymount University.
Kennedy holds a B.S. in engineering from Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, as well as M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in engineering from Rutgers University. He was an adjunct professor at Rutgers from 1982-1984 and has published more than 30 papers on computational methods, data networking and issues of technology management.
In 2006, Kennedy was honored by the School of Engineering at Rutgers as their Alumnus of the Year and awarded an Alumni Medal of Excellence. He is a co-author of "Going the Distance: Why Some Companies Dominate and Others Fail," published in 2003.
10:00 AM–10:45 AM
Keynote
Keynote Presentation: Siemens Enterprise Communications Group
Mark Straton is senior vice president of voice and applications solutions at Siemens Enterprise Communications, Inc.
Straton has worldwide responsibility the company's voice and applications solutions portfolio including strategy and planning, market and competitive intelligence, strategic positioning and messaging, and analyst relations. Since joining Siemens in 1984, he has held a wide range of management positions and is among the principal architects of Siemens HiPath VoIP brand, LifeWorks and the OpenScape unified communications solution and brand.
Mr. Straton previously served as senior vice president, global marketing, and had also served as senior vice president of marketing and strategy at Siemens Communications in the United States with responsibility for fixed and mobile carrier networks, mobile phones and enterprise networks.
A featured speaker at numerous international industry events, Straton holds a B.A. degree in economics from the University of Michigan as well as advanced management certificates from Stanford and Duke.
11:15 AM–12:00 PM
Keynote
Keynote Presentation: Cisco
Speaker - Tony Bates, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Enterprise, Commercial and Small Business Group, Cisco
Tony Bates is the Senior Vice President and General Manager of Cisco's Enterprise, Commercial and Small Business Group (ECSB), responsible for its overall strategy and development direction. The group comprises more than 12,500 employees and generates more than $20 billion of annual revenue. ECSB includes the Collaboration Software Group, Voice Technology Group, Data Center, Switching & Services Group, Wireless, Security & Routing Technology Group, Enterprise Systems & Operations, and the Small Business Technology Group.
A member of Chairman and CEO John Chambers. senior staff, Bates sits on the Cisco Development Council, the Video Council, and the Enterprise Business Council.
Before his current role, Bates was Senior Vice President and General Manager for the Service Provider business unit. He was responsible for the overall strategy and development direction of the business resulting in over $10 billion of annual revenue. Prior to that he was the Vice President and General Manager of Cisco's high-end router business. During his tenure, he was responsible for the strategy and development of Cisco's flagship CRS-1 router, GSR, and Multi-Service WAN (MGX) product lines. He has also served as a Member of the Board of YouTube, Inc.
Preceding Cisco, Bates spearheaded the backbone-engineering strategy for Internet MCI (MCI.s national IP backbone). Bates has more than 20 years of experience in the telecommunications and Internet industries. He has published 12 IETF RFCs in the areas of Internet Routing and Operations, and holds nine patents in the area of Layer 2 and Layer 3 innovations.
The whole IT industry seems to have its collective head in the "cloud" these days. Cloud Computing is all the rage and is being portrayed as the technical silver bullet to just about any IT-related problem. To be sure, the idea of reducing IT expenditures and headcount sounds compelling, particularly in tough economic times.
But where - and how -- does enterprise communications fit within the emerging framework for Cloud Computing? Does it portend a new set of options for delivering and managing voice, video and data communications, or is Cloud Computing for communications not much more than Centrex dressed up in 21st century buzzwords? Does the undeniable trend toward more mobile communications capabilities create the foundation for bringing together communications and Cloud Computing, or is it just the next iteration of heretofore unsuccessful initiatives like Application Service Providers (ASPs)?
This VoiceCon Summit will examine the promise, today's realities and the possible future scenarios for marrying enterprise communications with Cloud Computing. You'll hear a variety of viewpoints and have the opportunity to ask your questions.
Panelist - Bassam Khan, Director, Product Manager, PostPath Engineering Adm
Panelist - Roberta Mackintosh, Director of Global Unified Communications and Collaboration Marketing, Verizon
Panelist - Mike Rulf, Executive Director Product Development, AT&T
In the last several years, Michael has focused intently on developing and implementing SOA and SaaS-based managed services offerings as more organizations expose their enterprise systems to the Internet to increase worker mobility and allow for better ERP management. This has included designing and implementing an Oracle-based identity management system that provisions users to a range of applications utilizing a SOA architecture, resulting in significant industry recognition including OAUG’s Innovator of the Year award in 2007.
Michael maintains an active involvement in the Oracle user community where he currently co-chairs both the OAUG Middleware SIG and the OAUG Fusion Council and is a member of the IOUC Product Development Committee. Michael is a frequent presenter and panelist at OAUG, ODTUG and OpenWorld conferences, as well as contributing to a book on Oracle security published by SANS Press.
He is a well-known expert in the industry media on service-oriented architecture and has appeared in publications such as eWeek, Baseline Magazine and Oracle Magazine providing technical insight and advice. In 2008, Oracle recognized Michael with the designation of Oracle ACE Director for his significant contributions to the Oracle technical community.
Michael holds undergraduate degrees in Computer Science and Theatre Engineering for the College of Wooster, and a graduate degree in Theatre Engineering from Purdue University. Michael and his family reside in the Chicago metropolitan area.
Panelist - Chris Moore, Senior Product Manager, Skype
Panelist - Steven Hardy, Director of Product Marketing, Avaya
Panelist - David Marshak, Senior Product Manager, Unified Communications & Collaboration (UC2), IBM
Moderator - Eric Krapf, Editor, NoJitter.com, Co-Chair, VoiceCon
Eric Krapf is co-chair of the VoiceCon events, helping to set program content and direction for the leading conference events in the enterprise IP-telephony/convergence/Unified Communications marketplace. In addition, Krapf serves as editor & lead blogger for the website No Jitter, TechWeb’s online community for news and analysis of the enterprise convergence/Unified Communications industry. He is also responsible for electronic content including webcasts and e-newsletters.
From 1996 to 2004, Krapf was managing editor of Business Communications Review magazine, and from 2004 to 2007, he was the magazine's editor. BCR was a highly respected journal of the business technology and communications industry. Before coming to BCR, he was managing editor and senior editor of America's Network magazine, covering the public telecommunications industry. Prior to working in high-tech journalism, he was a reporter and editor at newspapers in Connecticut and Texas.
Moderator - Dave Michels, Blogger, Pindropsoup.com
As video becomes more pervasive, business are not only looking for ways to integrate desktop video solutions with group and telepresence systems, they are also seeking to integrate video with the PBX and the Unified Communications core to enable video telephony and click-to-videoconference. In such systems, there are three possible call control centers: the enterprise PBX, the Unified Communications server (particularly those from Microsoft and IBM) and the call control native to the group video deployment.
Inevitably, there are tradeoffs that must be made when trying to integrate video with both the PBX with the Unified Communications environment. This session discusses strategies for integrating group video systems with telephony call control and with common Unified Communications environments, describing the pros and cons of doing so.
Speaker/Moderator - Brent Kelly, Senior Analyst & Partner, Wainhouse Research
Mobility is one of the key features of Unified Communications, however, each vendor seems to have a different range of solutions. Some depend on cellular service exclusively which can add to already spiraling cellular bills. The combination of wireless LANs and Wi-Fi can lower cellular usage and Wi-Fi also supports higher data rates than the cellular carriers’ 3G services. But upgrading the WLAN to support voice can be expensive and there’s the challenge of accurately matching capacity to call volumes. Most IP PBX vendors build or partner to provide dual mode Wi-Fi cellular that combine the two technologies and can transparently hand off calls. There are also Wi-Fi only and DECT solutions to support users who are mobile but only within the building or campus.
The VoiceCon team has put together a request for proposal for a mobile Unified Communications solution to work in conjunction with an IP-PBX deployment. A set of of mobility requirements has been added, but no particular technology solution is specified. Participating vendors will propose a solution based on their existing product lines, identify the products required to implement it, and provide cost per user and for the entire solution.
Twelve leading vendors have been asked to participate, and each will get the opportunity to describe their solution, why they chose it, and to highlight the cost and particular advantages of their approach. We have also asked them to complete a feature matrix, which we will use to summarize and compare their offerings.
Mobility is an increasingly important element in Unified Communications and this deep dive will allow you to:
- See what the vendors have to offer on the mobility front
- Understand the elements involved in their solutions, and the particular features they offer
- Recognize what it will cost to add mobility to Unified Communications
- Determine how creatively they can address mobility requirements
KEY QUESTIONS
• What is the most cost effective way to integrate mobility for users who split their time in and out of the office? How about those who are mobile only within the office?
• What elements are actually involved in adding mobility to each vendor’s Unified Communications solution, what do they cost, either purchased separately or in a bundle with other Unified Communications features?
• Can a dual mode Wi-Fi/cellular solution be cost justified on its own or do we have to look for soft productivity benefits?
• If the costs of upgrading a WLAN to support voice are significant, can DECT be a cost effective alternative?
• Will users get the same range of features on a cellular-only, dual mode Wi-Fi/cellular, and VoWLAN based mobile UC solution?
Hear from representatives of Aastra, Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, Cisco, IBM, Mitel, NEC, RIM, Shoretel and Siemens Enterprise Communications Group.
Moderator - Michael Finneran, Principal, dBrn Associates Inc
Whether an enterprise is early in its migration to IP Telephony or further along and now evaluating the concept of Unified Communications, it's not easy to build a credible business case. IP Telephony and, in particular, Unified Communications, are complex and involve numerous technologies, decision-makers and equipment, software and service providers.
This workshop will be divided into two segments: The first is devoted to IP Telephony businesses cases, the second will cover the Unified Communications business case. It will be based on IP Telephony cost data that has been gathered over the past five years from more than 800 companies that have implemented the technology, as well as real-world data from hundreds of IT decision makers on the newer Unified Communications products and technologies.
KEY QUESTIONS:
* How do companies build a business case around IP Telephony and Unified Communications? What are the key metrics?
* What does it really cost to implement IP Telephony? What are the cost components of a Unified Communications business case?
* What resources (internal and external) companies must devote to their VOIP and Unified Communications rollouts, per end-unit, per year segmented by rollout size and vendor.
* What are some of the key pitfalls? Where did companies go wrong?
* What are some compelling business case models for both IP Telephony and Unified Communications?
Instructor - Irwin Lazar, Vice President Communications Research, Nemertes Research
Instructor - Robin Gareiss, Executive Vice President and Senior Founding Partner, Nemertes Research
SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) has become the dominant protocol for IP communications. This workshop explains SIP -- how it works, the major issues impacting deployments and how SIP will evolve in the future.
The session focuses on the technical aspects of SIP and how it is used. It analyzes in detail the major components of SIP architecture, SIP addressing and registration, session establishment, SIP message routing and connecting SIP across the PSTN. You will learn about SIP extensions and how SIMPLE works for IM/presence. The workshop also examines some of the challenges SIP faces, including NAT traversal (and the tools developed to cope with it: STUN, TURN and ICE) and security. The tutorial concludes with an assessment of how SIP may evolve and its role in peer-to-peer environments. You will receive an inventory of SIP resources—books, papers and organizations.
Instructor - Dan York, Director of Conversations, Voxeo
Whether because of a best-of-breed strategy, mergers, acquisitions or a migration from either traditional TDM or a mixed TDM-IP environment to one that supports Unified Communications, enterprises typically have a complex mix of multiple telephony vendors and platforms. Adding to this complexity is a growing need to integrate voice systems with critical business applications like active directory, HR, ERP, etc. These environments are extremely expensive to manage and there is a growing realization that new management and administration tools are needed. This session will focus on best practices for managing and
administering complex telecom environments, and include a review of tools for provisioning, automation and reporting.
Speaker - Christopher May, VP, North America, VOSS Solutions
Christopher May is Vice President, North America, and is a co-founder of of VOSS Solutions. He is responsible for all North America operations and he also oversees the corporate marketing function for VOSS.
Christopher is an expert in the fields of Operational Support Systems (OSS) for the Telco and Broadband markets, with a specific focus in the area of IP Telephony and unified communications.
Prior to co-founding VOSS, Christopher was a founding partner of Broadcentric Ltd, a specialist Digital Broadband 'convergent solutions' company. Christopher has 20 years experience with large, technology projects, including the launch of Australia’s first DOCSIS broadband platform and the world’s first commercial launch of standard’s based digital satellite TV.
Christopher has an MBA from Macquarie University and an Engineering Degree from the University of Sydney.
Speaker - Phil Moen, President and CEO, Unimax Systems Corporation
Moderator - David Yedwab, Partner, Strategy and Analytics Partners
The vast majority of video conference calling is done within the enterprise, but it’s only a matter of time before these same systems are used to make calls to people in other organizations. However, unlike voice which has the public switched telephone network (PSTN) to link together all phones, video devices have no such network to connect to. Further, there are significant barriers to making inter-enterprise video conferencing as easy as a voice call such as addressing, security, quality of service and interoperability. This session will examine your options today, and identify what are likely to be a broader set of options in the coming years.
Key Questions:
* What are the different approaches to inter-enterprise video conferencing today?
* How do you find and call other video users (use “regular” phone numbers, URI address, IP Address, iNum, FDQN)?
*Will enterprises rely on service providers or handle this issue on their own -- internally? When should dedicated bandwidth be used vs. the public Internet or a hybrid approach?
* What are the security requirements and tradeoffs for inter-enterprise video?
* What are the different requirements for inter-enterprise video conferencing between video
endpoints from the same vendor? Different vendors?
* What are the considerations for opening up bridging (e.g., an MCU) for inter-enterprise video
conferencing vs. using a 3rd party?
Enterprise use of video is growing, but it remains a “niche” application -- largely used by a select set of users in planned sessions. For video conferencing to move into the mainstream, it needs to evolve into a universal tool for business – an application that is used both inside and outside a company’s boundaries.
Incremental growth isn’t that difficult, but challenges abound for any CEO or CIO who wants to extend video deployment to everyone in the enterprise – expanding from dozens of systems to thousands. That’ll be the focus of this session.
Key Questions:
*What are the product requirements for scaling a deployment and are today’s solutions up to
the task? What about bandwidth requirements and network upgrades?
* What makes sense to tackle internally vs. outsourcing or hybrid choices?
*Are people outside the firewall (teleworkers, branch offices) out of luck?
* How does VOIP help – or hinder – the expansion of video?
*Should the video network be integrated with other network elements (i.e., the PBX, PSTN)
and if so, when and how?
*Most enterprises are multi-vendor environments; how does that affect options for scaling video?
How is your enterprise tackling the challenge of running converged networks and integrating communications with business applications? Do your communications teams talk to your applications teams? Do they know what the company's datacenter strategy is, and how that will affect the way communications are run within your enterprise? How are you coping with the pressures of headcount reduction? Come share your problems and your solutions with your colleagues.
Real-time traffic (voice and video) demand that the network provide low latency, low packet loss and low jitter. Today’s dynamic networks are constantly changing, and the distributed nature of network configuration often lead to errors in design or implementation that can cause quality problems for voice and video conferencing applications. A new breed of testing methodologies and tools is required to test or monitor networks and to isolate problems. This session will explore the need for these tools, will categorize the tools and will list vendors that provide the different kinds of solutions needed to manage today’s complex converged networks.
KEY QUESTIONS:
* Why are new tools required to support voice and video conferencing? Why can’t I use the tools that have been serving me well for years?
* What features are required in these tools for managing and monitoring real-time networks?
* Who are the vendors and what types of tools to they offer?
* Do I need different tools for debugging than I do for operational monitoring of the network?
Speaker/Moderator - John Bartlett, Voice Video and Data Application Performance, NetForecast Inc.
Reactor Panelist - Steven Guthrie, Senior Principal, Product Marketing, CA
Steven Guthrie has spent the past decade in the IP network and telephony management market as an active participant in the emergence of IP-based business services and IP service technologies as well as real time IP communications such as voice and video over IP. In his role as Senior Principal Product Marketing Manager at CA, Steve is responsible for understanding how enterprises, government agencies and service providers use infrastructure and performance management solutions to improve the efficiency and cost of managing their networks, systems, database and applications. With this insight, he communicates user experiences and industry best practices to help other organizations optimize their converged network investments and achieve reliable business services and high user satisfaction.
Reactor Panelist - Pierre Semaan, General Manager, Product Management and Marketing, Integrated Research
Unified Communications presents such an array of technology requirements and demands, often with unproven payback, that many enterprises are considering outsourcing Unified Communications, at least until demand reaches critical mass within the enterprise user base and until standards and implementation best practices are more settled. The question is: What Unified Communications applications and functions are available in either managed or hosted offerings, and how should you decide whether it's worthwhile to go this route?
In this session, we'll look at specific managed and hosted Unified Communications offerings; you'll come away with a better idea of what's available, whether it's cost justified, and what competitive advantage your business might be able to gain by moving quickly to implement these Unified Communications apps via a managed or hosted offering.
KEY QUESTIONS:
* What carriers, systems integrators or other service providers are currently offering Unified Communications as a managed or hosted service? What are the costs and the business cases?
* What integration efforts are required to make managed/hosted Unified Communications work with the communications functions that you keep in house?
* What are the pitfalls of going with a managed/hosted offering?
* How do you mesh new managed/hosted Unified Communications services with other managed services you may have for WAN equipment, security or other functions already under contract to a service provider? What vendor lock-in scenarios are likely?
* If you implement a managed or hosted Unified Communications service to get a Unified Communications capability up and running quickly, how easy or difficult will it be to move that capability in house later?
Speaker - Melanie Turek, Industry Principal, Frost & Sullivan
Melanie Turek is a Principal Analyst at Frost & Sullivan. She is a renowned expert in unified communications, collaboration, social networking and content-management technologies in the enterprise. For 15 years, Ms. Turek has worked closely with hundreds of vendors and senior IT executives across a range of industries to track and capture the changes and growth in the fast-moving unified communications market. She also has in-depth experience with business-process engineering, project management, compliance, and productivity & performance enhancement, as well as a wide range of software technologies including messaging, ERP, CRM and contact center applications. Ms. Turek writes often on the business value and cultural challenges surrounding real-time communications, collaboration and Voice over IP, and she speaks frequently at leading customer and industry events, including VoiceCon, Interop and CMP Media's Enterprise 2.0 Conference, for which she serves as an advisory board member and track chair.
Prior to working at Frost & Sullivan, Ms. Turek was a Senior Vice-President and Partner at Nemertes Research. She also spent 10 years in various senior editorial roles at Information Week magazine. Ms. Turek graduated cum laude with a BA in Anthropology from Harvard College. She currently works from her home office in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.
Reactor Panelist - John DelPizzo, Senior Offering Manager, Unified Communications & Collaboration Software, IBM
Reactor Panelist - Eric Schoch, Senior Director of Product Management, Cisco
Reactor Panelist - Ross Sedgewick, Senior Director, Large Enterprise Solutions, Siemens Enterprise Communications Group
Ross Sedgewick serves as Senior Director, Large Enterprise Solutions at Siemens Enterprise Communications, leveraging over 20 years of management experience in the Enterprise Software, Telecom, CRM, Channel Management and Solution Marketing arenas. Ross has responsibility for the global Large Enterprise solutions marketing team, which drives positioning and messaging for SEN’s Voice and Applications solution portfolios worldwide. Prior to working at Siemens, he acquired broad industry experience in senior positions with companies such as IBM Corporation and Delano Technologies. Ross holds a Honors Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Toronto, and an MBA (Marketing) from the Schulich School of Business at York University.
Reactor Panelist - Steve Schilling, CEO, Cypress Communications
Everybody's talking about SIP Trunking; this is your chance to have your say. Share your experiences in trying to procure, configure and run SIP trunks. What went right? What went wrong? What kinks are still being worked out? Get answers to your questions, and share your tips with your peers. You'll come away from this session with some concrete ideas about how to turn SIP trunks' potential into real savings and improvements for your enterprise.
Moderator - Sorell Slaymaker, Communications Architect, Unified IT Systems
Sorell Slaymaker has 20 years of experience designing, building, and operating networks and the communication services that run across them. Particular areas of expertise include; unified communications, contact centers, CRM, tele-medicine, and SIP Trunking. He was the chief architect for a 25,000 seat virtual contact center and moving it to IP/SIP. He has been a member of the Cisco and Avaya technical advisory boards. He graduated from Texas A&M with a B.S. in Telecom Engineering, and went through the M.E. Telecom program at the University of Colorado.
On the weekends, Sorell enjoys the outdoors – bicycling, camping, and gardening.
Voice messaging systems became part of the landscape because phones need to be answered whether or not the called party was available. But with presence, IM and related Unified Communications applications and capabilities, there are new ways to assess the value voice messaging and Unified Messaging do—or don't—deliver. This session will analyze the new options becoming available, and the different ways to calculate ROI.
KEY QUESTIONS:
*Are IP-PBXs needed for a voice mail to unified messaging migration? What's the best way and place to store messages?
*Is end of life finally here for legacy voice mail systems?
*What are new options for getting voice messaging, call answering and auto-attendant services?
*Is it better to have voice mail built into the PBX software, or on separate servers?
*What is the impact of speech auto-attendants on voice mail?
Speaker/Moderator - Blair Pleasant, President & Principal Analyst, COMMfusion LLC
As President and Principal Analyst, COMMfusion LLC and
Co-Founder, UCStrategies.com, Blair provides consulting and analysis on Unified Communications and voice/data convergence markets and technologies, aimed at helping end-user and vendor clients both strategically and tactically.
Speaker/Moderator - Marty Parker, Principal Consultant, UniComm Consulting
Marty Parker is a leading industry consultant in Unified Communications. Marty and his UniComm Consulting teammates are committed to advancement of Unified Communications (UC) to produce new benefits and efficiencies in enterprise communications and to stimulate and justify innovation in the business communications industry.
Using the UC definition of "Communications integrated to optimize business processes," Marty sees Unified Communications as transforming the highly manual, unmeasured, and relatively unpredictable world of telephony-based-voice and e-mail communications into software-assisted, coordinated, simplified, and predictable processes that will deliver high-value benefits to customers, to employees, and to the relevant enterprises.
Marty is co-founder of UniComm Consulting, the industry’s premier independent consulting firm providing UC strategy, planning and implementation support for large enterprises in all industry segments.
Marty is also co-founder of UCStrategies.com, the industry’s leading forum for UC information and dialog. Marty also offers UC training such as the workshop, “Planning and Implementing Unified Communications”, offered though Telecom + UC Training.
Marty’s background provides the foundation for his work in Unified Communications, including positions with IBM in enterprise computing; with a leading north American communications VAR (dealing with Siemens, Toshiba, Mitel, Nortel, and other PBX product lines); as leader of two venture-funded voice mail and unified messaging startups; and with ATT/Lucent/Avaya for unified messaging, conferencing & collaboration, and the earliest versions of unified communications.
Please join him in VoiceCon sessions: "Implementation Options: Deep Dive", Monday, 9 AM; "Comparing UC Options: Who's Offering What?", Monday, 2 PM: and "How Much Voice Mail Do You Really Need?", Wednesday, 8 AM.
Reactor Panelist - Albert Kooiman, Director Product Management, Microsoft Corporation
Reactor Panelist - Tom Minifie, Chief Technology Officer, AVST
Tom Minifie is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) at Applied Voice & Speech Technologies, Inc. In his current role, Mr. Minifie is responsible for the strategic direction of the Company's CallXpress® product line. Prior to his promotion to CTO, Mr. Minifie served as the Vice President of Product Management for AVST since its inception in 2003. Previously, Mr. Minifie held a variety of executive level positions in the sales, business development and marketing organizations of Captaris, Inc. and its predecessor company, Applied Voice Technology ("AVT"). Mr. Minifie is a recognized authority in the field of Unified Communications and a frequent speaker on the topic. Mr. Minifie has also spent considerable time cultivating strategic technical relationships with many of the industry's leading technology companies including Aastra/Ericsson, Alcatel–Lucent, Cisco Systems, Microsoft, Mitel and NEC. Prior to joining the communications industry, Mr. Minifie held various sales and marketing positions within the high tech industry. Tom holds a B.A. in Economics from the University of Washington.
Speaker - Alistair Rennie, General Manager Collaboration Software, IBM Software
Alistair Rennie is General Manager, Lotus Software and WebSphere Portal, IBM Software Group. Mr. Rennie was appointed to this position in January, 2010. As general manager, Mr. Rennie has oversight for an extensive portfolio of collaboration tools designed to empower people to be more effective, responsive and innovative within the context of the work they do. This portfolio includes Lotus Software, software that enables businesses to communicate, collaborate and increase productivity, and WebSphere Portal, software that enables organizations to design their Web experience with personalized applications. He is a member of the IBM Integration and Values team, a select group of executives who provide leadership across IBM on various business and strategic issues. Mr. Rennie is also IBM Senior State Executive for Massachusetts, providing leadership for IBM in the community statewide. Mr. Rennie was previously Vice President, Development and Support, Lotus Software and WebSphere Portal, responsible for the strategy and development of IBM's Collaboration portfolio. He also led the worldwide technical support team dedicated to software client satisfaction. Prior to this role, Alistair led IBM Software Services for Lotus - a global organization consisting of highly skilled technical consultants working in more than 35 countries with clients to optimize value from the IBM collaboration portfolio. Mr. Rennie joined IBM at the Toronto Software Laboratory in 1989 and has held a number of executive roles within IBM Software Group with a primary focus on the introduction of new technologies. Prior assignments include Vice President, Marketing and Channels, Lotus, and Vice President, Sales and Marketing, Pervasive Computing. Mr. Rennie holds degrees in Economics and Business Administration from the University of Western Ontario.
This VoiceCon Summit presents enterprise executives discussing their experiences with migrating to new communications infrastructures, architectures and services. In a roundtable format, the executives will describe what went into their decision-making for migrating, and they'll describe their implementation experiences —what went right and what didn't. The panelists will discuss benefits and problems, and offer perspective and advice that reflect their real-world experience. In addition to discussing the technical issues, the speakers will address the impact that new technologies and architectures are having on end users and the IT/telecom organization.
Darrius M. Jones is an Executive Director within the Member Experience Channel Management organization at USAA. He is responsible for vision, and management of member interactions for a complex speech enabled voice self service portal and a 14000+ seat voice, video, and web collaboration enabled contact center. His previous role within USAA was in the Chief Technology Office as an Executive Director Technical Fellow where he was responsible for providing thought leadership, strategy and execution guidance in support of the Networking, Contact Center, Communications and Collaboration technology domains.
Prior to USAA Darrius has held technology operations and architecture positions within Merrill Lynch, Computershare, and Georgeson Shareholder; where he architected and implemented Unified Communications, Contact Center, and Workforce Optimization solutions for users throughout the US, APAC and EMEA.
Panelist - Geoff Calhoun, Director of Information Technology, AccuQuote
Geoff Calhoun, Director of Information Technology, AccuQuote
With a progressive eye for technology, Geoff has earned his success. His career lives at AccuQuote, starting in 1998 . Since then, his roles have included Network Administrator, Programmer Analyst and Database Developer. Currently, Geoff is Director of IT where he is responsible for managing all IT functions. His technical expertise is looked upon to identify and implement innovative technology strategies enterprise-wide. With his results-driven approach, Geoff continues to develop his knowledge base by staying ahead of industry trends.
A self-learner by nature, Geoff enjoys staying ahead of ever-changing developments in technology by regularly attending online webinars and conducting tutorials. He shares his extended knowledge base with his diligent workforce to maximize performance, efficiency, effectiveness and company-wide profitably. As an online business, AccuQuote’s profitability depends highly on IT support including, but not limited to application development, database design and administration, internal support and telecommunications support, in all of which Geoff has exceeded company expectations.
Geoff continues to use his competitive edge to mold IT practices into highly functional, user-friendly experiences. His over a decade of IT knowledge is well acknowledged by all who consult with him for support and best practices.
Panelist - Donna Zett, Chief Innovation Officer, Serta International
After attending the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana and earning a Bachelor of Accountancy and Communications degree, Donna began her career in the field of Information Systems. Starting as a software programmer at ADP, she developed her business skills learning and programming software for retail automotive dealerships. She continued software programming for several years until starting her family of two boys. After a short break she began freelance programming for several companies until embarking on a fast paced career with the Serta Mattress Company in the small town of Beloit, WI. After building the IT department from the very modest beginning of a single central server, she was able to assist Serta in growing their infrastructure from supporting a $50M company with 3 manufacturing locations to supporting a $870M company with 23 manufacturing locations. Company growth came mostly from acquisitions, as such, many major initiatives were born….integrating 11 disparate environments into a single centralized IT operation, development of a POS package for the America’s Mattress retail point-of-sale operation, companywide conversion to a full VOIP solution, and more. In 2005 Serta was acquired by AOT Holdings, LLC. In Jan, 2010, AOT also acquired the Simmons Bedding Company and the integration challenges continue. When not engaged in acquisitions and integrations, Donna is an avid runner and continues to try to enjoy the game of golf.
Moderator - Eric Krapf, Editor, NoJitter.com, Co-Chair, VoiceCon
Eric Krapf is co-chair of the VoiceCon events, helping to set program content and direction for the leading conference events in the enterprise IP-telephony/convergence/Unified Communications marketplace. In addition, Krapf serves as editor & lead blogger for the website No Jitter, TechWeb’s online community for news and analysis of the enterprise convergence/Unified Communications industry. He is also responsible for electronic content including webcasts and e-newsletters.
From 1996 to 2004, Krapf was managing editor of Business Communications Review magazine, and from 2004 to 2007, he was the magazine's editor. BCR was a highly respected journal of the business technology and communications industry. Before coming to BCR, he was managing editor and senior editor of America's Network magazine, covering the public telecommunications industry. Prior to working in high-tech journalism, he was a reporter and editor at newspapers in Connecticut and Texas.
Moderator - Zeus Kerravala, SVP, Enterprise Research, The Yankee Group
Gurdeep Singh Pall is the corporate vice president in the Unified Communications Group at Microsoft Corp. He is responsible for vision, product strategy and R&D for Microsoft's Unified Communications including voice over Internet protocol (VoIP).
Pall was appointed general manager of Windows Real-Time Communications efforts in January 2002 and helped develop a broad RTC strategy that led to the formation of the Real Time Collaboration division and acquisition of PlaceWare Inc. (now called Microsoft Office Live Meeting). Since then Pall has led acquisitions of Media-Streams and Parlano and key industry partnerships. Pall was named one of the "15 Innovators & Influencers Who Will Make A Difference In 2008" by Information Week.
Pall has more than 20 patents (filed or approved) in networking, compression and collaboration areas. He holds a master's degree in computer science from the University of Oregon and an undergraduate degree in computer engineering from Birla Institute of Technology in India.
To round out our explorations of SIP Trunking, this session lets you hear from enterprise end user representatives who have implemented SIP trunking. These end users will talk from experience about the drivers, pitfalls and rewards of SIP trunking. You’ll come away from this session with an understanding of the real-world challenges and benefits that end users have experienced in production deployments, and you’ll be able to apply these lessons to your own enterprise’s situation.
KEY QUESTIONS
* What drives enterprise deployment of SIP trunks?
* What have users found with regard to such issues as carrier availability, pricing, SLAs and contracting/procurement?
* Did the promised benefits materialize? If so, what were the key steps that ensured the payback—and if not, where were the problems?
* How much can you expect to save with SIP trunks?
* What are the major technical challenges?
Todd Vinciguerra has been in the Telecommunications industry for over 15 years, specializing in IP telephony. His experience includes both TDM and IP Telephony implementations, integrations, as well as data and video convergence. In addition, he has a proven track record for cost cutting measures and telecom expense management. And also a contributing writer for NoJitter.com. He is Cisco CCVP, CCNA and CCDA certified. Currently employed as Telecommunications Analyst 3 for Riverside Bank in Florida.
Speaker - Steve Blair, Senior Network Engineer, The University of Pennsylvania
Speaker - Larry Riba, Senior Voice Engineer, Alpine Access
Moderator - Sorell Slaymaker, Communications Architect, Unified IT Systems
Sorell Slaymaker has 20 years of experience designing, building, and operating networks and the communication services that run across them. Particular areas of expertise include; unified communications, contact centers, CRM, tele-medicine, and SIP Trunking. He was the chief architect for a 25,000 seat virtual contact center and moving it to IP/SIP. He has been a member of the Cisco and Avaya technical advisory boards. He graduated from Texas A&M with a B.S. in Telecom Engineering, and went through the M.E. Telecom program at the University of Colorado.
On the weekends, Sorell enjoys the outdoors – bicycling, camping, and gardening.
In this session, executives from the leading vendors offer their assessment of Unified Communications' evolution to date: What's available now, and what's coming over the next 12 months. The discussion will also cover the barriers that must be overcome for Unified Communications to fulfill its potential - especially interoperability and TCO/ROI concerns, and will examine the various pricing models.
KEY QUESTIONS
* What are prospects for Unified Communications adoption given the weak economy and enterprise budget cuts?
* What are the top Unified Communications applications in terms of actual implementation? What hard savings or ROI exist? Are any "true" Unified Communications apps being adopted, or is it all about audioconferencing bridges and other routes to a quick payback?
* What specific examples exist of enterprises using Unified Communications to change their business processes? Name names.
* What interoperability challenges remain, and how are enterprises tackling the systems integration challenges posed by Unified Communications?
* How have the vendors changed their approach to pricing for Unified Communications capabilities, and what impact are these changes having? What's next in the evolution of Unified Communications pricing?
* Are vendors giving away Unified Communications apps to sell their call control platforms - or vice versa?
Panelist - Bryan Tantzen, Senior Director, Cisco
Panelist - Holger Stotz, Director of Global Product Management, Siemens Enterprise Communication Group
Panelist - Moz Hussain, Director of Product Management, Microsoft
Dr. Narendra is responsible for new product innovation in the converged communications space within Enterprise Mobility Solutions business of Motorola. He has focused on high velocity development of new products and solutions leveraging internal and external innovation to solve the unified communications challenge in specific domains such as Retail and Healthcare. His current thrust is to unify work flow driven communications across multiple devices, platforms and even diverse technologies as WLAN VoIP, cellular and two way radios in each of the application domains. In prior roles, Dr Narendra was the chief architect and directed the product and technology strategy for enterprise and productivity handsets in the Mobile Devices business. He held strategy, product management and development positions leading wireless broadband, enterprise solutions and enterprise devices in both the Mobile Device and Network businesses. Prior to Motorola, Dr Narendra's career in Honeywell spanned technology, product and general management positions in digital signal processing, sensor and image processing, systems on chips, and applied artificial intelligence and robotics and aerospace lithium polymer batteries. Pat earned his PhD in Electrical Engineering and MSEE from Purdue, an MBA in Strategic Management from University of Minnesota and a BSEE from Bangalore University. He has 8 issued patents and published several dozen papers in global technical and business journals.
Panelist - Stephen Beamish, Vice President Business Development and Marketing, Mitel
Panelist - Steven Hardy, Director of Product Marketing, Avaya
Panelist - John DelPizzo, Senior Offering Manager, Unified Communications & Collaboration Software, IBM
Jim Burton is Founder and CXO of CT Link, LLC and Co-Founder of UCStrategies.com. Burton founded the consulting firm in 1989 to help clients in the converging voice, data and networking industries with strategic planning, mergers and acquisitions, strategic alliances and distribution issues.
In the early 1990s, Burton recognized the challenges vendors and the channel faced as they developed and installed integrated voice/data products. He became the leading authority in the voice/data integration industry and is credited with "coining" the term computer-telephone integration (CTI). Burton helped companies including Microsoft and Intel enter the voice market and helped AT&T (now Avaya), Mitel, NEC, Nortel, Siemens and Toshiba with their CTI strategies.
In the late 1990s, venture capitalists turned to Burton for help in evaluating potential investments in IP PBX start-ups. He went on to help these and other companies with strategic planning and partnering, including NBX (acquired by 3Com, Selsius (acquired by Cisco), ShoreTel and Sphere Communications.
In the early 2000s, Burton began focusing on wireless services and technologies. In 2005 Burton started helping vendors with their Unified Communications strategy and in 2006, along with several colleagues, created a web site, UCStrategies.com, to provide information for enterprise customers and vendors.
Social networking is becoming a part of many information workers’ collaborative toolkit, presenting opportunities and challenges for enterprise network managers. Vendors are beginning to integrate social networking tools—both public and internal—into their communications systems. How do you keep up with what your users are doing, offer them better ways of doing it, and use these tools to optimize collaboration in a way that actually saves or makes money for your enterprise? In this session, communications vendors and software providers will describe—and show—what’s possible today.
KEY QUESTIONS:
* What’s the best way to leverage the major public social networking tools—Twitter, Facebook, etc.—as part of your enterprise’s collaboration systems?
* What social networking/collaboration capabilities are being built into communications vendors’ existing products, or what new products are these vendors releasing in this area?
* How do you handle policy and compliance issues for employees’ social networking usage?
* What’s the cost of marrying social networking and enterprise communications, and how do you determine the benefit?
Speaker/Moderator - Melanie Turek, Industry Principal, Frost & Sullivan
Melanie Turek is a Principal Analyst at Frost & Sullivan. She is a renowned expert in unified communications, collaboration, social networking and content-management technologies in the enterprise. For 15 years, Ms. Turek has worked closely with hundreds of vendors and senior IT executives across a range of industries to track and capture the changes and growth in the fast-moving unified communications market. She also has in-depth experience with business-process engineering, project management, compliance, and productivity & performance enhancement, as well as a wide range of software technologies including messaging, ERP, CRM and contact center applications. Ms. Turek writes often on the business value and cultural challenges surrounding real-time communications, collaboration and Voice over IP, and she speaks frequently at leading customer and industry events, including VoiceCon, Interop and CMP Media's Enterprise 2.0 Conference, for which she serves as an advisory board member and track chair.
Prior to working at Frost & Sullivan, Ms. Turek was a Senior Vice-President and Partner at Nemertes Research. She also spent 10 years in various senior editorial roles at Information Week magazine. Ms. Turek graduated cum laude with a BA in Anthropology from Harvard College. She currently works from her home office in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.
Speaker - Jamie Stark, Senior Product Manager, Microsoft
Speaker - Becky Davis, Director of Technical Marketing, Siemens Enterprise Communications Group
Becky Davisis the Director of Technical Marketing for Siemens Enterprise Communications in North America. She is responsible for the technical content of the demo labs, tradeshows and for customer briefings, as well as the marketing messages related to the technology. She recently moved into this role from her previous management position heading up the regional technical sales organization. Becky and her team provided technical support to the US and Latin American sales teams for Siemens’ OpenScape Voice and Unified Communications portfolio. She continues to help direct the technology center in Boca Raton, FL that provides virtual demonstration and tradeshow support globally.
Becky joined Tel Plus, a Siemens distributor, in 1987 as a Branch Service and Installation Manager and has since held management positions in Logistics, Material Controlling and Distribution. In 1998, she joined the Product Management group in Boca Raton, where she was responsible for the introduction of the HiPath management system, small business systems, and became Director of HiPath Applications. Becky was one of the original team members that defined the HiPath 8000 (now OpenScape Voice), and worked in the carrier organization on a business connection solution before assuming her current role in technical support.
Davis holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Wisconsin.
Speaker - Bruce Craig M.D., Distinguished Member of Technical Staff, Alcatel Lucent
Speaker - Robert Ingram, Senior Product Manager, Unified Communications & Collaboration Software, IBM, IBM
The demise of the desk phone has been predicted for several years now, but is there any evidence of a decline? Has the economic downturn brought a reassessment of the 30-40% of a new system spend that's devoted to desktop instruments? What's the case for deploying a desk phone to non-customer-facing employees? In this session, we'll debate whether budget cuts should finally force enterprises to revisit the expense of desk phones. We'll also consider the features and functions that are most appealing in desk phones in this environment.
KEY QUESTIONS:
* With some vendors bundling Unified Communications functionality with IP-PBXs, is it worthwhile to forgo hard phones altogether?
* What is the price/performance of the latest phone sets? Are vendors cutting prices to stimulate continued demand? What are the life cycle expectations for hard phones?
* Will the cost of vendor-proprietary desk phones drive increased adoption of: SIP phones? Softphones? Mobility features in call control platforms?
* What quality and security challenges need to be overcome before softphones/Unified Communications portals go more mainstream?
Speaker/Moderator - Stephen Leaden, President, Leaden Associates
Reactor Panelist - Jay Krauser, General Manager, Sales Support and Engineering, NEC
Jay Krauser is General Manager, Sales Support and Engineering for NEC Corporation of America. In this role, Jay works with other NEC divisions, subsidiaries and NEC partners to help build repeatable, commercially successful solutions for our direct sales force and our dealers. Through Jay’s team, NEC broadens the solutions it can provide to the industry, assists channels with the distribution of these products, and supports NEC partners with the tools and services they need to be successful. During his tenure, Jay has helped to bring to market NEC’s award-winning products and applications for the industry. He continues to work closely with customers and partners to gain insight that helps NEC develop innovative products and applications. Jay has held various engineering and product management positions within NEC, most recently as Assistant General Manager of Product Management and Product Marketing for the Marketing and Sales Support Division of NEC America’s Corporate Networks Group. During his 18 years of industry experience, Mr. Krauser has held various telecommunications management positions as an end-user with large NEC call centers and has worked within large interconnect companies.
Reactor Panelist - Patrick Ferriter, Senior Director of Product Management, Polycom
Patrick is Sr. Director of Product Management at Polycom and is responsible for driving the evolution of VoIP phones today to the UC endpoints of tomorrow. Patrick has been in the VoIP industry for over 10 years with recent past experience as VP of Product Management and co-founder of Zultys Technologies. Patrick has also held senior technical roles at CopperCom and Spirent Communications and holds a BSEE degree from Purdue University.
Reactor Panelist - Mario DiPrizio, Senior Director Engineering and Architecture Converged Enterprise Communications, Motorola
Mario Di Prizio leads solution architecture, product development and system deployment for Motorola's Converged Enterprise Communications (CEC) product division, which is part of the Enterprise Mobility Business. Prior to CEC Mario led many other product development organizations in other Motorola business units ranging from 2-way radio systems for Public Safety and Enterprises, RFID and Smart Cards, security solutions, wireless communications and voice over IP. Mario started his career in communications and high tech when he joined Motorola in 1981. Mario holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering; an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois and an Executive MBA from Northwestern Kellogg school of management.
Reactor Panelist - Mike Storella, Director of Business Development, snom
Unified Communications solutions are complex and are rapidly evolving, and at the same time, there’s growing interest in hosted, cloud-based computing and services. In 2010, while Unified Communications will continue to mature as a traditional premises-based offering, there are a new set of hosted/cloud-based Unified Communications capabilities coming from Microsoft, IBM and Cisco. The fundamental business questions, however, still need to be addressed: How can Unified Communications benefit your organization and what will the ROI be?
This session will compare hosted/cloud-based versus premises-based Unified Communications offerings and provide justifications enterprises can use when evaluating a hosted offering. It specifically compares the following services:
1. Microsoft Online, along with the carrier services enterprises are using with MS Online.
2. Cisco WebEx Connect, which offers hosted voice, conferencing and messaging.
3. IBM LotusLive, an inter-domain collaboration solution, that includes many of the Unified Communications elements plus social networking and team workspaces.
4. Hosted/managed versions of Microsoft Office Communications Server, and how service providers are offering OCS in hosted and hybrid configurations.
Attendees will come away from this session with a good understanding of the hosted Unified Communications market and available offerings, a list of benefits a hosted Unified Communications solution may provide, approximate pricing models and the knowledge to begin evaluating the hosted versus premises-based value proposition for their organization.
Instructor - Brent Kelly, Senior Analyst & Partner, Wainhouse Research
An RFP process to purchase a new enterprise communications system can be an exhaustive and time consuming experience. The objective of this workshop is to facilitate this task for customers who plan to issue an RFP for an IP telephony system in the near future. There are three important take-aways for this tutorial:
• An all-inclusive RFP system performance document covering the basics and advanced capabilities of current generation IP telephony systems.
• Highly detailed proposals from leading system suppliers covering performance specifications with summary pricing information.
• A critical review of the response submissions by the industry’s leading enterprise communications system analyst.
Systems suppliers participating in the tutorial include: Aastra, Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, Cisco, Digium, Microsoft, Mitel, NEC Unified, ShoreTel and Siemens.
The RFP is designed for enterprise-level customers with single or multiple premises requirements. It covers: system architecture and design of common control and common equipment, voice terminals (IP desktop instruments, PC clients, mobile extensions), generic software features (station, attendant, system), voice/integrated messaging, ACD features/functions, Unified Communications options and systems management.
Hear from representatives of Aastra, Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, Bob Close, Digium, Microsoft, Mitel, NEC, Shoretel and Siemens Communications Group.
Instructor - Allan Sulkin, President, TEQConsult Group
Allan Sulkin is founder and president of TEQConsult Group, a consultancy focused on the enterprise communications market. Sulkin is recognized as the leading product/market industry analyst for core communications systems, i.e. IP telephony systems and related peripheral applicaitons, with more than three decades of experience. His client base includes virtually all of the leading system suppliers and a variety of large enterprise customers.
Sulkin is the author of the textbook PBX Systems for IP Telephony (McGraw Hill) and was a contributing editor to Business Communications Review for more than two decades; he continues to regularly contribute articles and posts to its online version at www.NoJitter.com. He has also been a featured speaker at each VoiceCon conference since its inception in 1991. He has also written articles for many other industry publications and has presented at numerous industry trade shows, such as Interop.
Sulkin was a member of the board of directors of the Enterprise Communications Association, and researched/edited its annual market study.
As we enter the era of truly converged networks the ground-rules for network design are changing. Pervasive use of Voice over IP (VoIP) and video conferencing drive new requirements for how the LAN and WAN are provisioned, configured, monitored and managed. This tutorial will give you an overview of network design issues for a combined voice, video and data network and will delve into the details of Quality of Service (QoS). The tutorial will provide a detailed understanding of the design issues you will encounter, techniques for overcoming them, and the specific technologies and practices that are required to make real-time traffic and applications run efficiently and at acceptable quality across your local and wide-area facilities.
KEY QUESTIONS:
* What is required to deliver adequate quality of service (QOS) for voice and video on any local and wide-area IP networks that previously handled only data?
* What services do I need from my WAN vendor to support voice and video? What is an appropriate Service Level Agreement (SLA)?
* Can you run VOIP or video over the Internet with acceptable QOS/quality of experience (QOE)?
* How do I classify traffic in the network to ensure voice and video are treated correctly without opening my network up to overutilization by unauthorized endpoints?
* How do you extend your upgrade to serve mobile workers?
* What tools are needed for testing and monitoring a converged network with voice and video?
* I have lots of bandwidth and low utilization, do I really need QoS?
Speaker/Moderator - John Bartlett, Voice Video and Data Application Performance, NetForecast Inc.
Panelist - Terry Slattery, Principal Consultant, Chesapeake Netcraftsmen
Panelist - Michael Finneran, Principal, dBrn Associates Inc
Panelist - Mike Hollier, CTO, Psytechnics
Reactor Panelist - Paul Liesenberg, Enterprise Architecture and Technology Manager, Cisco
Reactor Panelist - Manfred Arndt, HP Distinguished Technologist, Hewlett-Packard
Manfred Arndt is a Distinguished Technologist and the UC & C Solutions Architect for HP ProCurve Networking. He is responsible for architecting the IP telephony and multimedia roadmap for HP networking solutions and with alliance partners. He also participates in several TIA and IEEE subcommittees, helping defining networking and telecommunications standards and is a co-author of the ANSI/TIA-1057 (LLDP-MED) standard.
Arndt has over 20 years experience with several networking startups and the high-tech industry. Arndt holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Computer Engineering from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He also holds three networking patents.
Harpreet Chadha is Senior Director of product management and marketing at Extreme Networks, where he oversees product development of scalable Ethernet switching solutions that help enterprises and carriers build intelligent, cost-effective networks. Prior to Extreme Networks, Chadha was senior principal engineer and product manager at CoSine Communications, where he built and marketed an IP Switch that featured unprecedented scale of virtual routers, firewalls and encryption services. Prior to CoSine, he was a senior developer and architect for network planning tools at Make Systems (OPNET) and storage systems at Alphatronix Inc (Auspex). Chadha graduated from IIT Roorkee, India, and holds a Masters Degree and Doctorate from North Carolina State University.
Pricing for communications systems had already been evolving rapidly, as the industry moved to software, with its pricing models. Now, as vendors seek new ways to sell products and push Unified Communications in a difficult economic climate, they're trying even more different and varying pricing strategies. In this session, we'll look at the range of pricing and licensing issues across communications capabilities—from basic IP-PBXs to Unified Communications applications, and you'll get a sense of the tradeoffs and negotiating strategies you'll need to get the best value for your communications investment.
KEY QUESTIONS:
* How has the shift from hardware to software fees affected the final system price and TCO?
* How does the new cost architecture impact your negotiating strategies?
* What license fees are typically charged on top of the cost of IP phones, messaging systems and other elements? How much do these fees run?
* What are the hidden costs in the new licensing structures, and how do you find them?
* Are vendors giving away Unified Communications application licenses in order to get the IP-PBX sale—or vice versa?
Presence is the heart of next-generation enterprise communications by providing information about who is available and via what method. There are, however, two challenges: First, presence loses much of its value if it's implemented within discrete systems that can't exchange information – e.g., between different systems within an enterprise, between partner companies, with customers and between public and private networks. Second, while Unified Communications capabilities open up many more possibilities to identify and reach the individual or skill needed, that openness threatens to bury us in too much, too easy contact.
Two capabilities are needed: An open but secure ability to exchange presence information between systems, and an efficient way to establish and maintain rules and policies about who can contact who, when, and how. This session will explore these topics and examine progress on these important functionality issues.
KEY QUESTIONS:
* What “rich presence” capabilities will we see, and how will they help Unified Communications applications deployment?
* What are the issues in inter- and intra-enterprise presence aggregation and federation, and how far have we progressed in solving them?
* How is the use of social networks affecting the concepts of presence?
* Will setting presence status require less manual intervention in the future?
* What is the role of rules and policy engines, and where are we in their development?
*
How should enterprises plan current deployments to be ready for future presence capabilities?
Speaker/Moderator - Don Van Doren, Principal, UniComm Consulting
Reactor Panelist - Dan York, Director of Conversations, Voxeo
Reactor Panelist - Albert Kooiman, Director Product Management, Microsoft Corporation
Reactor Panelist - Pat Galvin, CTO Unified Communications & Collaboration Software, IBM
Reactor Panelist - Lawrence Byrd, Director Unified Communications Architecture, Avaya
Wikis, blogs, Twitter....these are no longer just for consumers. Enterprises are embracing social networking tools and tying them into communications platforms and infrastructure. This session gives participants a chance to share experiences and ideas, and to discuss opportunities as well as potential pitfalls.
Moderator - Irwin Lazar, Vice President Communications Research, Nemertes Research
When voice is embedded in other applications and running across a network with other types of traffic, how do you identify problems with voice quality and availability—and fix them as quickly as possible? This session will provide an update on the latest tools and technologies for troubleshooting converged networks—how and when to perform root-cause analysis, how to measure, monitor and manage voice quality on an ongoing basis, and how to use the data generated by monitoring and management systems to get an overall picture of the network's health, and the voice application's behavior.
KEY QUESTIONS:
* How do you identify and troubleshoot VoIP problems?
* How do you configure your network management system to monitor key network factors that impact VoIP?
* What are the metrics of factors that adversely impact VoIP.
* What tools are available for performing root-cause analysis on problems that occur with voice traffic running on an IP network?
* How do the various IT management teams share information and reports so as to expedite troubleshooting?
* If your enterprise is deploying more video, do you need troubleshooting systems for this traffic as well? If so, what metrics and tools are required to troubleshoot this traffic?
Instructor - Terry Slattery, Principal Consultant, Chesapeake Netcraftsmen
From Wi-Fi to cellular and 4G, mobility is an increasingly important factor in enterprise communications. However, mobile technology remains a blind spot for many enterprise IT departments. IT staffs wrestle with basic understanding while users press for more far-reaching mobile applications. For security, IT has built a mobility fortress with BlackBerry and Windows Mobile, but now users are more interested in iPhone, Android, and Pre. This session is designed to introduce some of the major topics that are impacting enterprise mobility, help you to understand the options available, and bring you up to speed on current best practices on the mobility front.
KEY QUESTIONS
• How do I get my mobile expenses under control?
• Is “consumerization” really the future of enterprise mobility?
• What are the current best practices for mobile device management and security?
• Can my Wi-Fi network do voice, or should I opt for DECT or stick with cellular?
• How do the options for improving indoor coverage, Wi-Fi, DAS, and femtocells, stack up?
• How do the 4G options, LTE and WiMAX, compare in terms of cost and capacity, and when can we expect to see them?
• What are the important planning steps for an 802.11n deployment?
• Can Fixed Mobile Convergence really save me money, and what are the major PBX and Carrier options being offered?
Instructor - Michael Finneran, Principal, dBrn Associates Inc
Panelist - Stephen Leaden, President, Leaden Associates
Many industry analysts (and some vendors) are asserting that the desk phone is, if not dead, at least past its prime. They argue that there’s no cost justification for putting a hard phone on every desk, claiming a PC-based softphone is an adequate substitute for at least a significant portion of the user base. Those on the other side of this debate argue that PCs are prone to unpredictable problems and crashes, that they’re not always on, and that softphones provide lower voice quality and security. So who’s right? In this Summit, a panel of experts will debate the issues and let you decide.
Speaker - Stephen Leaden, President, Leaden Associates
Speaker - Michael Finneran, Principal, dBrn Associates Inc
Panelist - Dave Michels, Blogger, Pindropsoup.com
Panelist - Mark Zerbe, VP OF Converged Communications, Dimension Data
Moderator - Fred Knight, GM/Co-Chair, VoiceCon, Publisher, NoJitter.com
Fred Knight is GM/Co-Chair of VoiceCon, and the publisher of NoJitter.com. Fred was part of the team that launched the VoiceCon Conference in 1990. He served as Program Chairman through 2003 when he also became VoiceCon General Manager. Since then, VoiceCon has grown into the leading event for enterprise IP Telephony, converged networks and unified communications.
Fred also led the evolution of VoiceCon from a single event into a 12-month per year operation, comprising conferences, the VoiceCon Webinar series, VoiceCon Virtual Events, and VoiceCon eNews, a weekly e-newsletter. From 1984-2007 Fred was editor and then publisher of Business Communications Review. In December 2007, BCR magazine ceased publication and shifted to the Web with the creation of NoJitter.com.
At the conclusion of each VoiceCon, we ask leading analysts to join VoiceCon Co-chairs Fred Knight and Eric Krapf to summarize what they learned during the Conference. The Locknote will analyze progress in the migration to IP Telephony and Unified Communications, vendor positioning and market strategies, and examine whether the payoffs from new technologies are being realized. The panelists draw on their experience and what they've seen and heard during the conference, and they'll take your questions.
Panelist - Dave Michels, Blogger, Pindropsoup.com
Panelist - Gary Audin, President, Delphi Inc.
Panelist - Zeus Kerravala, SVP, Enterprise Research, The Yankee Group
