We live in a multi-vendor world; companies that sole source their communications equipment are the exception, not the norm. While most companies want to deliver a consistent set of unified communications capabilities to all users, interoperable UC solutions from IP-PBX vendors are tough - if not impossible - to find. That explains much of the appeal of Microsoft and IBM, whose unified communications solutions interface with a variety of third-party telephony solutions. This tutorial is designed to help company CXOs/decision makers, IT and communications managers and technicians gain a good understanding of the architecture and functionality of both Microsoft Office Communications Server Release 2 (OCS R2) and IBM Lotus Sametime. Attendees will gain key insights into the significant differences in how IBM and Microsoft approach the UC market, where their solutions are similar and where they diverge. The tutorial covers telephony call-control capabilities within Sametime Unified Telephony and Office Communications Server R2, describing the unique mechanisms each uses for integrating with telephony systems from multiple vendors. You will leave this tutorial with a thorough overview of Microsoft Office Communications Server, IBM Lotus Sametime 8.5 and Sametime Unified Telephony, and the foundation necessary for pursuing either or both of these products as part of your enterprise unified communications solution. Brent Kelly has written numerous articles and reports on Unified Communications, focusing on Microsoft, IBM, and telephony vendors layering UC solutions on top of their PBXs. He has spoken and taught seminars on Unified Communications and on implementing IP Rich Media Communications in North America, Europe, Australia, and South America. He leads the Unified Communications practice group at Wainhouse Research.
Instructor - Brent Kelly, Senior Analyst & Partner, Wainhouse Research
Brent Kelly has written numerous articles and reports on Unified Communications, focusing on Microsoft, IBM, and telephony vendors layering UC solutions on top of their PBXs. He has spoken and taught seminars on Unified Communications and on implementing IP Rich Media Communications in North America, Europe, Australia, and South America. He leads the Unified Communications practice group at Wainhouse Research.
An RFP process to purchase a new enterprise communications system can be an exhaustive and time consuming experience. The objective of this tutorial 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. Traditional systems suppliers participating in the tutorial include: Aastra, Avaya, Cisco, Mitel. NEC Unified, ShoreTel and Siemens. IBM will also discuss the evolving capabilities for its Unified Telephony solution. 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. Allan Sulkin, President TEQConsult Group, is recognized as a leading enterprise communications consultant and industry analyst. Sulkin, a prominent fixture at VoiceCon since its inception, has 30 years of telecommunications market experience, was a long time contributing editor to Business Communications Review, is a current contributing editor to No Jitter, and author of PBX Systems for IP Telephony (McGraw-Hill).
Instructor - Allan Sulkin, President, TEQConsult Group
Allan Sulkin is an independent management consultant with a practice focused on enterprise communications systems and applications. He is recognized within the industry sector as its premier market/product analyst. TEQConsult Group (www.teqconsult.com) offers a variety of management consulting services to manufacturers and distributors of enterprise communications solutions and end user organizations requiring expert advice and support. Sulkin has been active in the telecommunications industry since the late 1970s. Sulkin was a Contributing Editor to Business Communications Review (BCR) for more than 20 years with more than published 100 feature articles; he is currently a Contributing Editor and blogger at No Jitter. He also authored PBX Systems for IP Telephony (McGraw-Hill), a widely used textbook. Sulkin has served as a VoiceCon program director and featured presenter since its inception in 1991, and has presented at numerous other industry gatherings throughout the years.
Panelist - Mark Pendleton, Director, Product Marketing, NEC Unified Solutions
Mark Pendleton is director of product marketing for NEC Unified Solutions, Inc. In this role, he is responsible for leading product marketing activities including NEC's go to market strategies for new and existing products and services, as well as competitive product positioning and market segmentation. Mr. Pendleton, a veteran of NEC, brings more than 10 years of technology industry experience with expertise in product management, competitive intelligence, channel and business development. Prior to joining NEC, he held various product management and marketing positions for international companies including Samsung and Compaq as well as technology start-ups. Mr. Pendleton holds a bachelor's degree in business economics from the University of Texas and an MBA from Southern Methodist University.
Panelist - Ralph Riley, Strategic Marketing, Siemens Enterprise Communications, Inc.
Ralph Riley, Competitive Analysis Lead, Strategic Marketing, Siemens Enterprise Communications, Inc. Presently working in the Siemens Enterprise Communications, Inc. headquarters organization Ralph is responsible for competitive analysis and for sales and executive management on competitive vendor solutions, globally. Since joining Siemens (then ROLM) Riley has held various sales and marketing positions, including sales representative and major business sales manager were he attained consistent President's Club performance and as regional manager responsible for sales and the pre-sales technical consulting for Siemens internal professional services organization. In marketing, his roles have included National Manager of the Siemens Executive Briefing Centers as well as managing US Product Marketing for the Enterprise Division, where he was responsible for product-based sales content, executive briefing support as well as the development and delivery of tradeshow demonstration and presentation content. In this role, Ralph draws upon his extensive solution and consulting sales experience in communications and business application development and sales for several software development and sales organizations. Riley holds a BA in economics and MBA from the University of Michigan.
Bill King is a Senior Technical Marketing Manager in the Voice Technology Group (VTG) Unified Communications Systems Team. Bill joined Cisco in 1999 and is responsible for managing the worldwide VTG Alpha and Early Field Trial programs to support the rollout of new products. He also works closely with industry consultants and analysts, and provides strategic account support for the Cisco Unified Communications solutions. Prior to joining Cisco, Bill spent 15 years at ROLM, IBM and Siemens where he held a variety of management positions, including field sales engineering, product marketing for CTI and call center products, and consultant relations. He initiated and ran a highly successful RFP Response Center that doubled the company's win rate on large proposals. He also directed the field sales input to a key initiative to redesign and streamline the software applications used for pricing, configuring and ordering products.
Panelist - Gary Mading, Senior Product Manager, Aastra
Gary Mading is Senior Product Manager at Aastra USA, a leading provider of open-standards voice communications solutions for enterprises of all sizes. Gary manages the product strategy for Clearspan, Aastra's all-SIP IP-PBX for large enterprise customers. Gary has over 20 years of experience developing and marketing communication products, including carrier systems, transmission equipment, broadband access products and enterprise communication systems. He has held senior positions for large communication companies such as Alcatel and Motorola. Gary holds a B.S. Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Texas and an M.S. in Business Management from the University of Texas at Dallas.
Bob has been with Avaya since 2003, but he's been with the company in spirit his whole career. After more than 19 years in the industry, he's experienced communications technology from the ground up, starting as a Telecom Engineer at a Fortune 500 company and moving up the IT management food chain. As an enterprise customer for over ten years, he has first hand knowledge of the communication solutions life cycle and the challenges customers face on a daily basis. During his first three years at Avaya he was the primary resource for Technical Marketing and responsible for developing, maintaining, and presenting demonstrations used around the globe for Avaya's communication applications and products. He has also been the interface to key technology analysts and publications like Miercom, Network Computing, and BCR.
Panelist - David Marshak, Senior Product Manager, IBM Lotus Software
David Marshak leads Real-time Collaboration and Unified Communications product strategy and planning for IBM Lotus Software, including Instant Messaging, Web Conferencing, VoIP, telephony, and video. He is the product manager of Sametime Unified Telephony. Prior to joining IBM in January 2005, Marshak was an internationally known industry analyst and consultant with Patricia Seybold Group for 18 years. Marshak has spoken worldwide to audiences, large and small, on emerging technologies and future trends. He is often called upon to be a featured speaker and panel moderator at numerous industry conferences such as VoiceCon, Collaboration Technologies Conference, Burton Group Catalyst Conference, COMDEX, InternetWorld, Groupware, VON, NetWorld, and Lotusphere, among others. He has appeared as an expert commentator on PBS, CNBC, and on National Public Radio and has lectured on collaboration at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Babson College. Marshak has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, New York Times, Business Week, and Investor's Business Daily as well as the technical press. Marshak is the author of Understanding and Leveraging Lotus Notes, the Notes Strategist Series, as well as Mission Critical Lotus Notes (Prentice Hall, 1996).
Panelist - Stephen Brown, VP, US Systems Engineering, Mitel
Stephen Brown is Vice President of U.S Systems Engineering at Mitel. His team of more than 60 professional men and women provide consultative design and engineering support for Mitel's product and applications portfolio to their extensive network of business partners and U.S. based sales force. Stephen joined Mitel in 1996. Since joining Mitel, Stephen has served in many roles ranging from Technical Support, Systems/Sales Engineering, Business Development, and Strategic Alliance management. He has consistently contributed to optimizing performance levels, driving business growth, facilitating key alliances, and defining and implementing strategic technology-driven solutions. From 1990 to 1996 Stephen worked in the integrator space designing and installing many comprehensive voice and data networks. Stephen began his career in communications in 1990 after a three year commitment to the U.S. Army. He served with the 37th Engineer Battalion (Combat) (Airborne); achieving the rank of (E-5, Sergeant, Non-Commissioned Officer).
Panelist - Jeff Ridley, Director - Product Management, ShoreTel
Jeff Ridley, ShoreTel's Director of Product Management ShoreTel, leads the company's IP Telephony, Unified Communications and Contact Center product and market strategies. Jeff has more than 16 years of experience in the communications and mobile computing marketplaces and has been with Shoretel for 9 years. Prior to joining ShoreTel, Jeff was an associate with ViaSphere Ventures where he helped identify new technologies and worked with early-stage hand-held computing companies on defining and developing their products and services. Before that, Jeff spent 10 years providing strategic and technical leadership for enterprise and wireless communications initiatives at NorTel Networks and Intel. Jeff attended Vanderbilt University where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering.
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, UC, are complex and involve numerous technologies, decision-makers and equipment, software and service providers. This tutorial will be divided into two segments: The first is devoted to IP Telephony businesses cases, the second will cover the UC 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 UC products and technologies. This tutorial will cover the following 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 UC business case? * What resources (internal and external) companies must devote to their VOIP and UC 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 UC? Robin Gareiss is Executive Vice President and Senior Founding Partner for Nemertes Research, where she oversees research projects and direction, conducts strategic seminars, develops cost models and advises leading enterprises, vendors, and carriers. Ms. Gareiss is a widely recognized expert in voice over IP, convergence, collaboration, carrier services, IP networking, and branch-office technologies. Before joining Nemertes, Ms. Gareiss served as Senior News Editor of Information Week, and prior to that, she worked at Data Communications Magazine. Ms. Gareiss has a BS in journalism and a minor in education, with honors, from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Irwin Lazar is the Principal Analyst and Program Director for Unified Communications and Collaboration at Nemertes Research, where he develops and manages research projects, develops cost models, conducts strategic seminars and advises clients. His background is in network operations, network engineering, voice-data convergence and IP telephony. Mr. Lazar is responsible for benchmarking the adoption and use of emerging enterprise technologies including VoIP, Unified Communications, Web 2.0 initiatives, social networking and collaboration. A Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP), Mr. Lazar is a columnist for No Jitter and Collaboration Loop. He is regular speaker at events Interop, VoiceCon, and Enterprise 2.0. Mr. Lazar serves as the conference director for FutureNet (formerly MPLScon), the chair for Network World IT Roadmap Web 2.0 track, and is on the advisory board for the Enterprise 2.0 conference.
Instructor - Robin Gareiss, Executive Vice President & Sr. Founding Partner, Nemertes Research
Robin Gareiss is executive vice president and senior founding partner for Nemertes Research, where she oversees research analysts and direction, conducts strategic seminars, develops cost models, and advises leading enterprises, vendors and carriers. She currently serves as chief financial officer, as well. For the past 17 years, Robin Gareiss has worked closely with hundreds of senior IT executives, analyzing their use of technology and capturing best practices. Ms. Gareiss is a widely recognized expert in voice over IP, convergence, collaboration, carrier services, IP networking and branch-office technologies. She is a sought-after speaker at conferences and trade shows, including Interop, VoiceCon and Mobile Business Expo, and she is frequently quoted in publications, including Business Week, Entrepreneur magazine, ComputerWorld, and CIO magazine. She also writes the Branch Offices Best Practices column for Network World.
Instructor - Irwin Lazar, Principal Research Analyst and Program Director, Unified Communications and Collaboration, Nemertes Research
Irwin Lazar is the Vice President for Communications Research at Nemertes Research, where he develops and manages research projects, develops cost models, conducts strategic seminars and advises clients. His background is in network operations, network engineering, voice-data convergence, and IP telephony. Mr. Lazar is responsible for benchmarking the adoption and use of emerging technologies in the enterprise in areas including VOIP, unified communications, Web 2.0 initiatives, social networking, and collaboration. A Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and sought-after speaker and author, Mr. Lazar is a columnist for No Jitter and Enterprise2Blog. He is a frequent resource for the business and trade press. and is regular speaker at events such as Interop, VoiceCon, and Enterprise 2.0. Mr. Lazar serves as the conference director for FutureNet (formerly MPLScon), and is on the advisory board for the Enterprise 2.0 conference.
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 (UC) 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 tough 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 tutorial analyzes these issues with recommended actions and best practices that will lead to successful VoIP/IPT/UC deployments. It cuts through the hype to the real advantages and presents how VoIP/IPT and UC 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. Gary Audin has more than 40 years of computer, communications and security experience. He has planned, designed, specified, implemented and operated data, LAN and telephone networks, and VoIP and IP converged networks all around the world, and he advises venture capital and investment bankers in communications technologies.
Gary Audin has more than 40 years of computer, communications and security experience. He has planned, designed, specified, implemented and operated data, LAN and telephone networks, and VoIP and IP converged networks all around the world, and he advises venture capital and investment bankers in communications technologies.
Video is coming into the enterprises in three forms: immersive telepresence; traditional room-based conferencing, perhaps enhanced with high-definition video; and on the user desktop. So one choice that enterprise managers face is, Which of these 3 types of video is right for which applications, users and situations? But enterprises face another set of choices when considering video: Where should video fit in relationship to your broader communications architecture and strategy? Should you implement video as a standalone system; as part of your IP telephony strategy; or as part of your Unified Communications strategy? In this session, a leading industry analyst will present a taxonomy of the product configurations and approaches to integration for video in the enterprise. You will come away understanding the pros and cons of telepresence vs. room-based vs. desktop, as well as the different challenges presented by deploying video in a standalone fashion vs. integrating it with your other communications systems. KEY QUESTIONS: * How do I choose a videoconferencing technology? * What are the issues around desktop-based videoconferencing? How do these differ from group-oriented videoconferencing (i.e., room and telepresence)? * Does this stuff really work? * What is the ROI for videoconferencing and how do I calculate it? How does the ROI vary depending on the type of system (telepresence/room/desktop) and architecture (standalone/integrated)? * Does video really replace travel? How "realistic" does a video system have to be to replace travel?
Speaker - Andrew Davis, Managing Partner, Wainhouse Research
Andrew W. Davis is a researcher, analyst, and opinion leader in the field of collaboration and conferencing. He is a co-founder of Wainhouse Research, a boutique analyst firm that concentrates on collaboration products and services, including audio, video, and web conferencing and unified communications. Prior to Wainhouse Research, he held senior marketing positions with several large and small high-technology companies. Andrew has published over 250 trade journal articles and opinion columns on multimedia communications, videoconferencing, and corporate strategies as well as numerous market research reports and is the principal editor of the conferencing industry's leading newsletter, The Wainhouse Research Bulletin. Andrew specializes in strategy consulting and new business development for Wainhouse Research. A well-known industry guest speaker, Mr. Davis holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in engineering from Cornell University and a Masters of Business Administration from Harvard University.
Panelist - Charles Stucki, Vice-President-General Manager, Cisco
Charles Stucki is the General Manager for Cisco's TelePresence Systems business unit. In this specific role, he is responsible for the TelePresence product development and engineering roadmap as well as the creation of the integrated go-to-market strategies that include the development of the services, channels, and deployment of Cisco TelePresence into the Enterprise, Commercial and Consumer markets. Previously, he led business development for Cisco's Emerging Technologies Group, an engineering organization focused on incubating internal ventures. Prior to working in Emerging Technologies at Cisco, Mr. Stucki led a cross-Cisco program to upgrade process and systems infrastructure to better support Cisco's growing Software businesses. In his first four years at Cisco, he was the VP of Internet Business Solutions Group's Manufacturing Practice, and worked with senior business executives at leading High Tech, Automotive, Aerospace, and Industrial companies. He draws on years of experience as a partner with McKinsey and Company and as President of an Enterprise Software development company, to guide top executives through business transformation opportunities and the development of E-business strategies that enable competitive advantage and drive high-impact financial results. Before joining Cisco, Mr. Stucki led the design, development and deployment of large-scale, applications across multiple industries in the US and abroad. Prior to that, he co- founded McKinsey's Internet practice and was a leader in McKinsey's Electronics practice. His strategy consulting engagements centered on helping leading high tech companies capture the upside from technology-driven market transitions. Mr. Stucki holds a B.S., summa cum laude, from Brigham Young University, a CPA, and an MBA, with high distinction, from the Harvard Business School.
Panelist - Peter Nutley, Director Product Marketing, TANDBERG
Peter Nutley has more than 20 years of experience in videoconferencing, data communications and telecommunications. At TANDBERG Peter serves as Director of Product Marketing, where he is responsible for working closely with TANDBERG R&D and product management to deliver products to market worldwide, identify market opportunities and provide input for product roadmaps. In addition, Peter and his team develop and deliver sales tools, collateral, and product promotions and training. Prior to joining TANDBERG Peter held key marketing and technical positions at SeaChange International, IBM, and PictureTel Corporation. At both PictureTel and SeaChange Peter served as Vice President for Product Management, where he was responsible for product strategy, new product development, partner and business development and international market cultivation. During his tenure at PictureTel, Peter also held positions including senior product manager and senior sales engineer.
Panelist - Lisa Farley, Director Channel Sales, Avistar
Avistar has successfully deployed desktop video to more than 100,000 users throughout enterprises globally. Farley has in-depth experience in working with clients to maximize the benefits of their information technology projects. Farley has served as Global Relationship Manager at Thomson Reuters. A major provider of information, analytical tools, and consulting services, the firm is the world's leading source of intelligent information for businesses and professionals. Farley served as District Manager at Siebel Systems and has also held customer relationship consulting roles at Accenture. Throughout her career, Farley has worked to roll out successful software deployments to new and existing customers in enterprises.
Panelist - Robert Romano, VP Enterprise Marketing, Radvision
Bob Romano, VP Enterprise Marketing of Radvision, is an industry veteran in the online conferencing industry. He is a daily user of online conferencing technologies and an expert in how to effectively meet over distance. Prior to assuming his current role, Mr. Romano has held positions as President of VCON, Inc. a market leader in video over IP solutions and VP of Sales and Marketing at First Virtual Communications, an enterprise software conferencing company. In addition he has consulted in the conferencing industry to many of the market leading companies and was President and COO of an early stage web conferencing startup. Prior to his involvement in the conferencing industry Bob spent eleven years with IBM in a variety of sales and finance positions both nationally and internationally. He holds a B.A. in Business Administration/Account from the University of Washington in Seattle.
Panelist - Joan Vandermate, Vice President of Marketing, Video Solutions, Polycom, Inc.
Joan Vandermate is Vice President of Marketing of Video Solutions at Polycom, responsible for positioning and marketing the company's visual communication and collaboration platforms, management applications, recording and streaming solutions, and security products. Prior to joining Polycom, Vandermate was Vice President of Product Management at Siemens Communications, where she held management positions in product marketing and product line management, including rollout responsibilities for Siemens HiPath IP softswitches and telephones. Before joining Siemens, Vandermate worked for more than a decade in the personal computing and internetworking industries. Vandermate has presented and moderated at various technology forums including VoiceCon, VON, Internet Telephony, Frost & Sullivan Executive summits, and Stanford University technology seminars.
SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) has become the dominant protocol for IP communications. This tutorial explains what SIP is, how it works, what the major issues for SIP deployments are, 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 tutorial 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 - David Bryan, Internet Communications Strategist
David Bryan works as an Internet Communications Strategist for Cogent Force, LLC, assisting companies with their technical and business strategies for communications products or deployments. David is a recognized thought leader in the SIP and VoIP communities and is co-chair of the IETF P2PSIP Working Group. He has published numerous IETF drafts, industry trade articles, and academic papers. Before working as a strategist, David served as Founder and CEO of SIPeerior Technologies, the first company to develop and deliver a commercial product based on the emerging P2PSIP standard. Prior to founding SIPeerior, David was co-founder and CTO of Jasomi Networks, a pioneer in the SIP Session Border Controller (SBC) market, which was sold to Ditech Communications in 2005. David previously worked for Cisco Systems via its acquisition of Vovida Networks, where he led a team of developers creating the first open-source softswitch. David holds bachelor's degrees in Computer Science and Physics from The Richard Stockton College of NJ, as well as a master's degree in Computer Science from The College of William and Mary.
This tutorial 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 UC -- either via a new system or by adding UC 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, with reference to use cases and the vertical industries in which each UC option is most commonly deployed. Savings and ROI elements of each option will be highlighted. The five are: 1. IP-PBX augmented with supplier's UC modules -- Integrate to e-mail, office, and business software packages. 2. UC software system as the primary communication platform for all or selected users -- Integrate to PBX(s), e-mail, office, and business software packages. 3. UC software product(s) as overlay with integration to existing communication tools - PBX(s), e-mail, office & business software packages. Use Internet-based/hosted consumer UC packages (non-integrated). 4. Mobility UC package as an overlay to existing PBX(s), e-mail, office, and business software packages. 5. Add UC functions to your business software packages for specific jobs and roles. The top-ranking vendors for each of the options will be compared and evaluated, with reference to the specific products and designs that each vendor offers and implements. 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 UC options best suited to their enterprise. * A framework for decision-making about investment choices for UC, along with ROI information. * Descriptions and diagrams of solutions applicable for each UC deployment option. Marty Parker is principal of UniComm Consulting, offering Unified Communications (UC) consulting services to enterprises. Marty is an active leader in the Unified Communications community. He contributes to the VoiceCon Unified Communications eWeekly and blogs on No Jitter, in addition to delivering UC sessions at VoiceCon. Marty is a co-founder of UCStrategies.com, a UC industry resource site, and is the author and instructor of the Telecom+UC Training course, "Planning and Implementing Unified Communications."
Marty Parker is a Principal of UniComm Consulting, LLC, specializing in Unified Communications consulting support for enterprises. UniComm Consulting provides informed and efficient support for the strategy, planning, procurement and implementation steps needed for successful, high return UC projects and investments. Marty is also a co-founder of UCStrategies.com, a forum for UC information and dialog for enterprises, suppliers and VARs. Other industry activities include VoiceCon and InterOp tutorials and sessions, and UC Training courses offered through Telecom+UC Training. Marty has extensive background in both IT and Telecom, and in both entrepreneurial and large corporation leadership roles. mparker@unicommconsulting.com.
Panelist - Stephen Brown, VP, US Systems Engineering, Mitel
Stephen Brown is Vice President of U.S Systems Engineering at Mitel. His team of more than 60 professional men and women provide consultative design and engineering support for Mitel's product and applications portfolio to their extensive network of business partners and U.S. based sales force. Stephen joined Mitel in 1996. Since joining Mitel, Stephen has served in many roles ranging from Technical Support, Systems/Sales Engineering, Business Development, and Strategic Alliance management. He has consistently contributed to optimizing performance levels, driving business growth, facilitating key alliances, and defining and implementing strategic technology-driven solutions. From 1990 to 1996 Stephen worked in the integrator space designing and installing many comprehensive voice and data networks. Stephen began his career in communications in 1990 after a three year commitment to the U.S. Army. He served with the 37th Engineer Battalion (Combat) (Airborne); achieving the rank of (E-5, Sergeant, Non-Commissioned Officer).
Panelist - B.J. Haberkorn, Sr. Product Manager, Microsoft
BJ Haberkorn is a Sr. Product Manager for Microsoft's Office Communications Server product. BJ joined Microsoft in July 2008 from Intel, where he led product management for a carrier wireless and wireline product line. Prior to Intel, BJ worked in various sales and marketing roles at Dialogic, and as a hardware engineer at IBM. BJ holds BSEE and MSEE degrees from the University of Virginia.
Panelist - Tony Rybczynski, Director Strategic Enterprise Technologies, Nortel
Tony is Director of Strategic Enterprise Technologies reporting to the Enterprise CTO, and has 37 years experience in convergence technologies. He now works with large enterprises to understand their business drivers and the value proposition of new networking technologies. He has presented at numerous conferences including a keynote at the Wharton Technology Conference. He has written over 150 articles (including a monthly column in Internet Telephony magazine). In addition, he has written articles that have been published in the Financial Executive, in the European CEO and for the Wall Street Technology Association. He has contributed to two books, is a graduate of McGill and University of Alberta, and Senior Member of IEEE.
Panelist - Gary Mading, Senior Product Manager, Aastra
Gary Mading is Senior Product Manager at Aastra USA, a leading provider of open-standards voice communications solutions for enterprises of all sizes. Gary manages the product strategy for Clearspan, Aastra's all-SIP IP-PBX for large enterprise customers. Gary has over 20 years of experience developing and marketing communication products, including carrier systems, transmission equipment, broadband access products and enterprise communication systems. He has held senior positions for large communication companies such as Alcatel and Motorola. Gary holds a B.S. Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Texas and an M.S. in Business Management from the University of Texas at Dallas.
Allan is the Senior Marketing Manager for Unified Communications at Avaya. While he resides in Canada, his effectiveness in his global role is a testament to the application of Unified Communications solutions. His marketing, product management, and business development career has spanned 20+ years dealing with the planning and application of voice, data, and information systems to support the needs of business with particular focus on employee productivity and customer service. His applications focus has included: unified communications, messaging, IVR, contact center, CTI, voice over IP, and remote data access. Prior to joining Avaya (via Octel and Lucent) in 1998, Allan led marketing and business development teams at two mid sized organizations entering new stages of growth, which followed his applications marketing tenure at Nortel. Allan holds an MBA in Information Systems (McMaster University) and an Honors BA in Economics and Psychology (York University).
Panelist - Jeff Ridley, Director - Product Management, ShoreTel
Jeff Ridley, ShoreTel's Director of Product Management ShoreTel, leads the company's IP Telephony, Unified Communications and Contact Center product and market strategies. Jeff has more than 16 years of experience in the communications and mobile computing marketplaces and has been with Shoretel for 9 years. Prior to joining ShoreTel, Jeff was an associate with ViaSphere Ventures where he helped identify new technologies and worked with early-stage hand-held computing companies on defining and developing their products and services. Before that, Jeff spent 10 years providing strategic and technical leadership for enterprise and wireless communications initiatives at NorTel Networks and Intel. Jeff attended Vanderbilt University where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering.
Panelist - Ross Daniels, Director, UC Marketing, Cisco
Ross Daniels is a Director of Solutions Marketing for Unified Communications. In this capacity, Mr. Daniels is responsible for product positioning, solution messaging, and go-to-market activities for various aspects of Cisco's Unified Communications portfolio, with primary emphasis on Cisco Unified Contact Center, Messaging, Web and Audio Conferencing, Mobile Unified Communications, and Presence solutions. Mr. Daniels joined Cisco as part of its November 1999 acquisition of WebLine Communications. While at WebLine, he held a variety of technical sales and marketing roles. Previous positions at Cisco include CTI Product Manager, Product Marketing Manager, and Manager of Product Management for Cisco's enterprise and hosted contact center solutions. Prior to joining Cisco, Mr. Daniels spent several years in the business-to-business advertising industry. A regular speaker at industry events, Cisco events, and customer briefings, Mr. Daniels has a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Harvard University and a Masters in Business Administration from Babson College.
Panelist - Gary Gordon, Product Manager, NEC Unified Solutions
Gary Gordon is Product Line Manager for NEC's Unified Communications. He started with NEC in September of 2004. Gary attended the University of Central Oklahoma where he majored in Business Administration with a minor in Computer Science. Gary previously managed communication and e-commerce business process integration for Fleming Co., a $20 billion wholesale/retail distribution company. He has over 17 years experience working with emerging technologies, including unified communications, SOA, and presence enabled applications. He has 7 years experience in managing PC's and web based applications on a large IP network. Gary brings strong knowledge and management skills in real-time-communication based applications, communication enabled business process (CEBP), and has additional expertise in sales and marketing.
Panelist - David Marshak, Senior Product Manager, IBM Lotus Software
David Marshak leads Real-time Collaboration and Unified Communications product strategy and planning for IBM Lotus Software, including Instant Messaging, Web Conferencing, VoIP, telephony, and video. He is the product manager of Sametime Unified Telephony. Prior to joining IBM in January 2005, Marshak was an internationally known industry analyst and consultant with Patricia Seybold Group for 18 years. Marshak has spoken worldwide to audiences, large and small, on emerging technologies and future trends. He is often called upon to be a featured speaker and panel moderator at numerous industry conferences such as VoiceCon, Collaboration Technologies Conference, Burton Group Catalyst Conference, COMDEX, InternetWorld, Groupware, VON, NetWorld, and Lotusphere, among others. He has appeared as an expert commentator on PBS, CNBC, and on National Public Radio and has lectured on collaboration at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Babson College. Marshak has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, New York Times, Business Week, and Investor's Business Daily as well as the technical press. Marshak is the author of Understanding and Leveraging Lotus Notes, the Notes Strategist Series, as well as Mission Critical Lotus Notes (Prentice Hall, 1996).
Panelist - Frank Fender, Consultant, Siemens Enterprise Communications
Once an enterprise decides to move to IPT and UC, the RFP and procurement processes begin. The procurement of IPT and UC increasingly involves more software than hardware, with ever-expanding software and product mixes. Determining what to include in the RFP and how that will benefit the enterprise is paramount. Should there be one RFP each for IPT, Voicemail, UM, video conferencing and UC, or multiple RFPs. Should you look for single- or multi-vendor solutions? Learn the process for developing the best RFP for your environment. The tutorial will help you select not just the right vendor, but also the right value-added reseller (VAR)). It will provide guidance to ensure that your enterprise receives comparable proposals, and help you assemble the best evaluation matrix. You'll learn how to specify professional services, which can impact the cost of implementation (as much as 50% of the bill). The tutorial also will cover procurement requirements like reliability, disaster/recovery, security and compliance. This tutorial will show you how to structure and carry out the proposal evaluation and selection processes. It will do more than help write the RFP; it will cover all the important aspects through final vendor selection. Gary Audin has more than 40 years of computer, communications and security experience. He has planned, designed, specified, implemented and operated data, LAN and telephone networks, and VoIP and IP converged networks all around the world, and he advises venture capital and investment bankers in communications technologies.
Gary Audin has more than 40 years of computer, communications and security experience. He has planned, designed, specified, implemented and operated data, LAN and telephone networks, and VoIP and IP converged networks all around the world, and he advises venture capital and investment bankers in communications technologies.
You've decided to make the transition from your PBX to a VoIP system and have navigated the procurement and initial installation process. Now the real world of operating a production network comes into focus: When problems arise, what causes them? How do you troubleshoot them? You need to know the typical problems, their causes and how to go about correcting them. Even more important, you need to know how to monitor the system so that potential problems can be identified before they become a significant problem for your customers. In this half-day tutorial you will: * Learn how to identify and troubleshoot VoIP problems. * Understand how to configure your network management system to monitor key network factors that impact VoIP. * Learn the metrics that indicate an adverse impact on VoIP operation. The Troubleshooting section will cover failed calls, one-way audio, poor audio quality, excessive echo, and other common VoIP problems. Each problem and its symptoms will be described as well as how to address the problem. The Monitoring and Metrics section will describe how to watch your VoIP system and the network on which it operates, as well as key metrics like call failures, call performance characteristics, network congestion, and QoS that can be used to proactively identify potential problems. This half-day tutorial will enable you to measurably improve your VoIP implementation. Terry Slattery is a Principal Consultant at Chesapeake Netcraftsmen, an advanced network consulting firm that specializes in high-profile and challenging network consulting jobs. Terry is consulting in network core switching, routing, QoS, and network management in support of a large VoIP implementation. Terry is the founder of Netcordia, inventor of NetMRI and has been a successful technology innovator in networking during the past 20 years. He has a long history of network consulting and design work, including leading the development of the current Cisco IOS command line interface. Prior to Netcordia, Terry founded Chesapeake Computer Consultants, which became a Cisco premier training and consulting partner. At Chesapeake, he co-invented and patented the v-LAB system to provide hands-on access to real hardware for the hands-on component of internetwork training classes. Terry co-authored the McGraw-Hill text Advanced IP Routing in Cisco Networks, holds the second CCIE (1026) awarded, and is a sought after industry speaker and advisor.
Instructor - Terry Slattery, Principal Consultant, Chesapeake Netcraftsmen
Terry Slattery is a Principal Consultant at Chesapeake Netcraftsmen, an advanced network consulting firm that specializes in high-profile and challenging network consulting jobs. Terry is consulting in network core switching, routing, QoS, and network management in support of a large VoIP implementation. Terry is the founder of Netcordia, inventor of NetMRI and has been a successful technology innovator in networking during the past 20 years. He has a long history of network consulting and design work, including leading the development of the current Cisco IOS command line interface. Prior to Netcordia, Terry founded Chesapeake Computer Consultants, which became a Cisco premier training and consulting partner. At Chesapeake, he co-invented and patented the v-LAB system to provide hands-on access to real hardware for the hands-on component of internetwork training classes. Terry co-authored the McGraw-Hill text Advanced IP Routing in Cisco Networks, holds the second CCIE (1026) awarded, and is a sought after industry speaker and advisor.
Like voice, video is a real-time communications medium with stringent performance requirements. Unlike voice, however, video can also consume large amounts of bandwidth, and video networks may also be architected differently from voice networks. As a result enterprise managers face many new concerns when configuring a network infrastructure to support video, from quality of service to overlay networks and from global connectivity to inter-company connections. This session will help you understand why video needs a different network, and give you concrete information on how to structure the right network for your video deployment. KEY QUESTIONS: * Should you run video traffic on an overlay network, or integrate it onto the WAN that serves the rest of the enterprise IP traffic? What are the pros and cons of each choice? * How do you ensure that increased use of desktop video doesn't swamp the network bandwidth? * What special networking/infrastructure challenges does videoconferencing pose when deployed on a global basis? * What are the Quality of Service (QOS) metrics that my enterprise must adhere to? * What are the most common network problems that result in poor video quality, and how do I prevent or troubleshoot these?
John Bartlett John Bartlett is a leading authority on real-time traffic, application performance and Quality of Service (QoS) techniques. He specializes in helping enterprises manage voice, video and data application performance. Recent work has focused on designing global networks to best support video conferencing and telepresence systems. John has engaged with over 50 enterprises and over 20 network vendors to analyze network performance problems, design network solutions, and support network deployments. John has 30 years of experience in the semiconductor, computer and communications fields in marketing, sales, engineering, manufacturing and consulting roles. He has contributed to microprocessor, computer and network equipment design for over 40 products. He has been consulting since 1996. Prior to working as a consultant, John was a founder and VP of Engineering and Manufacturing at Agile Networks, now part of Lucent Technologies. Under his leadership, the company designed and built a high performance Ethernet switch implementing VLANs, and one of the first commercial ATM switches. Both products were successfully introduced to the market and the firm became profitable before it was acquired. Mr. Bartlett also served on the IEEE 802.1 committee during this period, and contributed to the development of the IEEE 802.1P and IEEE 802.1Q standards (priority and VLANs.) He previously worked for 9 years at Encore Computer, Corp. in engineering and engineering management positions designing networking equipment and large scale multiprocessor systems. At the end of this time Mr. Bartlett was managing 70 engineers across 2 geographic sites. John is a graduate of Dartmouth College, and Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering, where he received the Dartmouth Society of Engineers Annual Prize for the quality of his thesis presentation. John is co-owner of a patent in shared memory multiprocessor design.
Panelist - Manfred Arndt, HP Distinguished Technologist - Convergence, HP ProCurve
Manfred Arndt is a Distinguished Technologist and the Convergence Solutions Architect for HP ProCurve Networking. He is responsible for architecting IP telephony and multimedia capabilities in HP ProCurve's networking products. 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.
Lou Chiorazzi is a seasoned business executive with more than 17 years of experience in Engineering, Operations, Sales, and Consulting services. In 2001, Lou joined Glowpoint, a leading provider of advanced video communications managed services, during its initial founding and was instrumental in building the world's first video-centric IP network. Lou currently serves as Glowpoint's VP of Engineering focused on Research & Development, Software Development, Pre-Sales Solutions, Post-Sale Complex Engineering, Sustaining Engineering and Corporate IT efforts. Lou leads a team of more than 20 technology professionals, who have played key roles in achieving strategic high profile sales, significant cost reductions, and build and maintaining an award winning, scalable technology platforms and solutions in the video communications marketplace. Prior to his term with Glowpoint, Lou developed a strong reputation in the IT industry of bringing forth a broad perspective of IT solutions for financial market data operations, IT consulting, pre-sales engineering and engineering management. Prior to joining Glowpoint, Lou was most recently with Cisco, proving expertise for Content Delivery Network Solutions. Before Cisco, Lou provided consulting services for high level clients for Lucent/INS and the Johns Brook Company. Mr. Chiorazzi began his career with Knight Ridder Financial/Bridge as a Senior Engineer in their core NOC in New York City. Lou completed his undergraduate studies in Electronics Engineering from DeVry University and currently lives in Manhattan with his wife and two children.
Panelist - Michael Burrell, Solutions Marketing, Orange Business Services
Mr. Burrell brings 24 years of expertise in voice, data networking, IP, and managed services. His current responsibilities at Orange Business Services include leading consulting and solution integration marketing for MNCs. The portfolio includes unified communications and collaboration solutions. In 2005, Burrell led a team to launch an Avaya-based IP telephony solution and become the 1st global Avaya Strategic Partner. In 2004, he launched Optimize Telephony Solution based on life cycle approach to IP Telephony. In February 2002, Burrell helped develop and launch of the industry's first end-to-end IP Telephony solution with global availability. The service received the Frost and Sullivan 2002 Market Engineering Award for Product Innovation. As a senior manager at BellSouth, Burrell led a team to build a Professional Services practice called Enterprise Network Consulting around network design, performance assessment, and security consulting. In 1998, he helped to plan and launch BellSouth Managed Network Solutions in an alliance with EDS to offer customers managed services for WAN, LAN, and applications. During his ten years at MCI, Mr. Burrell provided decision support, market program management and competitive assessment. In 1995, he helped launch MCI 's entry into the ISP business through internetMCI. In 1994, Burrell supported the launch of Concert, MCI global services' joint venture with British Telecom, contributed to the successful offering of VPN voice and data services to multinational businesses. Mr. Burrell's speaking engagements include: Orange Business Live - Berlin, VoiceCon, VON, Network World Technology Tour - VoIP, Connect - Reality of Convergence, Wall Street Technology Association Hot Technologies, and BellSouth Major Client Association Conference.
Panelist - Paul Liesenberg, Enterprise Architecture Technology Manager, Cisco
Paul Liesenberg is an Enterprise Architecture and Technology Manager for Cisco, where he develops methodologies that optimally align next-generation infrastructures and overarching business processes. Prior to Cisco, Paul was VP of Strategic Marketing for ZettaCom and Bivio Networks. Previously, Paul was with Cisco through the acquisition of StrataCom, and earlier worked in Nortel's Data Networks Division and Siemens' Public Networks' R&D division. He holds two patents in the area of VoIP and holds an M.Sc. from TUM (Technische Universitaet Muenchen).
7:00 pm–9:00 pm
After Hours Party
VoiceCon Attendee Party (Location: Gaylord Palms Atrium)
In this session, a leading analyst will offer her assessment of the current state of the contact center market—how rapidly enterprises are migrating to IP-based systems, and which vendors they're turning to in order to drive this migration. There will then be a roundtable discussion in which executives from the leading vendors in the market space 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: * What percentage of the new contact center systems being deployed are IP-based? How has the economic downturn affected the migration to IP? * Where do the vendors stand in terms of market share and technology leadership? * Can the migration to IP be cost-justified either through network savings or potential increased sales or faster problem resolution? * How are media such as text/instant messaging and video being incorporated into leading-edge contact centers, and what are the challenges and benefits of these new media types?
Panelist - Murali Sitaram, Vice President/General Manager, Customer Contact Business Unit, Cisco
Murali Sitaram is the VP/GM of the Customer Contact Business Unit. For the past year and a half, Murali has been the VP of Engineering for the Customer Contact Business Unit. Prior to Cisco, Murali most recently served as Vice President of Engineering for Narus, Inc. He has nearly twenty years of software product delivery experience and an established track record of leading large teams of software professionals in high-end enterprise software markets. Prior to Narus, Murali was the Vice President of Research and Development for both Aspect Communications and Avaya. At Avaya, he led CRM product development and a team of 500 employees across seven global sites. Earlier in his career, Murali was the Senior Vice President of Product Management and Engineering at Quintus. Murali holds a Masters in Computer Science from Case Western Reserve University in Ohio and two Bachelors degrees from the University of Bombay in Computer Engineering and a double major in Mathematics and Physics.
Brad Herrington is Senior Manager of Solutions Marketing. Mr. Herrington helps drive the global product marketing vision, strategy, and campaigns for the Interactive Intelligence suite of products. Mr. Herrington has over 20 years of experience in the telecommunications industry, and has been with Interactive Intelligence for the past 12 years. He has held roles in Systems Engineering, Product Management and Marketing during that time.
Panelist - Michael Sheridan, Sr. Vice President, Strategy and Marketing, Aspect
Michael Sheridan Senior Vice President, Strategy and Marketing Aspect By keeping his finger continually on the pulse of the contact center marketplace, as senior vice president of strategy and marketing, Mike Sheridan is charged with ensuring that Aspect products and services accurately and distinctively meet market needs, both today and for the future. Mike fuses the disciplines of architecture, product management and marketing to make certain that the company's solutions meet the needs of today's rapidly shifting contact center demands. With more than 20 years of experience in telecommunications and high-tech industries, Mike serves as a key strategist for Aspect, with a critical eye for identifying emerging and evolving markets and a knack for defining solutions to serve them. Mike most recently held the position of vice president of strategy and marketing at Concerto Software. Prior to that he was director of global strategy and marketing at Rockwell FirstPoint Contact. He has also held sales management positions at Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories. He worked at Hewlett-Packard for 13 years in a variety of sales, customer service and information technology roles.
Panelist - Eric Tamblyn, VP Product Marketing, Genesys
As vice president, product and solutions marketing, Eric Tamblyn is responsible for strategic direction of product definition, market segmentation, competitive analysis, and developing solutions designed to meet specific vertical market needs. Mr. Tamblyn brings 20 years of experience in the contact center, speech, voice platform and telecommunications industries to his role as vice president. During his six years' tenure at Genesys, Mr. Tamblyn has also served as Sr. Director in Solutions Engineering, Global Partner programs and Global Voice Platform Sales. Prior to Genesys, Mr. Tamblyn held Sr. management positions in Sales, Marketing and Engineering at Intervoice, Edify Corp., S1 Corp and Syntellect Inc.
Panelist - Chris McGugan, Vice President of Marketing, Contact Center Solutions, Avaya
Chris McGugan is the vice president of marketing for the Contact Center Solutions group at Avaya. His teams are responsible for delivering market-driven solutions for global contact center users. Prior to joining Avaya, Chris led the products and engineering organizations for Belkin, a leader in the consumer products market. He brings nearly 20 years of experience from leadership roles at Cisco Systems, Motorola, Symbol Technologies, and Belkin to the Avaya executive team. Chris is active in many technology standards bodies and industry associations, helping drive the advancement of networking technology.
Moderator - Sheila McGee-Smith, President/Principal Analyst, McGee-Smith Analytics
Sheila McGee-Smith, the founder of McGee-Smith Analytics, is a leading communications industry analyst and strategic consultant focused on the contact center and unified communications markets. She has a proven track record of accomplishment in new product development, competitive assessment, market research, and sales strategies for communications solutions and services. Ms. McGee-Smith works on a daily basis with both solution providers and enterprises. Her insight helps them develop strategies to meet the escalating demands of today's consumer and business customers. Ms. McGee-Smith is a frequent speaker at communications industry conferences, user group and sales meetings as well as a quoted authority on news and trends in the communications market. Sheila has spent over twenty years in the communications industry, including 12 years with The PELORUS Group, most recently as Director, Call Center and Operator Services. Prior to joining The PELORUS Group, Ms. McGee-Smith held sales management, market research and product management positions at AT&T, Timeplex and Dun & Bradstreet. She received a bachelor's degree, cum laude, from Barnard College, Columbia University, majoring in psychology and an MBA, awarded with distinction, majoring in marketing and management information systems from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. Sheila is a regular contributor to VoiceCon's web information portal, www.nojitter.com.
Which wireless devices are best suited for supporting enterprise UC, and—perhaps more importantly—which devices have your users already chosen? How should you respond to this user push? This session will examine the feasibility of standardizing on a single device vendor or platform, at least at the departmental level, and we'll look at the pros and cons of all the major devices and platforms. Issues to be covered include display sizes, input mechanisms, device management and power consumption/battery life. And we'll discuss the different development platforms-- RIM, Symbian, Windows Mobile, LiMO, iPhone, and Google Android—to determine which offers the best prospects for developing enterprise applications. KEY QUESTIONS * Will the economy slow down the device replacement cycle, and if so, what opportunities or challenges will this create for enterprise IT? * Will push email be the only really significant mobile application (besides voice), or will mobile applications finally emerge for the enterprise? Where might such applications be focused? * As RIM joins Apple as a touch-screen vendor, and Nokia is poised to introduce one in 2009, will this become the default interface for mobile devices in the coming years? * Should you be concentrating on dual-mode WiFi cellular devices in anticipation of greater carrier flexibility in this area? * How should you budget for wireless devices in the enterprise?
Imran Akbar is the Vice President and General Manager of Converged Enterprise Communications at Motorola. Currently, he leads Motorola's initiative into converged communications, which includes introducing single (WiFi) and dual (WiFi and Cellular) mode solutions with voice services like Dispatch (PTT) and PBX mobilization. He also played a key role in the acquisition of Symbol Technologies and its integration into Motorola. Akbar has more than 15 years of experience in the Telecom and IT industries. His responsibilities have included operations management, strategy and business development, and corporate finance at Motorola, Unisys and Sprint. Akbar has been with Motorola since 2000.
Panelist - David Heit, Director of Product Management, Research In Motion
Mr. Heit has been with Research in Motion (RIM) since 2000. As a Senior Product Manager and Director David has concentrated on taking RIM's Small to Medium Business and Enterprise solutions to the next level. As part of this activity he has established the BlackBerry extensibility strategy, succeeding in transforming BlackBerry into a premier wireless application platform. He has evangelized and led BlackBerry efforts in new markets including sales force and field service automation. Mr. Heit has also played an integral part in rounding out the product set including the BlackBerry enterprise solution for Novell GroupWise. His current activities include leading a team dedicated to taking BlackBerry deeper in to the Enterprise voice applications with the BlackBerry Mobile Voice System. Prior to his time at RIM, Mr. Heit spent 14 years with NCR Corporation and AT&T Global Information Solutions in Product Management, Sales Management and Consulting roles. He has experience developing solutions in a wide range of areas including document management and workflow, financial transaction processing, automatic handwriting recognition and high volume document image archives. Mr. Heit has worked with many organizations and government institutions assisting them in re-engineering their business processes for greater efficiency and improved services by applying new technology. This has ranged in areas from tax processing to wireless field data collection. David continues to enjoy shaping technology to solve real business problems.
Michael Finneran, Principal of dBrn Associates, Inc. is an independent consultant and industry analyst specializing in wireless technologies, mobile unified communications, and fixed-mobile convergence. With over 30-years in the networking field, his expertise spans the full range of wireless technologies including Wi-Fi, 3G/4G Cellular, WiMAX, and RFID. A lively and informative speaker, Mr. Finneran has appeared at hundreds of trade shows and industry conferences including VoiceCon, InterOp, and the Mobile Business Expo. In the consulting area, he has provided assistance to carriers, equipment vendors, end users, and investment firms in the US and overseas. A long time columnist for Business Communications Review, he now contributes regularly to NoJitter and UC Strategies. Well respected as an educator, Mr. Finneran has conducted over 2000 seminars on networking topics in the US, Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. His programs are offered through Telecom+UC Training. A long-time member of the IEEE and the Society of Telecommunications Consultants, Mr. Finneran holds a Masters Degree from the J. L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.
What's a voice mashup, and why should you care? This session will explain how different application and services elements can be combined in an ad hoc manner by end users drawing upon enterprise resources, to create "mashups." We'll look at the uses for mashups, where the elements of a mashup come from, and how they can benefit your end users. KEY QUESTIONS: * How do you get started with voice mashups? What elements will you need to purchase, and what existing elements in your network can be included? * What do you have to do to make elements available for mashups? * What's the users' interface for a voice mashup, and how do you provide it to them? * Do you need to maintain some control over what users do within a mashup-enabled Web Services environment? * Why should you do this? What can voice mashups do for your end users that can't be done another way?
RJ drives Voxeo's technology leadership in the internet and voice solution industries, and also leads the research, evaluation, and design of Voxeo's carrier class Voice Centers. RJ is Editor and Chair of the W3C Call Control XML (CCXML) standard and working group, and oversees Voxeo's leadership contribution to VoiceXML, ENUM/DNS, and other industry standards. RJ is also an acknowledged expert in the fields of voice recognition, call center integration, and call control and conferencing. Prior to Voxeo, RJ was a Senior Consultant at Quality Call Solutions, a leading supplier of IVR and CTI solutions for the enterprise call center market. RJ frequently speaks at technology conferences throughout the United States.
A programmer by trade and a natural problem solver, Marlon started writing code for a living at the young age of 13. Being the nerd he's always been, he went on to major in Mechanical Engineering because of the robotics thing, and then in Computer Science and Mathematics (how geeky is that?) Then he went back to writing software in whatever language the customer wanted. Marlon joined IBM in 1996 as a programmer for the ISSC organization (now Global Business Services) in Atlanta, Georgia, where he worked on various projects involving distributed architectures. In 1998 Marlon joined the SanFrancisco™ Technology Center in Austin, Texas. He later became a Senior IT Architect for IBM ISV & Developer Relations where he worked very closely with IBM's Business Partners in designing and bringing integrated solutions to market. Marlon joined the Lotus Software team in 2008 as Product Manager, Sametime Platform and Solutions. Marlon's responsibilities include positioning Sametime as a platform to communications-enable industry and horizontal solutions, creating an ecosystem of offerings built in collaboration with customers and IBM Business Partners, and driving product strategy and requirements to extend the Sametime platform to support new business scenarios and utilization paradigms.
Moderator - Irwin Lazar, Principal Research Analyst and Program Director, Unified Communications and Collaboration, Nemertes Research
Irwin Lazar is the Vice President for Communications Research at Nemertes Research, where he develops and manages research projects, develops cost models, conducts strategic seminars and advises clients. His background is in network operations, network engineering, voice-data convergence, and IP telephony. Mr. Lazar is responsible for benchmarking the adoption and use of emerging technologies in the enterprise in areas including VOIP, unified communications, Web 2.0 initiatives, social networking, and collaboration. A Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and sought-after speaker and author, Mr. Lazar is a columnist for No Jitter and Enterprise2Blog. He is a frequent resource for the business and trade press. and is regular speaker at events such as Interop, VoiceCon, and Enterprise 2.0. Mr. Lazar serves as the conference director for FutureNet (formerly MPLScon), and is on the advisory board for the Enterprise 2.0 conference.
What tools do you need to manage voice traffic and make sure it's performing as it should? And can you cost-justify deploying these tools? Can they save you hard dollars on managing your network, or is it all about important but intangible benefits like voice quality and user satisfaction? And what tools perform which tasks? In this session, you'll get a taxonomy of the network management technology marketplace, which will help you understand the metrics and methods that drive successful IP Telephony management. KEY QUESTIONS: * What are the key metrics you must measure and manage? What tools are available to capture these metrics? * How can you get visibility on the level of voice quality actually being delivered? * How does the management of voice systems fit into the overall enterprise IP network management structure? * What will it cost to implement an effective network management system? Where can you garner cost savings?
Speaker - Terry Slattery, Principal Consultant, Chesapeake Netcraftsmen
Terry Slattery is a Principal Consultant at Chesapeake Netcraftsmen, an advanced network consulting firm that specializes in high-profile and challenging network consulting jobs. Terry is consulting in network core switching, routing, QoS, and network management in support of a large VoIP implementation. Terry is the founder of Netcordia, inventor of NetMRI and has been a successful technology innovator in networking during the past 20 years. He has a long history of network consulting and design work, including leading the development of the current Cisco IOS command line interface. Prior to Netcordia, Terry founded Chesapeake Computer Consultants, which became a Cisco premier training and consulting partner. At Chesapeake, he co-invented and patented the v-LAB system to provide hands-on access to real hardware for the hands-on component of internetwork training classes. Terry co-authored the McGraw-Hill text Advanced IP Routing in Cisco Networks, holds the second CCIE (1026) awarded, and is a sought after industry speaker and advisor.
Panelist - Tom Praschak, VP Service Operations, Dimension Data
Tom Praschak is vice president of Services Operations at Dimension Data Americas, a member of Dimension Data Holdings, plc. The $4.5 billion company is a specialist IT services and solution provider that helps clients plan, build, support and manage their IT infrastructures. Dimension Data applies its expertise in network integration, unified communications, security, operating environments, storage and contact center technologies and its unique skills in consulting, integration and managed services to create customized client solutions. In this role, Praschak oversees the Global Support Center, Project Management Office, Staging Operations, Staffing Solutions, and Client Care organizations. He is responsible for the integration and delivery of services across the Lines Of Business (LOBs) and the services continuum, which includes leading the program management, support and management elements of the services continuum. Praschak previously served as the vice president of the Converged Communications and Network Integration businesses in the United States where he was responsible for ensuring the efficient operation of Dimension Data's foundational routing, switching and converged voice solutions, helping clients maximize converged infrastructure investments. Prior to working at Dimension Data, Praschak served as vice president/ general manager of several businesses at DecisionOne, providing large scale deployments and logistics to manufacturers and Fortune 500 enterprises. Earlier in his career, Praschak helped to deploy, manage and maintain converged networks as the vice president/ general manager at Marconi. Praschak also designed data networking products at Bell Laboratories' for AT&T Business Communication Systems, which is now Avaya. Additionally, he helped establish a multi-vendor network service business within Lucent focused on video, data and voice networks - a practice that was at the core of Lucent Worldwide Services.
Steve Guthrie has spent the past decade in the networking and telephony markets as an active participant in the emergence of LANs, WANs and IP technologies and most recently with unified communications such as IP voice, video, presence and messaging. As the director of product marketing for CA's Network and Voice Management Solution, which includes the CA eHealth Network Performance Manager, CA SPECTRUM Network Fault Manager, and CA eHealth for Voice Systems Manager offerings, Guthrie is responsible for understanding how enterprises, public-sector agencies, telcos and managed service providers use network and voice management solutions and for communicating these experiences and industry best practices to help other organizations optimize their converged network investments and achieve high end-user satisfaction. Additionally, he works in conjunction with product management to understand the needs of large enterprises, telcos and MSPs and define solutions that span these customers' existing networks as well as the networks they are building to support the fast-growing demand for IP services for voice, video and data. Prior to joining CA, Inc., Guthrie was director of global product marketing for Integrated Research. of Sydney, Australia, which develops and sells the PROGNOSIS IP telephony management software solution for large enterprises and managed service providers. Prior to this, he was vice president of marketing at Xelor Software, a start-up based in the Boston area that was focused on solving new and complex business problems associated with time-sensitive, real-time IP communications contending for valuable and expensive bandwidth with data-centric applications. Prior to his appointment at Xelor, Guthrie was director of marketing at Pingtel, where he was recognized for his role in making the Pingtel phone a ubiquitous symbol of IP telephony and SIP-based communications.
Panelist - John Dunne, Senior Manager - Strategic Marketing, Prognosis
John Dunne is an expert in the field of systems management and monitoring solutions gained from 13 years in the IT industry, including the past five years with Integrated Research (developers of PROGNOSIS performance monitoring software). John is the senior manager responsible for the company's strategic marketing group, providing strategic vision and customer insight to the product and sales divisions. In this role, he travels extensively throughout Asia, Europe and the US. His current focus includes business development of IP telephony management and reporting solutions.
Panelist - Phil Moen, President and CEO, Unimax Systems Corporation
With more than 14 years in the software technology industry, Phil brings strong leadership skills and sales management expertise to his position as Unimax's President and CEO. Prior to joining the company, Phil held various executive business management roles at leading technology companies, including SoftBrands, Inc. (formerly Fourth Shift) and Epicor. Most recently, he was responsible for developing a $100 million sales channel including more than 100 third-party sales representatives. Phil holds a B.S. degree in general business, sales and marketing from St. Cloud State University and is CPIM certified.
Behind the basic question--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 UC analyst will present research that looks at the market's size, players and prospects, the impact of UC 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? Will this market take off?
Speaker - Blair Pleasant, President & Principal Analyst, COMMfusion LLC
Blair Pleasant COMMfusion LLC President & Principal Analyst Blair Pleasant is President & Principal Analyst of COMMfusion LLC and Co-founder of ucstrategies.com, an industry resource on the growing UC arena. She provides consulting and market research analysis on voice/data convergence markets, applications, and technologies, aimed at helping end-user and vendor clients both strategically and tactically. Prior to COMMfusion, Ms. Pleasant was Director of Communications Analysis for The PELORUS Group, a market research and consulting firm, and President of Lower Falls Consulting. With 20 years experience, her primary areas of focus are convergence applications, including Unified Communications, Unified Messaging, the contact center, computer telephony integration (CTI), and voice processing. Blair has authored many highly acclaimed multi-client market studies and white papers, as well as custom research reports, and provides market research analysis and consulting services to both end user and vendor clients. Blair's blogs and articles can be found on www.ucstrategies.com and www.commfusion.com. She also tweets on Twitter as blairplez. Ms. Pleasant received a BA degree in Communications from Albany State University, and an MBA in marketing and an MS in Broadcast Administration from Boston University. She can be contacted at bpleasant@commfusion.com
Once you've determined what types of video applications are right for what users and situations, you need to procure a system that delivers a product that meets these needs. In this session, a leading market analyst will offer up a roster of the vendors and their products in each of the video categories—immersive telepresence, room and desktop. In addition to learning who the players are and what they offer, you'll find out who the market share leaders are, what differentiates the offerings within each category, and, last but not least, what these products cost. KEY QUESTIONS: * Who are the leading suppliers of different types of video systems? Which categories do each of them play in? Who are the market share leaders in each category? * Do some vendors' systems work better than others', or are they all fairly close in terms of performance? What features/functions differentiate the products within a category? * What's a typical per-seat or per-room cost for different types of video, and how do you determine which competitor offers the best value? * Is video always procured as a discrete purchase, or can it be rolled into other procurements, e.g., as part of an IP-PBX or Unified Communications RFP?
Speaker - Andrew Davis, Managing Partner, Wainhouse Research
Andrew W. Davis is a researcher, analyst, and opinion leader in the field of collaboration and conferencing. He is a co-founder of Wainhouse Research, a boutique analyst firm that concentrates on collaboration products and services, including audio, video, and web conferencing and unified communications. Prior to Wainhouse Research, he held senior marketing positions with several large and small high-technology companies. Andrew has published over 250 trade journal articles and opinion columns on multimedia communications, videoconferencing, and corporate strategies as well as numerous market research reports and is the principal editor of the conferencing industry's leading newsletter, The Wainhouse Research Bulletin. Andrew specializes in strategy consulting and new business development for Wainhouse Research. A well-known industry guest speaker, Mr. Davis holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in engineering from Cornell University and a Masters of Business Administration from Harvard University.
On January 5, 2009, Avaya announced that Kevin Kennedy would join the company from JDS Uniphase Corporation, where he was CEO. Kennedy has also served as Chief Operating Officer of Openwave Systems, Inc. He spent eight years at Cisco Systems, Inc., most recently as Senior Vice President of the Service Provider Line of Business and Software Technologies Division. Kennedy spent 17 years with AT&T Bell Laboratories. In 1987, he was a congressional fellow to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. Kennedy is a member of the board of directors of KLA-Tencor Corporation and JDS Uniphase Corporation, and a member of the Board of Regents of Loyola Marymount University.
Padmasree Warrior joined Cisco as chief technology officer (CTO) in December 2007. Padmasree comes to Cisco from Motorola where she was executive vice president and chief technology officer. As CTO,Warrior plays a key leadership role in the continued development and communication of Cisco's technology strategy and vision. Padmasree works closely with Cisco's management team and chief development officer to drive innovation and explore new business and technology directions. She was named Motorola's CTO in 2003 and held numerous positions at the company over her 23 year career, including corporate vice president and general manager of Motorola's energy systems group and corporate vice president and chief technology officer for Motorola's Semiconductor Products Sector (SPS).
Enterprise Executives Keynote (Location: Osceola C)
Speaker - Angel Wingate, Assistant Vice President, Office of Information Technology, Duke University
Angel Wingate is assistant vice president for Duke University's Office of Information Technology. She has oversight responsibility for Communications Infrastructure, Data Center and Computer Lab Services, and IT Facilities Planning and Construction. She is responsible for guiding the operational directors/senior directors over such services as networking, telecommunications, data center operations and construction, ePrint services and centralized desktop support. Angel has worked at Duke for over 22 years, and has significant experience in leading initiatives designed to further the use of technology as a means of increasing business efficiencies. She has led OIT's finance, business strategy and administration operations since 1995 and, during that time, has shaped OIT policies relating to finance, administration and human resources, negotiated contracts for services, developed business strategies for central IT services, performed operational and strategic assessments and audited OIT processes and units to optimize departmental efficiency. Additionally, she has served in various interim operational oversight roles spanning telecommunications and networking functions. Most recently, she has overseen the construction of a new tier-three data center on Duke's campus, as well as the migration of critical enterprise IT systems from various facilities to the new location. She led the renegotiation of cellular service contracts that resulted in significant savings to the institution, and she provides senior leadership and oversight for the two-year campus and health system migration of 29K lines from legacy systems to the Cisco VoIP platform. Angel holds a BA in Public Policy Studies and an MBA from Duke University, and she is a certified public accountant.
Speaker - Thomas Behnke, Global Network Services Manager and Architect, Kraft Foods
Tom Behnke is the Manager of Global Managed Network Services Architecture and Strategy for Kraft Foods, one of the largest food and beverage companies in the world. Tom is responsible for the development of the Kraft Foods voice and data communication strategy and provides business process outsourcing oversight. In addition, Tom is one of the company's foremost leaders in enterprise transformation and has demonstrated significant experience in leading initiatives designed to further the use of technology as a means of increasing business efficiencies. Most recently Tom's innovation has been integral in developing the company's "Office of the Future" Initiative with Avaya, that will provide an open standards platform to untether Kraft Foods employees while providing them with the flexibility to determine which tools they use to improve their productivity. Prior to Kraft, Tom spent 9 years at Abbott Laboratories as Senior Project Manager for their international division, and oversaw strategic projects outside of the USA. Tom holds a B.S. in Physics from Loyola University Chicago and will be completing his MBA from Lake Forest Graduate School of Management in June 2009
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 UC to fulfill its potential - especially interoperability and TCO/ROI concerns, and will examine the various pricing models . KEY QUESTIONS * What are prospects for UC adoption given the weak economy and enterprise budget cuts? * What are the top UC applications in terms of actual implementation? What hard savings or ROI exist? * Microsoft and IBM have reached agreement on limited interoperability issues on presence federation, but what interoperability challenges remain? * Are vendors giving away UC apps to sell their call control platforms - or vice versa? * How have the vendors changed their approach to pricing for UC capabilities, and what impact are these changes having? What's next in the evolution of UC pricing?
Panelist - Marisa Viveros, Vice President, Converged Communications and Mobility Services, IBM
Linda Dotts is Vice President, Unified Communications Markets driving the global market penetration of Avaya's Unified Communications portfolio leveraging Avaya's channel go to market strategy and key market partnerships. Linda's accountabilities span solutions packaging, market messaging and readiness for the market. Prior to this role, Linda was the General Manager, Peer to Peer Solutions, Operations and Managing Director in Avaya's Japan business, and Director of Product Management for Avaya's CRM portfolio for Avaya and Lucent Technologies. Linda was also involved in global account sales for AT&T. Linda has an MBA from the University of Hartford and a BS in Economics from Arizona State University.
Panelist - Eric Swift, Senior Director, Communications Server Technical Product Management, Microsoft
As senior director of product management in the Unified Communications Group at Microsoft, Eric Swift is responsible for managing customer and industry requirements, product positioning, and marketing strategies for the next generation of Microsoft Unified Communications products and services, including Microsoft Office Communicator, Microsoft Office Communications Server, and Microsoft RoundTable. Swift has been with Microsoft for eight years. Previous to his current position with the Unified Communications Group, he was director of product management in Microsoft's Application Platform group. Prior to joining Microsoft, Swift held vice president positions at enterprise application integration and CRM software vendors where responsibilities included product management, CRM and Data Warehouse implementations, and technical support operations. Swift has an MBA from Columbia University in New York, NY.
Panelist - Fernando Egea, Director, Solution Architects, Alcatel-Lucent
Fernando Egea, Senior Director for Solution Architecture, is responsible for central pre-sales support of all Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise products in North America. His primary responsibilities include designing solutions for very large, complex IP telephony projects and transferring practical knowledge to field solution architects and Business Partners. With over 12 years of industry experience, Fernando has been directly involved in some of Alcatel-Lucent's largest IP transformation projects in North America and worldwide. Prior to joining the North American team, he was the solutions architect for the Latin American region, covering over 20 countries.
Panelist - Brian Dal Bello, Director, Unified Call Manager, IP Communication Business Unit, Cisco
Brian Dal Bello is the director of product marketing for the IP Communication Business Unit (IPCBU) within Cisco's Voice Technology Group. Brian is directly responsible for Cisco's portfolio of Call Manager, IP telephones and Enterprise Mobility solutions. Brian has been with Cisco Systems for 4 years and has a combined total of 24 years of experience in enterprise / carrier voice, video, rich media, and wireless communication solutions. Brian holds a Bachelor Degree in Engineering from the University of Waterloo in Ontario Canada.
Panelist - Phil Edholm, Chief Technologist, Nortel
Phil Edholm is the Chief Technology and Strategy Officer for Nortel's Enterprise Solutions group. Leveraging his experience as a technology leader across Nortel enterprise line of data and voice networking products, Phil focuses on the Nortel Enterprise Portfolio. In this role, he is responsible for defining the vision and strategic directions in the enterprise business. He also is responsible for technology strategy, standards, and advanced research. In this role he & his team drive the technologies and architectures across the Nortel Enterprise portfolio delivering systems value & capability. At Nortel, Phil has led the development of VoIP solutions and multimedia communications as well as IP transport technology. Phil's background includes extensive LAN and data communications experience, including 9 years with Sytek/Hughes LAN Systems and 4 years with Silicon Valley start-ups. Phil was a member of the IEEE 802.3 standards committee during the definition of broadband Ethernet and 10BaseT, developed the first multi-protocol network interfaces, and was a founder of the Frame Relay Forum. He has been a featured speaker at many international conferences and is recognized as an industry visionary and leader of the convergence transformation. In 2007, he has been recognized by Frost and Sullivan with a Lifetime Achievement Award for Growth and Innovation Leadership. Phil is a widely sought speaker at global conferences and has been in the VoiceCon Great Debate three times. Phil has been recognized by the IEEE as the originator of "Edholm's Law of Bandwidth" as published in July 2004 IEEE Spectrum magazine and as one of the "Top 100 Voices of IP Communications: by Internet Telephony magazine. Phil has 9 patents with 12 patent applications pending. He holds a BSME/EE from GMI/Kettering University.
Panelist - Stephen Beamish, Vice President Business Development and Marketing, Mitel
Stephen Beamish Vice-President Business Development and Marketing Mitel Stephen Beamish is responsible for communicating and evolving Mitel's corporate positioning and brand equity in the global marketplace. This includes marketing Mitel's comprehensive portfolio of small, medium, and enterprise business communications solutions that deeply integrate into customer processes creating new efficiency and productivity benefits. Stephen is also responsible for corporate business development initiatives and expanding Mitel's key strategic alliances. Prior to joining Mitel, Stephen was Director of Global Product Marketing for the Alcatel® Broadband Access Product Line. Stephen is a sought out speaker for many industry events and has published a number of business and technology white papers. He has an International MBA from the Norwegian School of Economics and holds a patent in ROI Business Modeling.
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.
In the mobile UC environment, users will be provided with presence-enabled directories, visual voicemail, and a full range of desktop UC capabilities on their mobile devices. But getting to that mobile UC future will require investment by all parts of the industry - carriers, enterprises, equipment and software vendors. In this session, you'll learn which UC capabilities are widely available on mobile devices today, how well these capabilities integrate with enterprise communications platforms, and what to expect from mobile UC in the coming year. KEY QUESTIONS * What UC capabilities are available on mobile devices/services today? Can these integrate with the IP Telephony and UC infrastructures, and do they need to? * What are the key impediments to having the same functionality on a wireless UC application as its wired counterpart? * Can wireless UC solutions be implemented with the enterprise infrastructure, or will service providers only offer these as their standalone services? Do we have to wait for FMC to become widely available? * Is Mobile UC "Watered-down UC" - what range of UC-based services can be extended to mobile devices? * Are video and collaboration solutions viable UC applications for mobile users today? * What are the prospects for mobile communications-enabled-business-processes for operations and service workers versus UC features for office workers?
Speaker - Mario DiPrizio, Senior Director, Engineering and Architecture, Converged Enterprise Communications, Motorola
Speaker - Sean McManus, Manager, Voice Solutions, Research In Motion
Sean McManus is a Manager for Voice Solutions, Platform Product Management at Research In Motion (RIM), makers of the BlackBerry® smartphone. Sean is responsible for articulating RIM's Enterprise Voice Strategy to large global accounts. Sean has over 18 years experience selling and marketing advanced voice solutions, including call centres, unified messaging, IP Telephony and IVR. Prior to joining RIM, Sean worked at IBM Global Services and a number of private firms in the voice and telecom industry.
Speaker - John Reeder, Product Manager, Cisco
Speaker - Ross Sedgewick, Director, Large Enterprise Marketing, Siemens Enterprise Communications
Ross Sedgewick serves as Director, Large Enterprise Marketing at Siemens Enterprise Communications, Inc. Leveraging 20 years of management experience in the Enterprise Software, CRM, Channel Management and Marketing arenas, Ross has responsibility for the Large Enterprise solutions marketing team, which drives marketing for the voice, unified communications, video, mobility and contact center product 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 an Honors Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Toronto, and an MBA (Marketing) from the Schulich School of Business at York University.
Michael Finneran, Principal of dBrn Associates, Inc. is an independent consultant and industry analyst specializing in wireless technologies, mobile unified communications, and fixed-mobile convergence. With over 30-years in the networking field, his expertise spans the full range of wireless technologies including Wi-Fi, 3G/4G Cellular, WiMAX, and RFID. A lively and informative speaker, Mr. Finneran has appeared at hundreds of trade shows and industry conferences including VoiceCon, InterOp, and the Mobile Business Expo. In the consulting area, he has provided assistance to carriers, equipment vendors, end users, and investment firms in the US and overseas. A long time columnist for Business Communications Review, he now contributes regularly to NoJitter and UC Strategies. Well respected as an educator, Mr. Finneran has conducted over 2000 seminars on networking topics in the US, Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. His programs are offered through Telecom+UC Training. A long-time member of the IEEE and the Society of Telecommunications Consultants, Mr. Finneran holds a Masters Degree from the J. L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.
Most industry experts seem to agree that presence capabilities will form the core of the next-generation Unified Communications network. But today, we're clearly nowhere near the place where presence can be as reliable and ubiquitous as dial tone has been in the PSTN. In this session, you'll learn why presence is considered so important; what elements are used to create and distribute presence information; and what will be required to fulfill the promise of presence. KEY QUESTIONS: * What interoperability challenges remain for presence? What challenges have already been solved? What standards and industry initiatives are required to complete the job? * How accurately can a user's presence be rendered and tracked in the most advanced UC systems today? * What is presence really good for? How much are you missing by not having complete presence functionality, and will it ever be truly mission-critical? * What questions should you ask and specifications should you include when you're trying to procure communications systems, if your goal is to have the most complete and advanced presence system? What hardware and/or software make up the essential components of presence enablement?
Panelist - Pat Galvin, Lead Architect, IBM Sametime
Becky Davis is the Director of the Technical Sales Team within Siemens Enterprise Communications for North America and Latin America. Becky and her team provide technical support to the US and Latin American sales teams for Siemens' OpenScape Voice and Unified Communications portfolio. Becky manages a technology center in Boca Raton, FL that provides virtual demonstration and tradeshow support globally. In addition, this technology center affords connectivity for product certification in support of the Global Alliance activity. Outside partners and customers can avail themselves to the technology to gain greater understanding of the products and applications in the OpenScape product portfolio. 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 orginial 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.
Panelist - Vivek Khuller, President and CEO, DiVitas Networks
Vivek Khuller is the CEO and founder of DiVitas Networks. Prior to founding DiVitas, Vivek held the position of Venture Partner at Clearstone Venture Partners, where he incubated DiVitas. Vivek also was Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Matrix Partners. Before Matrix, he worked at Sycamore Networks in business development, leading strategic sales for the tier-1 carrier market and managing software business development worth several million dollars. Vivek worked at Verizon Communications in various roles, including Manager of the Internet Center of Excellence as well as in Network Systems Engineering. At Verizon, Vivek received the Spirit of Excellence Chairman's award - the company's highest honor - in recognition of his technical leadership. Vivek earned an MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School, an MS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland at College Park, and a BS with Distinction in Electrical Engineering from Mangalore University, India.
Panelist - Tony Rybczynski, Director Strategic Enterprise Technologies, Nortel
Tony is Director of Strategic Enterprise Technologies reporting to the Enterprise CTO, and has 37 years experience in convergence technologies. He now works with large enterprises to understand their business drivers and the value proposition of new networking technologies. He has presented at numerous conferences including a keynote at the Wharton Technology Conference. He has written over 150 articles (including a monthly column in Internet Telephony magazine). In addition, he has written articles that have been published in the Financial Executive, in the European CEO and for the Wall Street Technology Association. He has contributed to two books, is a graduate of McGill and University of Alberta, and Senior Member of IEEE.
Sonu Aggarwal is the CEO of Unify2, a leader in addressing enterprise roadmap, architecture, and deployment needs for Microsoft Office Communications Server. Prior to founding Unify2, Sonu was the Director of Program Management/Group Program Manager for the Office Communications Server team at Microsoft, where he drove the roadmap, technical feature set, and execution for the OCS Server product line including Live Communications Server 2005, Office Communications Server 2007, and the roadmap for the next two releases of Office Communications Server. Sonu led the OCS Program Management team responsible for the feature set, feature design and technical specifications for all Server aspects of OCS. He drove extensive customer feedback from dozens of global enterprises into the technical design of OCS. Most recently, Sonu was the Director of Technical Strategy and Partnerships for OCS, where he led technical roadmap and delivery for the Open Interoperability Program and Microsoft's partnerships with Nortel, Cisco, and other IP-PBX vendors. Sonu has a B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At the MIT Laboratory for Computer Science, he invented the first time-optimal self-stabilizing spanning tree algorithms for asynchronous computer networks. Sonu co-invented Enterprise Instant Messaging at his company Flash Communications, which was acquired by Microsoft in 1998 to seed its enterprise Real-Time Collaboration efforts starting with Exchange 2000. Sonu has 4 patents in Real-Time Collaboration, including the first-ever patent for enterprise Instant Messaging. He is the co-author of Internet RFC 2779.
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: * What tools are available for performing root-cause analysis on problems that occur with voice traffic running on an IP network? * What are the right metrics for tracking voice quality—MOS scores or more automated measurements? How do you derive—and act on—this information in real-time? * What tools are available for remote management of voice infrastructure at sites where there are no full-time IT staff? * 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?
Dr Mike Hollier is a technical and commercial pioneer in perceptual engineering. Between 1990 and 1999 he directed BT's research into audio, video and multi-media performance assessment. His PhD was gained from the University of Essex for his work on using models of human hearing to predict speech quality; contributing to the ITU-T PESQ standard. During 2000 Mike lead the incubation of Psytechnics Ltd and left BT to become the CEO. While CEO he managed the company's formation and early growth, raising further VC finance during the technology sector crash. This feat attracted a National Business Award in October 2002. Since October 2002 Mike has been the CTO acting as a market evangelist, working on business development and overseeing the R&D of a new generation of voice and video products. Product innovations embrace the latest IPT/VoIP solutions, video-conferencing and fixed-mobile-convergence to dovetail with the evolution of unified communications in the workplace. Dr Hollier is a Chartered Engineer, twice winner of the Alan Rudge Award for Innovation, a fellow of the University of Essex and member of the AES.
Speaker - Brian Gollaher, Senior Product Manager, Empirix
Brian Gollaher is Senior Product Manager for the Empirix Contact Center Business Unit where he is responsible for the Empirix OneSight and Hammer Test System product lines. With Empirix contact center testing and monitoring solutions, organizations can take a comprehensive approach to contact center testing and management—from pre-deployment testing to customer experience monitoring—to identify problems before customers or agents are affected. Large contact centers around the world rely on Empirix to assure a superior customer and agent experience as they make the transition to IP based technologies. Mr. Gollaher has over 25 years of experience in computer networking, network management, and telecommunications. His background includes roles in marketing, product management, business development, and product development. Brian came to Empirix from CA where he was Director of Product Management for CA Network Management Products. Brian also has management and product development experience at 3Com, USRobotics, General DataComm and Burrroughs Corporation.
Speaker - John Dunne, Senior Manager - Strategic Marketing, Prognosis
John Dunne is an expert in the field of systems management and monitoring solutions gained from 13 years in the IT industry, including the past five years with Integrated Research (developers of PROGNOSIS performance monitoring software). John is the senior manager responsible for the company's strategic marketing group, providing strategic vision and customer insight to the product and sales divisions. In this role, he travels extensively throughout Asia, Europe and the US. His current focus includes business development of IP telephony management and reporting solutions.
Matt is currently President of Telecomworx, a Washington, DC area interconnect company and been onboard since 1989. Matt founded the NBX Group in 2000 to develop solutions for the 3Com NBX 100 and create a web portal directed at the IP-PBX and related offerings. Members included dealers, users, 3Com, advertisers, the media and consultants spanning the U.S.A. and 14 countries. Previously, he was Chief Network Engineer for AMTRAK and responsible for a nationwide $26m internal voice network and a $10.5m ACD call center network. Matt has been in the telecommunications industry since 1975 after having served a 4 year enlistment in the US Navy as a radioman. Matt is a guest at VoiceCon, authored articles for Business Communications Review, McGraw-Hill/DataPro and has written for the former VoIPLoop blog. He holds a (BS) in Small Business Management from UMUC and an (AA) in Business Management from Montgomery College. Matt is also a member of the Founders Circle of the former Qovia, since acquired by Cisco. He also advises startups, venture capitalists and others in numerous areas of telecommunications. Matt is also an Educator at the Gerson Lehrman Group.
Market demand for new enterprise communications systems and solutions reflects the economy: It's a tough bad time for sellers, but a good time for buyers with lower IP telephony system prices, enhanced system performance and no fee Unified Communications (UC) licenses marketed as buying incentives. A crowded competitive field that needs to make room for new market entries, such as Microsoft and IBM, may squeeze out one or two of the established players in the next year: Who is likely to succumb?. This session will include updated market forecasts and supplier share estimates, a discussion of what system features and options are selling or stagnating, and a critical review and analysis of the leading system suppliers and their flagship offerings. KEY QUESTIONS *What is the future direction of the enterprise communications system? Does it even have a future? *Is the UC market real or just hype? *Will Cisco continue its reign as market leader and which suppliers will be devoured? * Will Microsoft and IBM become viable voice system suppliers, pose a threat to the established competitors or will they stumble?
Speaker - Allan Sulkin, President, TEQConsult Group
Allan Sulkin is an independent management consultant with a practice focused on enterprise communications systems and applications. He is recognized within the industry sector as its premier market/product analyst. TEQConsult Group (www.teqconsult.com) offers a variety of management consulting services to manufacturers and distributors of enterprise communications solutions and end user organizations requiring expert advice and support. Sulkin has been active in the telecommunications industry since the late 1970s. Sulkin was a Contributing Editor to Business Communications Review (BCR) for more than 20 years with more than published 100 feature articles; he is currently a Contributing Editor and blogger at No Jitter. He also authored PBX Systems for IP Telephony (McGraw-Hill), a widely used textbook. Sulkin has served as a VoiceCon program director and featured presenter since its inception in 1991, and has presented at numerous other industry gatherings throughout the years.
Once you purchase and install video, you'll have to support it. This may be more critical with video than any other media, since (at least at the high end) it tends to be an expensive purchase, often driven by C-level executives. You can't afford poor quality or hard-to-establish connections in such a high-profile application. In this session, you'll learn the most effective approaches to providing ongoing support for enterprise video installations and the network that supports them. We'll discuss the tradeoffs of in-house vs. outsourced support; the best ways to connect different types of users; the value of standardization; tools you need; and processes for making it all work KEY QUESTIONS: * What levels of expertise and staffing are required to support high-quality video within the enterprise's internal IT staff? What will likely be required for you to obtain this level of expertise or staffing? * When should you consider using a managed videoconferencing service rather than internal staff? What are the advantages and disadvantages of managed services for video? * When should you consider a hosted service? When should you consider using a separate network rather than the internal WAN and its related support staff? What can a service provider offer that you can't provide internally? * What are the tools and processes needed to manage the videoconferencing environment and to keep the delivery of a high quality video conferencing service on track?
Speaker - Andrew Davis, Managing Partner, Wainhouse Research
Andrew W. Davis is a researcher, analyst, and opinion leader in the field of collaboration and conferencing. He is a co-founder of Wainhouse Research, a boutique analyst firm that concentrates on collaboration products and services, including audio, video, and web conferencing and unified communications. Prior to Wainhouse Research, he held senior marketing positions with several large and small high-technology companies. Andrew has published over 250 trade journal articles and opinion columns on multimedia communications, videoconferencing, and corporate strategies as well as numerous market research reports and is the principal editor of the conferencing industry's leading newsletter, The Wainhouse Research Bulletin. Andrew specializes in strategy consulting and new business development for Wainhouse Research. A well-known industry guest speaker, Mr. Davis holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in engineering from Cornell University and a Masters of Business Administration from Harvard University.
Chris Böttger brings a wealth of experience to the video conferencing community. Currently as Senior Vice President for IVCi and head of the IVCi's Managed Conferencing Service division, he is responsible for a global IP managed video conferencing service. His in-depth knowledge of video systems and their successful deployments is the result of over 10 years in the industry, of which 5 years were at PictureTel/Polycom as Senior Product Manager. Prior to this he spent 2 years with British Telecom deploying a global high performance, reliable and secure network
Panelist - John Landau, Sr VP, Tata Communications
John Landau is the Senior Vice President of Global Managed Services for Tata Communications, a member of the $62.5 billion Tata Group. He is responsible for the Company's worldwide network services and managed services offerings to the enterprise market. Prior to joining Tata Communications (formerly VSNL), Mr. Landau was Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Teleglobe, which was acquired by VSNL in February 2006. He joined Teleglobe through Teleglobe's acquisition of Voice over IP pioneer ITXC June 2004, where he was Executive Vice President of Product Management. Prior to joining ITXC in 2002, Mr Landau was Vice President of Product Marketing for computer telephony market leader Dialogic Corp from its IPO announcement in 1993 through its acquisition by Intel in 1999, where he stayed on for three years as Director of Technology for the Communications Product Group.
Darren Podrabsky Global Marketing Manager, Halo Collaboration Services Darren Podrabsky is the Global Marketing Manager for HP Halo Collaboration Services. He brings 12 years of Marketing experience at HP to this position. Prior to this assignment, Podrabsky served in a variety of Marketing and Business Strategy functions at HP, including Worldwide Category Manager for Digital Projection Systems. Podrabsky has also served as a Future Product Manager and Current Product Manager in HP's Imaging and Printing Group. Prior to his Marketing roles, Podrabsky was a Senior Buyer and Business Process Analyst.
Panelist - Mike Valletutti, Applied Global Technologies
John Bartlett John Bartlett is a leading authority on real-time traffic, application performance and Quality of Service (QoS) techniques. He specializes in helping enterprises manage voice, video and data application performance. Recent work has focused on designing global networks to best support video conferencing and telepresence systems. John has engaged with over 50 enterprises and over 20 network vendors to analyze network performance problems, design network solutions, and support network deployments. John has 30 years of experience in the semiconductor, computer and communications fields in marketing, sales, engineering, manufacturing and consulting roles. He has contributed to microprocessor, computer and network equipment design for over 40 products. He has been consulting since 1996. Prior to working as a consultant, John was a founder and VP of Engineering and Manufacturing at Agile Networks, now part of Lucent Technologies. Under his leadership, the company designed and built a high performance Ethernet switch implementing VLANs, and one of the first commercial ATM switches. Both products were successfully introduced to the market and the firm became profitable before it was acquired. Mr. Bartlett also served on the IEEE 802.1 committee during this period, and contributed to the development of the IEEE 802.1P and IEEE 802.1Q standards (priority and VLANs.) He previously worked for 9 years at Encore Computer, Corp. in engineering and engineering management positions designing networking equipment and large scale multiprocessor systems. At the end of this time Mr. Bartlett was managing 70 engineers across 2 geographic sites. John is a graduate of Dartmouth College, and Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering, where he received the Dartmouth Society of Engineers Annual Prize for the quality of his thesis presentation. John is co-owner of a patent in shared memory multiprocessor design.
With Nortel in bankruptcy protection, should customers panic or stay put? Are you welcoming -- or avoiding -- Nortel's competitors who are eager to seize on what they see as an opportunity? And what's the best way to keep current and understand the significance of developments that occur during the reorganization process? This discussion will be facilitated by Victor Bohnert, INNUA Executive Director, and Nortel executives will be available to answer questions.
If you're being asked to do more with less, what can you do to make the best of the situation? What investments are you delaying, which are moving forward, and where are you cutting costs? What's been the impact on your users? Your staff? Yourself?
Are you thinking about an open source PBX for your enterprise or a subset of it? Have you had any experience with open source? Does "open source" mean "free"? How far will these systems scale, and how much functionality can they provide?
Bring your mobile device, configured for enterprise communications, and be prepared to do an impromptu demo of the device and the interface you use most: Why you love them, or why you hate them.
How are the new technologies and trends in contact centers affecting your plans? Topics will include UC in the contact center, self-service, support for home-based agents, multimedia, and whatever other issues you bring.
First IP Telephony and now Unified Communications recast the traditional roles - and boundaries - within IT organizations. What changes have you made or heard about? What's worked, what hasn't, and why? How are application developers, line of business managers, and IT security people fitting in with traditional voice and data folks?
Communications-Enabled Business Processes (CEBP) refers to the use of UC-based functions to integrate communications with business applications. While the idea is noble -- to make workers and business processes more efficient, and enable enterprises to handle exceptions more quickly and cheaply - it's not easy to accomplish. In this session, enterprise executives who have begun to deploy CEBP will describe their experiences: Where they saved money, where they encountered problems and where they're headed. KEY QUESTIONS * What business processes and types of applications are best suited to integration with voice systems? Where can the "quick wins" be had? * What are the major systems integration and voice quality/performance challenges in CEBP implementations? * Who typically takes the lead in a CEBP project -- specifying, buying/building, integrating and deploying? Is this function best handled within the enterprise or by an outside systems integrator? * What's the role of the business units, CIO and CFO in crafting a CEBP plan, and how should the IT staff interact with them? *How are results measured - hard vs. soft savings, benefits or ROI?
Marty Parker is a Principal of UniComm Consulting, LLC, specializing in Unified Communications consulting support for enterprises. UniComm Consulting provides informed and efficient support for the strategy, planning, procurement and implementation steps needed for successful, high return UC projects and investments. Marty is also a co-founder of UCStrategies.com, a forum for UC information and dialog for enterprises, suppliers and VARs. Other industry activities include VoiceCon and InterOp tutorials and sessions, and UC Training courses offered through Telecom+UC Training. Marty has extensive background in both IT and Telecom, and in both entrepreneurial and large corporation leadership roles. mparker@unicommconsulting.com.
Panelist - Arthur Brant, Dir of Network Services, Abilene Christian University
For the last 11 years, Arthur has been managing voice, video, and data networks for Abilene Christian University. In 2008, ACU began implementing strategies for a "connected" 21st-century campus, including the launch of a mobile learning initiative that provided converged mobile devices to the entering freshmen class. Arthur's primary engagement with this initiative is the design, implementation, and maintenance of usable and reliable infrastructure. As the university explores the integration of mobile devices in the classroom, options such as voice enablement and location awareness offer some unique opportunities. To this end, Arthur works closely with corporate partners to address these innovations and advance ACU's vision to be the premier university for the education of Christ-centered global leaders.
Panelist - Wayne Porter, GVP ETI-Network Services, SunTrust Banks, Inc.
Group Vice President, Enterprise Technology - Network Services, SunTrust Bank. Wayne has responsibility for various aspects of voice and data communications technology and infrastructure at SunTrust. He has been with SunTrust over 5 years and is instrumental in providing leadership with the technology direction for communications at SunTrust. Prior to joining SunTrust, Wayne was with several Dun & Bradstreet companies including: D&B Software, SalesTechnologies, IMS Health, and Synavant. Over the past 25 years at these companies, he has held various IT Management positions with responsibilities ranging from mainframe data centers, to global corporate networks.
Panelist - Steve Margolis, MD, Chief Medical Informatics Officer, Orlando Health
Improved collaboration is one of the key benefits of next-generation communications technology. The range of systems and tools available for next-gen collaboration is vast—from ad hoc, Web-based social networking to large enterprise platforms for information sharing, integrated with communications platforms. In this session, we'll look at social networking and enterprise collaboration—where the two intersect, where they diverge, and what it means for the systems you'll deploy to help your workers collaborate more effectively and securely. KEY QUESTIONS: * Which Web-based social networking tools are seeing the most use among enterprise end users? How are they being used? * What security and network performance challenges do these Web 2.0 applications pose? What user interfaces are most commonly used for this type of collaboration? * Do you need to integrate Web 2.0-type applications into your internal network and communications/collaboration systems? What are the costs, benefits and risks of attempting to bring social networking in-house? * What media do you have to support in order to enable next-gen collaboration—IM, persistent chat, audioconferencing, video, others?
Speaker - Irwin Lazar, Principal Research Analyst and Program Director, Unified Communications and Collaboration, Nemertes Research
Irwin Lazar is the Vice President for Communications Research at Nemertes Research, where he develops and manages research projects, develops cost models, conducts strategic seminars and advises clients. His background is in network operations, network engineering, voice-data convergence, and IP telephony. Mr. Lazar is responsible for benchmarking the adoption and use of emerging technologies in the enterprise in areas including VOIP, unified communications, Web 2.0 initiatives, social networking, and collaboration. A Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) and sought-after speaker and author, Mr. Lazar is a columnist for No Jitter and Enterprise2Blog. He is a frequent resource for the business and trade press. and is regular speaker at events such as Interop, VoiceCon, and Enterprise 2.0. Mr. Lazar serves as the conference director for FutureNet (formerly MPLScon), and is on the advisory board for the Enterprise 2.0 conference.
Joe Burton is Vice President and Chief Technology Officer in Cisco's Voice Technology Group. His team is responsible for vision, technical strategy and advanced research for Unified Communications at Cisco. Unified Communications is suite of Internet Protocol (IP) voice, data and video products and applications designed to help organizations of all sizes streamline business processes and work more efficiently. Additionally, he and his team represent Cisco in many Unified Communications industry standards organizations, and represent the Cisco Unified Communications team in many cross-Cisco initiatives. Joe is a highly regarded visionary in our industry and an evangelist for Cisco. He has a passion for technology and innovation, as well as a demonstrated business savvy that has been instrumental in several of our acquisitions including Latitude, WebEx, and Securent. During his career at Cisco, Joe has led the development of many of Cisco's Unified Communications products including MeetingPlace voice, video, and data conferencing products, IPVC video conferencing, IP Communicator, Unified Advantage, Cisco Unified Personal Communicator, productivity application integrations, and Cisco Unity Connection integrated voice messaging products.
Panelist - Peter Fay, U.S. Leader, Unified Communications and Collaboration Services, IBM
25-year veteran in the High Technology industry. Spent past 14 years at IBM in Lotus software division and IBM Global Technology Services focused on Unified Communications and Collaboration (UC2) solutions and services. Have been working closely with clients on integrating IBM / Lotus collaboration desktop applications and tools with their client's communications infrastructure--IP and PSTN PBX's, and audio and video conferencing bridges. Clients are also beginning to adopt Web 2.0 and Social Networking solutions that seeminglessly integrate with their communications infrastructure.
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 UC 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 - Blair Pleasant, President & Principal Analyst, COMMfusion LLC
Blair Pleasant COMMfusion LLC President & Principal Analyst Blair Pleasant is President & Principal Analyst of COMMfusion LLC and Co-founder of ucstrategies.com, an industry resource on the growing UC arena. She provides consulting and market research analysis on voice/data convergence markets, applications, and technologies, aimed at helping end-user and vendor clients both strategically and tactically. Prior to COMMfusion, Ms. Pleasant was Director of Communications Analysis for The PELORUS Group, a market research and consulting firm, and President of Lower Falls Consulting. With 20 years experience, her primary areas of focus are convergence applications, including Unified Communications, Unified Messaging, the contact center, computer telephony integration (CTI), and voice processing. Blair has authored many highly acclaimed multi-client market studies and white papers, as well as custom research reports, and provides market research analysis and consulting services to both end user and vendor clients. Blair's blogs and articles can be found on www.ucstrategies.com and www.commfusion.com. She also tweets on Twitter as blairplez. Ms. Pleasant received a BA degree in Communications from Albany State University, and an MBA in marketing and an MS in Broadcast Administration from Boston University. She can be contacted at bpleasant@commfusion.com
Andy Allison leads product management for Avaya's Unified Messaging portfolio. As a seasoned product manager, his role at Avaya over the last six years has focused on the transition of traditional voicemail technologies to advanced unified messaging and integrated unified communications experiences. Prior to Avaya, Andy was Director of Business Development at Solsoft, Inc. a security management software provider. With Solsoft he was an expatriate in France and England. He now resides at the base of the Rockies in Boulder, Colorado.
Bud Walder Enterprise Marketing Manager, Dialogic Corporation As marketing manager for Dialogic, Bud Walder is responsible for enterprise market segment strategy and supporting activities. Dialogic is a leading provider of media and signaling platforms for the unified communications market. The platforms enable service providers, developers and system integrators to deliver services, content and applications using multimedia processing and signaling technologies. Before joining Dialogic in 2006, Walder spent 20 years in enterprise communications systems sales and product management at Intel Corporation, Brother International Corp and Office Business Systems, Inc. Walder holds a BA degree in economics from Rutgers University.
Panelist - Tom Minifie, Chief Technology Officer, AVST
Tom Minifie was promoted to the position of Chief Technology Officer (CTO) in October 2008. In this 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.
Panelist - Roger Brassard, Product Manager, Nortel
Brad Herrington is Senior Manager of Solutions Marketing. Mr. Herrington helps drive the global product marketing vision, strategy, and campaigns for the Interactive Intelligence suite of products. Mr. Herrington has over 20 years of experience in the telecommunications industry, and has been with Interactive Intelligence for the past 12 years. He has held roles in Systems Engineering, Product Management and Marketing during that time.
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.)
Mr. Maier is a senior executive with over 15 years in telecommunications marketing, product development and channel development. In his current role, Mr. Maier is responsible for marketing, product roadmap and channels for RedSky's enterprise software products. Mr. Maier has served in the past as co-chairman of the Avaya DevConnect Advisory Council that represents over 175 Avaya ISVs and he is active in the developer programs of Nortel and Cisco. From 1995 to 2000, Mr. Maier was Vice President of OEM Sales for Plantronics, the leading provider of hands-free communications devices. From 1983 to 1993, Mr. Maier was a senior sales and operations executive for Solitec, Inc., a diversified semiconductor equipment company in the Silicon Valley.
Lev Deich is the Director of 911 Enable and has been part of the company since its inception in 2005. Prior to 911 Enable, Lev had a distinguished career with Ericsson where he held various engineering and management positions in the U.S. and Europe. Lev has over 12 years of datacom and telecom experience, including managing joint software development projects with large companies such as Juniper Networks and Advanced Computer Communication. Lev holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from Concordia University, where he graduated with distinct honors.
David Yedwab is a Founding Partner in Market Strategy and Analytics Partners LLC. He is a seasoned technology marketing executive with over 25 years experience providing marketing, sales, technology and business strategy advice to many of the world's largest and most successful companies including - Cisco, AT&T, BellSouth, Apple, NTT, NEC, Nortel, Samsung and Siemens. His specialties are business and product strategy, distribution channel development, product marketing and competitive differentiation. Mr. Yedwab has appeared on CBS News 48 Hours, CNBC and Bloomberg Business Radio. He is often quoted in national business publications such as Fortune, USA Today, Investor's Business Daily and the Internet and telecommunications trade press. Prior to starting Market Strategy and Analytics Partners, Mr. Yedwab managed the Public and Private Networking practices of The Eastern Management Group. This has included engagements covering market and distribution requirements and strategies for next generation networks; marketing programs designed to help enterprise providers to increase their revenues and market shares; the implications of the business transformation driven by the Internet, broadband and mobile networks; the emergence of the e-commerce and its challenges and opportunities for private and public networks. Mr. Yedwab has also spent time working in the financial community developing trading networks. His activities were in conjunction with major securities, banking and financial services firms, both domestically and internationally. He has held business development, marketing and sales management positions with AT&T, including the management of a national account team and the development, negotiation and dissolution of business ventures. At Bell Laboratories, Mr. Yedwab worked as a data processing/data communication system designer, developer and performance analyst.
We all know that budgets are tight and capital is constrained at most enterprises. So how do you continue to make the investments you need to make in order to keep your communications systems up to date and cost efficient? In this session, we'll examine the different options for procuring communications systems, and describe which are likely to be best for various circumstances. KEY QUESTIONS: * What are the factors that should drive decisions about buying vs. leasing CPE, or forgoing CPE in favor of a managed or hosted service? * Who are the players you are most likely encounter when you consider each of these options? * How do you fit your long-term communications investment planning into the considerations of the short-term? * Is leasing or outsourcing to a service provider your best option if capital is tight? Or should you simply forgo any new investment altogether?
Gary Audin has more than 40 years of computer, communications and security experience. He has planned, designed, specified, implemented and operated data, LAN and telephone networks, and VoIP and IP converged networks all around the world, and he advises venture capital and investment bankers in communications technologies.
Panelist - Bob Necessary, President, Presidio Technology Capital, LLC
Bob Necessary is President of Presidio Technology Capital, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Presidio, Inc. PTC is a diversified provider and lessor of technology solutions including hardware, software and services. Solarcom is now one of the largest independent technology lessors in the country. Bob has been with Presidio since 1980 in various roles including Vice President of Finance and sales management. Prior to joining Presidio, Bob was in financial management for Memorex and in banking for what is now Bank of America. Bob has conducted numerous seminars for both lessors and lessees on various technology-leasing issues. Bob has served on the board of directors for The Equipment Leasing and Finance Association (ELFA) and the Mid America Association of Equipment Lessors. Bob has participated in various ELFA seminars, panels and forums as a presenter and moderator as well as a participant and speaker at numerous business, high tech and venture capital meetings in the Atlanta area. Bob received a BS degree in Industrial Management from Georgia Tech and as MBA from the University of Georgia. Bob Lives in Atlanta with his wife Teri and their three children.
Currently 4 years as CIO with MODEC. 19 years of experience in all aspects of Information Technology. Within the time frame I have worked for Microsoft, Baker Hughes, Veritas DGC, FMC Technologies, and Eagle Global Logistics.
9:00 am–10:00 am
Keynotes
Keynote Presentation: Microsoft (Location: Osceola C)
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 joined Microsoft in January 1990 as a software design engineer, and he has worked on many breakthrough products in his tenure. He started with LAN Manager Remote Access Service, and was part of the Windows NT® development team working all the way through Windows® XP in 2001 as general manager of Windows Networking. During his work on Windows, he led design and implementation of award-winning technologies such as PPP, TCP/IP, VPNs, routing and Wi-Fi. He co-authored the first VPN protocol in the industry — Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP) — which received the prestigious Innovation of the Year award from PC Magazine in 1996. He also authored several documents and standards in the networking area in the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standards body in the mid-1990s. 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.
Speaker - Bob Picciano, General Manager, IBM Software
As general manager for Lotus software, Bob Picciano 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. It includes email, calendar, instant messaging, electronic forms,web conferencing, portals, team paces, business dashboards, document management, and social software. He is also amember of IBM's Integration and Values team—a select group of executives who provide guidance across IBM on various business and strategic issues. Prior to becoming General Manager, Mr. Picciano was vice president, worldwide sales, Information Management, SoftwareGroup. He was responsible for sales and operations for the Information Management portfolio, a multi-billion dollar product set that is sold in over 130 countries. Bob had previously been vice president for Data Servers, responsible for business line performance of IBM's highly successful database portfolio of software products including DB2, Informix IDS, Cloudscape, RedBrick, and XPS. From 2001 to 2004, Mr. Picciano led the worldwide development and support of DB2 Linux, Windows and UNIX platforms as vice president of Database Technology while on international assignment at the IBM Toronto Software Development Lab in Markham, Canada. Over the course of his twenty year career at IBM, Mr. Picciano has held numerous management and executive positions including Technical Assistant to IBM Chairman and CEO Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. and IMS Family Product Manager, where he also managed the Santa Teresa laboratory development technologies team, providing centralized development, test and product packaging services to the lab's development teams.
Keynote Presentation: Siemens (Location: Osceola C)
Speaker - James O'Neill, CEO, Siemens Enterprise Communications
James R. O'Neill, a 30-year technology industry veteran is a native of Ireland who became an American citizen in 1976. O'Neill has extensive international executive management experience with an emphasis on networks and electronics as well as large system integration, communications and computer technology. O'Neill's priorities include merging the Siemens Enterprise Communications business with two portfolio companies: Enterasys, a network equipment and security solutions provider and SER Solutions, a call center software company. The combination of these three entities will create a more complete enterprise communications and data networking offering featuring world-class products, solutions and services for the unified communications market, all based on the company's Open Communications positioning. O'Neill received a bachelor's degree from St. Anselm College, New Hampshire, and has attended executive management programs worldwide. He served as the 2008 chairman of the Professional Services Council and Vice Chairman of the Executive Committee for the Northern Virginia Technology Council. O'Neill also sits on the board of the Technology Council of Maryland and the American Heart Association. He was named 2006 Government Contractor Executive of the Year by the Northern Virginia GovCon Council, Professional Services Council and Washington Technology.
OK, you have an IP Telephony infrastructure in progress or in place and now you're hearing all about Unified Communications. You need to figure out what enhancements are needed to your telephony, desktops, applications, and to your mobility solutions. This session will outline the alternatives and a panel of equipment suppliers will discuss the steps for delivering Unified Communications by integrating telephony, business processes and applications. They'll also discuss the best ways to leverage in-place infrastructure to take advantage of UC. KEY QUESTIONS: * What are the alternative architectures to deliver UC benefits to the enterprise? How do you select which makes sense for your environment? * What is the most economical path to UC with your current IP Telephony investment? What will you need now and what can be added on later? * What's the future of the PBX/IP-PBX in a UC migration? * What new infrastructure elements might have to be added to the existing telephony/desktop implementation to support UC? What existing servers, applications or other elements must be integrated? * How should your plans for Unified Communications affect your plans for rolling out IP Telephony or other infrastructure components? In the face of lower budgets, which should have priority?
Speaker - Warren Barkley, Principal Group PM, Microsoft
Speaker - Kevin Gavin, Vice President of Marketing, ShoreTel
Kevin Gavin joined ShoreTel in October of 2007 and is responsible for marketing and product line management for all ShoreTel products. For over 25 years, Gavin has helped high-growth telecommunications companies achieve market-leading status in new market categories by delivering breakthrough products and services directly to businesses and consumers. Gavin's executive experience includes Chief Marketing Officer at GoBeam Communications, a VoIP-based hosted PBX service provider that was purchased by Covad Communications in 2004. Gavin was also Chief Marketing Officer at InternetConnect, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Softnet Systems, Regional VP at Teligent, Corporate VP of Marketing and Product Development at Nextel Communications, and Regional VP of Marketing at McCaw Cellular. Gavin is a graduate of the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. He also attended the Executive Education Program at Stanford University.
Speaker - Lawrence Byrd, Director, Unified Communications Architecture, Avaya
Lawrence Byrd is Director of Unified Communications Architecture and helps drive the definition and communication of Avaya's intelligent communications strategy. Lawrence has eighteen years of communications, CRM and contact center experience and thirty years of advanced software and Internet experience. Lawrence was co-founder of Quintus Corporation in 1984 where he held executive positions in software development, marketing and strategy. Quintus was a leading provider of multimedia contact center software that was acquired by Avaya in 2001. Lawrence has a BA in Philosophy from Durham, England, was a research associate in the Department of Artificial Intelligence at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and now lives with his family in California.
Speaker - Gary Gordon, Product Manager, NEC Unified Solutions
Gary Gordon is Product Line Manager for NEC's Unified Communications. He started with NEC in September of 2004. Gary attended the University of Central Oklahoma where he majored in Business Administration with a minor in Computer Science. Gary previously managed communication and e-commerce business process integration for Fleming Co., a $20 billion wholesale/retail distribution company. He has over 17 years experience working with emerging technologies, including unified communications, SOA, and presence enabled applications. He has 7 years experience in managing PC's and web based applications on a large IP network. Gary brings strong knowledge and management skills in real-time-communication based applications, communication enabled business process (CEBP), and has additional expertise in sales and marketing.
Moderator - Don Van Doren, Principal, UniComm Consulting, LLC
Don Van Doren has worked for most of his professional career as a systems developer and consultant applying innovative technologies, systems, and processes to meet business goals. He is now Principal of UniComm Consulting, President of Vanguard Communications, and a co-founder of UCStrategies.com. UniComm Consulting and Vanguard Communications are each independent consulting firms focused, respectively, on unified communications (UC) and contact centers and customer interactions. UCStrategies.com is the industry web portal site for information on UC issues and developments. Vanguard's two decades of consulting work in contact centers help people, processes, and data processing and communications systems technology come together to solve an important business objective - providing an efficient and effective means to interact with a company's customers. For the last several years, Don's research, client work, and writing has been increasingly focused on the emerging field of unified communications. Several years ago, he and Marty Parker, a colleague from early voice messaging days, began working together on these issues. In 2007 they created UniComm Consulting, an independent consulting firm to concentrate on helping enterprises to understand the potential for UC in their business, develop strategies appropriate to their goals and opportunities, identify specific applications and associated ROI, help identify supplier partners, and assist with implementation, including project management, change leadership, and metrics. In addition to his client projects through Vanguard and UniComm Consulting, Don writes articles and columns and speaks frequently at industry conferences on these subjects. Don has an undergraduate degree from Yale University and an MBA from the University of Michigan. Contact Don at dvandoren@unicommconsulting.com.
Fixed mobile convergence is coming, but different implementations are being proposed. Some combine Wi-Fi and cellular and transparently hand-off calls between the two environments, while others depend solely on cellular service. Most implementations have employed servers that are under the control of the enterprise, but some cellular carriers are introducing network-based FMC services. In the current economic environment, any investment is subject to close scrutiny, but an FMC deployment has the potential to pay for itself in reduced cellular charges. This session will present four versions of FMC so you can see the widest range of technical options and associated business cases, and give you a better understanding of the most cost-effective way to bind your wired and wireless connectivity more closely together, as well as the business case for doing so. KEY QUESTIONS * Does FMC need a Wi-Fi component? * Which versions of FMC enable you to reduce cellular costs? * What are the advantages of packaging an FMC solution in an IP-PBX, adjunct server, or network service? * What management and support issues will need to be addressed in the FMC solution? * Will the user interface be fully transparent, and if not, will this be a barrier to adoption?
Luc Roy has more than 20 years of data networking and wireless experience in the areas product planning, product management, product marketing, network design and go to market strategies. He joined Enterasys from Siemens Enterprise Communications as part of the company structure. Past working experience includes Extreme Networks, Greenfield Networks, Alidian Networks, Nortel Networks, Bay Networks and Wellfleet Communications. Luc is a graduate of Ottawa University where he earned a degree in computer science. He has served on the ITU's SC-6 (sub-committee for OSI's CLNP routing protocol) and currently participates in the IETF, IEEE 802.11 and the WiFi Alliance. He is an experience speaker and presenter.
As Leader of the Nortel Enterprise Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) portfolio, Christine McKenna is responsible for aligning and integrating high value FMC into the overall Nortel Mobile UC solution, across the Nortel Enterprise Voice Business portfolio. Leveraging over 20 years experience in the global communication industry, McKenna has accountability to drive Enterprise business momentum and revenue enabled by FMC mobility.
Speaker - Dan Jacobson, Product Development, Sprint
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 Wireless Integration, a product which extends the PBX 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.
Speaker - Sean McManus, Manager, Voice Solutions, Research In Motion
Sean McManus is a Manager for Voice Solutions, Platform Product Management at Research In Motion (RIM), makers of the BlackBerry® smartphone. Sean is responsible for articulating RIM's Enterprise Voice Strategy to large global accounts. Sean has over 18 years experience selling and marketing advanced voice solutions, including call centres, unified messaging, IP Telephony and IVR. Prior to joining RIM, Sean worked at IBM Global Services and a number of private firms in the voice and telecom industry.
Michael Finneran, Principal of dBrn Associates, Inc. is an independent consultant and industry analyst specializing in wireless technologies, mobile unified communications, and fixed-mobile convergence. With over 30-years in the networking field, his expertise spans the full range of wireless technologies including Wi-Fi, 3G/4G Cellular, WiMAX, and RFID. A lively and informative speaker, Mr. Finneran has appeared at hundreds of trade shows and industry conferences including VoiceCon, InterOp, and the Mobile Business Expo. In the consulting area, he has provided assistance to carriers, equipment vendors, end users, and investment firms in the US and overseas. A long time columnist for Business Communications Review, he now contributes regularly to NoJitter and UC Strategies. Well respected as an educator, Mr. Finneran has conducted over 2000 seminars on networking topics in the US, Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. His programs are offered through Telecom+UC Training. A long-time member of the IEEE and the Society of Telecommunications Consultants, Mr. Finneran holds a Masters Degree from the J. L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.
The demise of the desk phone has been predicted for several years now, but there's little evidence even of much of a decline in desk phone deployments. Will the economic downturn bring 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 UC 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/UC portals go more mainstream?
Stephen Leaden is founder and President of Leaden Associates, Inc., an independent Telecommunications IT consulting firm providing specialized support in Telecommunications technologies and ROI strategies. Mr. Leaden has been in the Telecommunications field over 25 years, with 17 of those with his own firm. Clients include recognized enterprise clients in healthcare/education, manufacturing, financial services, publishing, and government vertical market segments. Mr. Leaden's firm focuses as an extension of IT staff to facilitate the design, procurement, project implementation, and outsourcing for converged voice and data solutions. During their engagement, Leaden Associates proactively adds value via ROI strategies integrated into the projects they serve on. Mr. Leaden's practice has focused on Voice over IP and key market trends in this area - he has spoken at national and International conferences on VoIP, has written several papers on VoIP strategies, troubleshooting and security, and has been quoted in national industry publications including NoJitter, BCR Magazine, Computer World, Information Week, and the Washington Post among others. Mr. Leaden is on the faculty of Telecom+UC Training (a spin-off of BCR Training) and teaches two courses: "Cost Control of Wired and Wireless Networks: Best Practices and "Optimizing Enterprise Networks". Mr. Leaden is Past President and member of the Society of Telecommunications Consultants, a national Telecommunications association that requires objectivity and professionalism as a prerequisite for membership. Mr. Leaden's degree is from Marist College, Poughkeepsie, New York.
Panelist - Bernard Gutnick, Senior Director - Product Marketing, ShoreTel
Bernard Gutnick is senior director of product marketing for ShoreTel Inc, a leading provider of all IP based office communication solutions best know for lowest total cost of ownership, ease of use and highest customer satisfaction rating. Bernard has been in the communications industry since 1986, and has held senior positions in marketing and development at TerreStar Networks, Sylantro Systems, Aspect Communications, Octel Communication, and Nortel. He holds a graduate degree in business from the University of Western Ontario, in London Canada.
Allan is the Senior Marketing Manager for Unified Communications at Avaya. While he resides in Canada, his effectiveness in his global role is a testament to the application of Unified Communications solutions. His marketing, product management, and business development career has spanned 20+ years dealing with the planning and application of voice, data, and information systems to support the needs of business with particular focus on employee productivity and customer service. His applications focus has included: unified communications, messaging, IVR, contact center, CTI, voice over IP, and remote data access. Prior to joining Avaya (via Octel and Lucent) in 1998, Allan led marketing and business development teams at two mid sized organizations entering new stages of growth, which followed his applications marketing tenure at Nortel. Allan holds an MBA in Information Systems (McMaster University) and an Honors BA in Economics and Psychology (York University).
Panelist - Patrick Ferriter, Senior Director, Product Management, Polycom
Patrick joined Polycom in 2006 as the senior director of Product Management. In this role, Ferriter is responsible for driving the evolution of VoIP phones today to the UC endpoints of tomorrow. Ferriter has been in the VoIP industry for more than 10 years with recent past experience as vice president of Product Management and co-founder of Zultys Technologies. Ferriter has also held senior technical roles at CopperCom and Spirent Communications. He holds a BSEE degree from Purdue University.
Panelist - Ed Ashley, Product Manager, NEC Unified Solutions
Ed Ashley, Product Line Manager for NEC's IP telephony and voice over IP solutions, has been with NEC since 1991. In his role, Ed manages all aspects of multiple IP product lines, including IP terminals, digital signage, mobile client, softphones and video conferencing. Ed brings strong knowledge and management skills in IP communications and was integral in the launch of NEC's first IP telephone and SP30 softphone lines, which are now standard-issue with all of NEC's IP enterprise telephony solutions.
Aastra Telecom John Drolet as Vice President Sales U.S. Aastra is a multi national corporation selling products within the communications industry. Aastra is a public company traded in Canada (AAH:TO). Mr. Drolet has over 24 years experience in the Telecommunications industry. His experiences range from helping to run a $23 million dollar Interconnect in New England (USTeleCenters) to having worked for several IP telephony manufacturers including NBX acquired by 3com Corporation, Citel Technologies and Ascendent systems acquired by RIM. As Aastra's VP of Sales in the U.S. he is leading the sales effort for Aastra's Telecom division. The division produces Aastra's legacy Centrex and Analog Products, Aastra's full compliment of SIP based IP telephones and mobility solutions, as well as all small business IP PBX systems. Aastra sells these products through major LEC Carriers, VoIP Service Providers and through Authorized Distributors who sell on to Value Added Resellers of all kinds.
As you implement voice and/or video on your legacy data LANs and WAN, and as you scale that implementation, the challenge of delivering acceptable quality and sufficient security becomes more complex. And these challenges intensify as you attempt to serve all your users in all your locations and in all of the users' locations. This session will give you a detailed understanding of the technical problems you can encounter, the steps to take to overcome them, and the specific technologies and practices that are required to make voice and video run over a data network. KEY QUESTIONS: * What is required to deliver adequate quality of service (QOS) for voice and video on an IP network that previously handled only data? Can you run VOIP or video over the Internet with acceptable QOS/quality of experience (QOE)? * How do you implement security on this upgraded data network? * How do you extend your upgrade across the WAN? * How do you extend your upgrade to serve mobile workers?
Speaker - Manfred Arndt, HP Distinguished Technologist - Convergence, HP ProCurve
Manfred Arndt is a Distinguished Technologist and the Convergence Solutions Architect for HP ProCurve Networking. He is responsible for architecting IP telephony and multimedia capabilities in HP ProCurve's networking products. 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.
Speaker - Harpreet Chadha, Sen Dir of Prod Manag, Extreme Networks
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 (later acquired by OPNET) and storage systems at Alphatronix Inc (later acquired by Auspex). Chadha graduated from IIT Roorkee, India, and holds a Masters Degree and Doctorate from North Carolina State University.
John Bartlett John Bartlett is a leading authority on real-time traffic, application performance and Quality of Service (QoS) techniques. He specializes in helping enterprises manage voice, video and data application performance. Recent work has focused on designing global networks to best support video conferencing and telepresence systems. John has engaged with over 50 enterprises and over 20 network vendors to analyze network performance problems, design network solutions, and support network deployments. John has 30 years of experience in the semiconductor, computer and communications fields in marketing, sales, engineering, manufacturing and consulting roles. He has contributed to microprocessor, computer and network equipment design for over 40 products. He has been consulting since 1996. Prior to working as a consultant, John was a founder and VP of Engineering and Manufacturing at Agile Networks, now part of Lucent Technologies. Under his leadership, the company designed and built a high performance Ethernet switch implementing VLANs, and one of the first commercial ATM switches. Both products were successfully introduced to the market and the firm became profitable before it was acquired. Mr. Bartlett also served on the IEEE 802.1 committee during this period, and contributed to the development of the IEEE 802.1P and IEEE 802.1Q standards (priority and VLANs.) He previously worked for 9 years at Encore Computer, Corp. in engineering and engineering management positions designing networking equipment and large scale multiprocessor systems. At the end of this time Mr. Bartlett was managing 70 engineers across 2 geographic sites. John is a graduate of Dartmouth College, and Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering, where he received the Dartmouth Society of Engineers Annual Prize for the quality of his thesis presentation. John is co-owner of a patent in shared memory multiprocessor design.
Speaker - Paul Liesenberg, Enterprise Architecture Technology Manager, Cisco
Paul Liesenberg is an Enterprise Architecture and Technology Manager for Cisco, where he develops methodologies that optimally align next-generation infrastructures and overarching business processes. Prior to Cisco, Paul was VP of Strategic Marketing for ZettaCom and Bivio Networks. Previously, Paul was with Cisco through the acquisition of StrataCom, and earlier worked in Nortel's Data Networks Division and Siemens' Public Networks' R&D division. He holds two patents in the area of VoIP and holds an M.Sc. from TUM (Technische Universitaet Muenchen).
Many large enterprises would like to begin migrating from PRIs to IP/SIP trunks, because the potential savings could be very significant. But these services are not ubiquitously available, and interoperability issues still exist. So when will you be able to adopt SIP trunks across your enterprise, and how will they affect your services costs and operational expenses? This session will help you get answers. KEY QUESTIONS: * What is the true status of SIP trunk availability? Who are the leading providers? * How do the costs of SIP trunk services compare with PRIs? * What interoperability issues remain and what is being done to overcome them? * How will SIP trunk implementation affect other issues in your IP Telephony deployment such as security and quality of service?
Rupesh Chokshi has Product Management responsibilities in AT&T's Business Voice over IP (VoIP) Product Marketing Management organization. Mr. Chokshi's primary focus is to bring new technology and emerging services and capabilities to the market place to meet Customer needs. 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 VoIP, Voice, IP Data, VPN, and Wireless Technologies. Mr. Chokshi began his career with AT&T Labs in 1997 where he developed simulation models and operational support systems for Contact Centers. Mr. Chokshi holds a M.S. in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Clemson University, South Carolina and BS in Engineering from S.P. University Gujarat, India.
Panelist - Alan Percy, Director, Market Development, AudioCodes
Mr. Percy is Director of Market Development at AudioCodes, a leading provider of Voice over IP Telephony 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.
Panelist - Jim Tyrrell, Vice President of Global Business Voice Solutions, Verizon Business
Jim Tyrrell is vice president of marketing for Verizon's Global Business Voice Solutions. In this role, Tyrrell oversees the worldwide marketing vision, strategy, and product development behind Verizon's advanced voice services, including the company's award winning Voice over IP portfolio, Contact Center Services, Core & Wholesale Voice, Conferencing, and Unified Communications and Collaboration product portfolios. Previously, he served as vice president of Business Voice Products in Product Management and Development, and also as executive director of Advanced Voice Services in Product Management. Tyrrell's vast experience in the communications field comes from nearly 20 years in the industry before joining Verizon (formerly MCI) in February 2004. His varied background includes strategic modeling, market analysis, sales management, and product marketing and management. Prior to joining Verizon, Tyrrell held positions of greater responsibility at XO Communications between 2000 — 2004. He served as Director of Product Management - Data & Security Services, having previously worked as Director of Strategic Marketing Services. In these positions, Tyrrell handled strategic management across Dedicated Internet Access, Private Line, Ethernet Services Multi-Transport Networking Services and Managed Security products. He also led a project team who managed complex bid responses across many of the company's business units. From 1986 to 2000, Tyrrell was with AT&T in several management positions having risen to positions of greater success culminating with District Manager of Dedicated Local Offer Management. Tyrrell holds Bachelor of Arts in Computer Science and in Statistics as well as a Masters in Business Administration, both from the State University of New York, University at Buffalo. He lives in Virginia with his wife and three children where his interests include sports and technology.
Panelist - Jim Koniecki, UC Solutions Manager, Dimension Data
Jim Koniecki is a UC Solutions Manager with the Dimension Data Converged Communications Practice. Jim, has over 12 years of experience architecting, designing, and implementing enterprise and service provider solutions. Jim has earned the respect and admiration of clients and co-workers for his unique ability to demystify and apply technology in a meaningful way. His technical aptitude, business acumen, and strong communications skills - combined with his deep experience designing, running, and operating mission critical enterprise networks - make Jim a valuable asset to Dimension Data customers. Jim's areas of focus include, architecture and implementation of Unified Communication solutions for medium size and enterprise class organizations. In addition, he creates design specifications for corporate authority and adoption. He has advanced knowledge and experience deploying converged technologies, including Network Assessment & Design Reviews, SIP Trunking, Collaboration & Convergence technologies, IP Telephony Design & Implementations, Remote site/Teleworker integration, Presence, IM & Federations, Video integration, Wireless Voice over IP, Unified Messaging, Network Troubleshooting for IP Voice, and Video & QoS.
Moderator - David Rohde, Senior Consultant, TechCaliber Consulting, LLC
David Rohde is a Senior Consultant with TechCaliber Consulting, LLC ("TC2"), a provider of telecommunications benchmarking and procurement services to national and global enterprises. David has broad experience in analysis of carrier enterprise services and telecom industry structure. He has been a research analyst at the Yankee Group, a writer and columnist for Network World, and tariff analyst for the Center for Communications Management Information. At TC2 he has assisted retailers, hospitality companies, financial institutions and others particularly in the procurement and migration of multimillion-dollar enterprise data networks across a range of MPLS, frame/ATM and Internet solutions. David also specializes in analysis of the financial position of national and global carriers with regard to their financial stability and capability to invest in areas of network deployment that are most important to enterprise users. David is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and authors the "TC2's David Rohde on Telecom" blog.
Come to talk about your UC decisions and name names: If you're a Cisco IP-PBX shop, should Cisco be your UC vendor? If you're running Microsoft Exchange, does that make OCS inevitable? Can you adopt a policy of multi-sourcing? Is "best of breed" a strategy to be shunned or embraced?
OK, social networks are everywhere, but are they useful for your business? Come and share your thoughts about applying social networking to your enterprise - and what it takes to make it successful. How does it integrate with communications? Are you ahead of the game or are you missing out?
Come prepared to talk about whether and how you believe FMC makes sense for your enterprise. What are - or have been - the challenges of actually making it work?
Does Microsoft Office Communications Server Release 2 represent a major step forward for Microsoft in terms of supporting voice functionality that approaches the level we expect from legacy PBXs? Does OCS R2 perform up to enterprise levels of expectations? And how do other vendors' UC capabilities stack up to OCS's? In this session, a representative of a leading test lab will let you in on their latest findings. KEY QUESTIONS: * Does OCS Release 2 support a critical mass of traditional telephony features, and does it do so as well as legacy platforms? * Can OCS support mission-critical telephony needs at scale? * How do competing vendors' UC interfaces and applications compare with those of desktop vendors like Microsoft? * What areas of performance and feature/functionality should buyers pay the most attention to when evaluating whether vendor UC products work as advertised?
Rob is Chairman and CEO of Miercom, the nation's leading network product testing organization with 20 years service to the industry. Headquartered in central New Jersey, Miercom has field offices in San Mateo, CA and Research Triangle Park, NC. With two decades of experience, Rob is masterful in the testing and competitive positioning of network products. Rob is a frequent speaker at industry events, including VoiceCon, Networld + Interop and other trade shows. His organization is the test lab for Network World Magazine (VoIP, Storage and Disaster Recovery). Miercom also is the premier test lab for Business Communications review, featuring test reviews in BCR's NoJitter online publication. As CEO, Rob directs the course of Miercom's new business development and oversees the company's involvement in key areas of emerging industries including voice-over-IP, security and business continuance. Rob has an electrical engineering degree from Lehigh University and he serves as a reserve officer for U.S. Army Civil Affairs, Military Police and Engineer Corp. Rob spent three years deployed in Iraq and other places around the world helping fight the global war on terrorism. He also spent two years conducting vulnerability assessments of military installations throughout the nation and conducted anti-terrorism training for a number of those facilities. Leveraging his practical expertise in assessing products and conducting risk assessments, Rob takes a bottom-line approach to helping clients find best-in-class solutions to problems and protecting their infrastructures. He offers strategic consulting for companies wishing to build fault tolerant, state-of-the art networks.
Is communications security simply about attackers hacking into IP-PBXs or bringing down converged networks with denial of service attacks? Or—given the expansive nature of Unified Communications and the importance of mobility—do you need to re-assess security in a broader context? In this session, we'll look at risk assessment for the range of communications systems your users currently employ, as well as the issues that you'll likely need to be prepared for in the future. You'll come away with an understanding of how to attack the problem of security, what to prioritize and how to actually make your communications more secure. KEY QUESTIONS: * What are the most serious voice-oriented attacks that are actually being carried out today? What potential attacks are likely to occur before long? * How much of your security budget should focus on purely VOIP network elements as opposed to other infrastructure components - e.g., switches and routers? * If your users run enterprise software on their mobile devices, how do you secure these systems, and prevent them from being avenues of attack into the network? * What social engineering attacks should you be most concerned about? * What types of equipment and technologies must you implement to stop voice-oriented attacks?
Mark Collier is the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Vice President of Engineering for SecureLogix Corporation. Mr. Collier is responsible for SecureLogix's technology direction and research/development. Mark manages the development of SecureLogix's Enterprise Telephony Management (ETM) System product line. Mark also manages the development of SecureLogix's various security service offerings. Mr. Collier is actively performing research in the area of Voice Over IP (VoIP) security. This includes development of custom security assessment tools. Mark leads SecureLogix's VoIP security assessments and is an expert on issues facing enterprises during their VoIP deployments. Mr. Collier has recently authored the Hacking Exposed: VoIP book, which describes actual attacks, use of existing and new tools, and practical countermeasures. See www.hackingvoip.com for more information about this book. All of the custom tools developed for the book are also available on this website. Mr. Collier has been working in the industry for over 20 years, with the past 10 in security, telecommunications, and networking. Mark is a frequent author and presenter on the topic of voice and VoIP security. Mark is a founding member of the Voice Over IP Security Alliance (VoIPSA). Mark has been named one of the most influential people in VoIP and maintains a widely read blog at www.voipsecurityblog.com. Mr. Collier was formerly with Southwest Research Institute, where he directed research in the areas of security and Information Warfare/Operations. Mr. Collier holds a BS degree from St. Mary's University.
In the first generation of IP Telephony, the "voice" and "data" folks had to figure out new ways of working together to send voice over the "data" network. With Unified Communications, many more stakeholders become involved: Applications developers, datacenter managers, staff in charge of directories and email, just to name a few. In this session, you'll hear from enterprise executives who have confronted the organizational challenges of both IPT and UC. KEY QUESTIONS: * When and why do you need to consider a change in organization or internal governance? When a change is needed, how does it get put together and by whom? * Do you need a UC or convergence "champion" or "czar" to coordinate the organizational transition? * What processes are needed to open and maintain the lines of communications among voice, data network, applications developers and messaging/email IT specialists?
Panelist - Todd Bourassa, Director Network Services, UnitedHealth Group
Todd Bourassa, Director Network Services for UnitedHealth Group, is responsible for the company's Unified Communications Services including IP Telephony and VoIP infrastructure. Todd joined UnitedHealth Group in 2004 to lead the company's strategic in-sourcing and converged services initiatives. He has a bachelor's degree from St. Mary's College, Minnesota and over 24 years experience in the telecommunications industry including 16 years with MCI, Inc, where he held management positions in engineer and operations.
Gary Audin has more than 40 years of computer, communications and security experience. He has planned, designed, specified, implemented and operated data, LAN and telephone networks, and VoIP and IP converged networks all around the world, and he advises venture capital and investment bankers in communications technologies.
Enterprises continue to grapple with implementing Quality of Service (QOS), especially for real-time applications over the wide area. But just as important is the less tangible concern that's come to be known as Quality of Experience. In this session, you'll learn what you'll have to do to ensure that wide-area voice traffic metrics meet network-level QOS requirements, and you'll also learn what the elements of QOE are, and how you understand whether your users are receiving acceptable QOE. KEY QUESTIONS: * What's the best way to guarantee that real-time multimedia traffic will get the treatment it requires in order to sound best—especially when traversing the WAN? * What are the concrete metrics you should use to determine whether your end users are actually getting acceptable-quality voice? * How is QOE defined, and how do you measure compliance with QOE thresholds? * Will voice continue to receive exclusive treatment as the highest QOS-priority application, even if video becomes more widely deployed and frequently used?
John Bartlett John Bartlett is a leading authority on real-time traffic, application performance and Quality of Service (QoS) techniques. He specializes in helping enterprises manage voice, video and data application performance. Recent work has focused on designing global networks to best support video conferencing and telepresence systems. John has engaged with over 50 enterprises and over 20 network vendors to analyze network performance problems, design network solutions, and support network deployments. John has 30 years of experience in the semiconductor, computer and communications fields in marketing, sales, engineering, manufacturing and consulting roles. He has contributed to microprocessor, computer and network equipment design for over 40 products. He has been consulting since 1996. Prior to working as a consultant, John was a founder and VP of Engineering and Manufacturing at Agile Networks, now part of Lucent Technologies. Under his leadership, the company designed and built a high performance Ethernet switch implementing VLANs, and one of the first commercial ATM switches. Both products were successfully introduced to the market and the firm became profitable before it was acquired. Mr. Bartlett also served on the IEEE 802.1 committee during this period, and contributed to the development of the IEEE 802.1P and IEEE 802.1Q standards (priority and VLANs.) He previously worked for 9 years at Encore Computer, Corp. in engineering and engineering management positions designing networking equipment and large scale multiprocessor systems. At the end of this time Mr. Bartlett was managing 70 engineers across 2 geographic sites. John is a graduate of Dartmouth College, and Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering, where he received the Dartmouth Society of Engineers Annual Prize for the quality of his thesis presentation. John is co-owner of a patent in shared memory multiprocessor design.
Dr Mike Hollier is a technical and commercial pioneer in perceptual engineering. Between 1990 and 1999 he directed BT's research into audio, video and multi-media performance assessment. His PhD was gained from the University of Essex for his work on using models of human hearing to predict speech quality; contributing to the ITU-T PESQ standard. During 2000 Mike lead the incubation of Psytechnics Ltd and left BT to become the CEO. While CEO he managed the company's formation and early growth, raising further VC finance during the technology sector crash. This feat attracted a National Business Award in October 2002. Since October 2002 Mike has been the CTO acting as a market evangelist, working on business development and overseeing the R&D of a new generation of voice and video products. Product innovations embrace the latest IPT/VoIP solutions, video-conferencing and fixed-mobile-convergence to dovetail with the evolution of unified communications in the workplace. Dr Hollier is a Chartered Engineer, twice winner of the Alan Rudge Award for Innovation, a fellow of the University of Essex and member of the AES.
Panelist - Jeff Hicks, Principal Technical Staff, Office of the CTO, NetQoS, Inc.
As Principal Technical Staff in the Office of the CTO, Jeff Hicks helps guide product strategy and development for the NetQoS Performance Center and its suite of network performance management product modules. He was formerly a Software Architect for NetQoS, where he led the development of the company's Unified Communications Monitor product (formerly VoIP Monitor). For the last nine years, Jeff has been architecting and designing software products to help enterprises and managed service providers deploy, secure, and manage VoIP solutions. Jeff is a VoIP technology expert and co-authored the book, "Taking Charge of Your VoIP Project," published by Cisco Press, which provides strategies and guidelines for successful VoIP deployments. He has published numerous articles about VoIP and is a sought-after speaker on the subject. Prior to NetQoS, Jeff led the development of Ganymede Software's award-winning Chariot product and developed innovative network communications technology at IBM. Jeff holds a bachelor of science degree in computer engineering from Auburn University and a master of engineering degree 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 UC in a difficult economic climate, they're trying even more different pricing strategies. In this session, we'll look at the range of pricing and licensing issues across communications capabilities—from basic IP-PBXs to UC 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 UC application licenses in order to get the IP-PBX sale—or vice versa?
DOUGLAS CAROLUS, MBA 612.437.1477 dcarolus@ncompass-inc.com Mr. Carolus is currently Director of Consulting Services and Operations at N'compass Solutions in Minneapolis, Minnesota. With 20+ years in the communications technology industry, Mr. Carolus previously managed PlanNet Consulting's Communication Technologies Practices and has held technical and sales management positions with AT&T and Lucent Technologies. Mr. Carolus has extensive enterprise-based communications technology experience and has worked on a wide variety of complex engagements with clients such as Target Corporation, Best Buy, Tennessee Valley Authority, City of Pasadena, Medtronic, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, US Bank, and Clark County Government, Nevada. His professional experience covers a wide range of enterprise communication services and technologies which include: Consulting Services - ?Strategic Technology Planning, Feasibility Studies, and Assessments ?Acquisition: "Go to Market" Specifications (RFx), Evaluations, and Contract Negotiation ?Implementation Management and Oversight Technology Focus - ?Enterprise-class IP Telephony Systems and Unified Communications ?Voice and Unified Messaging ?ACD/Call Center ?Communications infrastructure; structured cabling and technology spaces He has presented on the subject "IP Telephony and UC Pricing and Software Licensing Models" at VoiceCon in 2006 - 2009, as well as spoken at ACUTA, IPComm, and Voice Report webcasts. Mr. Carolus' academic training includes undergraduate studies in Business Administration from the University of Texas and an MBA from University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business. He currently resides in Eagan, Minnesota with his spouse Dr. Lorene Jabola and has two wonderful children, Isaac and Khara, who are currently attending colleges on the east coast.
It seems as if the whole IT industry has 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 - Kristin Cole, AT&T
Panelist - Steven Hardy, Dir of Product Mktg, Avaya
Steve Hardy, is Director of Product Marketing for Avaya's Unified Communication Business Unit.. He is responsible for driving product and solutions marketing planning and execution in support of Avaya's core telephony and unified communications applications. Since joining Avaya in January 2006, Steve has overseen the global product marketing team for core telephony and appliances driving launch and ongoing marketing activities for Avaya's core business. Prior to Avaya, Steve spent 6 years leading global and regional product marketing activities at Intel Corporation in the US and EMEA, with accomplishments across service provider infrastructure though small business networking businesses. Prior to Intel, Steve held product marketing and product line management responsibilities at 3Com and Sun Microsystems (UK).
Panelist - Christopher Kimm, Vice President of Solutions Engineering, Verizon Business
Chris Kimm is Vice President of Solutions Engineering at Verizon Business and is responsible for strategically aligning the company's capabilities with the world's largest multinational businesses to help them operate more effectively globally. Previously, Kimm was Director, Technical Consulting Services at MCI, where he led a team of technical experts on key areas of focus, including IP Networking, Voice over IP and Unified Communications and Security Solutions. Kimm, since joining the company in February 1997 as a Senior Engineer with UUNET, has focused on major customer opportunities and often operates in the overlapping worlds of Engineering, Product Marketing and Sales.
Panelist - Bethann Cregg, Director, Lotus Online Collaboration Services, IBM
Bethann Cregg Director, Product Management, Lotus Software Bethann Cregg currently serves as director of marketing and product management for the Lotus Online Collaboration group in IBM Software, responsible for delivering SaaS offerings in the www.LotusLive.com portfolio to market. Prior to her current role, Cregg held various positions including overall product management responsibility for SMB products in the Lotus software division as well as product marketing and program execution for Lotus Sametime, a family of products for real-time communication and collaboration and Lotus QuickPlace, the self-service Web tool for instant collaboration. Earlier in her IBM career managed the Lotus Enterprise Support Services organization where she managed a team of 20 Support Account Managers responsible for Lotus' major corporate accounts.
Mike Bergelson is responsible for developing long term product and business model strategy for Cisco's Voice Technology Group. Prior to this role, he managed Cisco's suite of customer care applications. Mr. Bergelson joined Cisco in June 2006 with the acquisition of Audium, where he was a co-founder and the Chief Executive Officer. He was also co-founder and CEO of Conducive, an online advertising firm. Prior to Audium and Conducive, Mr. Bergelson was with First Manhattan Consulting Group where he advised clients on customer contact strategies, customer profitability and product development.
Moderator - Zeus Kerravala, SVP Enterprise Research, The Yankee Group
Zeus Kerravala, senior vice president, leads Yankee Group's Global Enterprise and Consumer Research Kerravala's team analyzes the impact of connectivity transformation on the Anywhere Consumer and the Anywhere Enterprise, and probes the changes to behaviors, motivations and technologies that result. Kerravala manages the research and consulting agenda that enables clients to meet the demands of the global connectivity revolution. Kerravala's expertise involves working with customers to solve their business issues through the deployment of infrastructure technology. Before Yankee Group, Kerravala was a senior engineer and technical project manager for Greenwich Technology Partners, a leading infrastructure consulting firm. Earlier, he was the vice president of IT for Ferris, Baker Watts, a mid-Atlantic brokerage firm, deploying corporate-wide technical solutions to support the firm's business units. Kerravala was also an engineer and technical project manager for Alex. Brown & Sons, where he was responsible for the technology related to the equity trading desks. Kerravala holds a B.S. degree in physics and mathematics from the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada.
Moderator - Eric Krapf, Co-chair, VoiceCon, Editor/Lead Blogger, No Jitter
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, CMP Media'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.
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" UC, while growing, remain relatively small in number. There is still considerable confusion in the market about what UC is and what it isn't. And there are tough issues like interoperability that inhibit wider adoption and deployment. A tough economy doesn't help matters either. This VoiceCon Summit will take examine the UC 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 UC with their existing network design and procurement procedures, network operations and organizations?
Panelist - Mark Straton, Senior Vice President, Global Marketing, Siemens Enterprise Communications
Mark Straton is senior vice president of enterprise systems marketing at Siemens Enterprise Communications, Inc. In this position, Straton has worldwide responsibility for determining the direction of marketing and strategy for the company's global alliance, indirect channel and product marketing activities. Straton's mandate is to position Siemens as the global leader in open communications solutions. Prior to this, he served as senior vice president of marketing at Siemens Enterprise Communications in the United States from October 2004 to June 2006, with responsibility for fixed and mobile carrier networks, mobile devices and enterprise networks. Straton joined Siemens in 1984 as a member of the sales force based in Michigan and was repeatedly recognized nationally for his success in sales. He has held a wide range of management positions and can be counted among the principal architects of Siemens LifeWorks vision and the OpenScape solution. A featured speaker at numerous international industry events and conferences, Straton has penned articles for leading publications focusing on IP convergence. Straton was selected as one of the Top 100 Voices of IP Communications by the editorial team at INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine as part of their milestone 100th issue of the publication in October 2006. The committee looked back at the past nine years of growth and progress in IP communications and identified those leading voices and proponents who played an instrumental role in moving the industry forward and came up with 100 people who it felt should be counted among the Top 100 Voices. Straton is a board member for the IT Solutions Marketing Association and holds a B.A. degree in economics from the University of Michigan.
Jorge Blanco leads Avaya's management and development of its Unified Communications portfolio of products and solutions. In his eighteen years with Avaya, Jorge has led product marketing, created and executed global marketing plans for Avaya's IP Communications and Unified Communications solutions. In his previous assignment as Vice president of Solutions Marketing, Jorge was responsible for solution development and global marketing. He was the director of strategy responsible for the Company's transition to IP Communications, as well as business development activities. Jorge was also a member of Avaya's global strategy team, and supported the creation of Avaya's Solution Development Partner Program (now called Developer Connection).. Jorge started his career as an account executive with AT&T Business Communications Systems in 1990 where he worked in product management and was a national account manager in the Sales and Service Division. He is a member of the Young Global Leaders for the World Economic Forum.
Panelist - Laurent Philonenko, Vice President and General Manager, Cisco
Laurent Philonenko is vice president and general manager of the Cisco Unified Communications business unit, which provides messaging, conferencing and desktop and phone client solutions including video and mobility. His prior role at Cisco was vice president and general manager of the Customer Contact business unit, which provides multi-channel contact center and interactive voice applications to enterprises and service providers. Laurent is closely involved with Cisco's customers and channels worldwide. He is credited with fostering a culture of customer service, innovation, and quality, and is focused on advancing Cisco's business and thought leadership in unified communications. He also serves in several Cisco cross functional initiatives, and is in particular involved in Cisco's IT deployment of unified communications solutions. Prior to joining Cisco, Laurent was president and CEO of Genesys Telecommunications, a leading provider of contact center solutions, where he had previously held the roles of chief technical officer and chief operations officer. Laurent joined Genesys from Alcatel, where he was senior vice president in charge of network software solutions. Laurent's career has also encompassed sales, strategy, marketing and development positions in the IT and telecommunications industry; he has had assignments in five countries, and is currently based in San Jose, California. Laurent is a graduate in from Ecole Polytechnique in Paris and holds a masters degree in management science from Paris University.
Panelist - Eric Swift, Senior Director, Communications Server Technical Product Management, Microsoft
As senior director of product management in the Unified Communications Group at Microsoft, Eric Swift is responsible for managing customer and industry requirements, product positioning, and marketing strategies for the next generation of Microsoft Unified Communications products and services, including Microsoft Office Communicator, Microsoft Office Communications Server, and Microsoft RoundTable. Swift has been with Microsoft for eight years. Previous to his current position with the Unified Communications Group, he was director of product management in Microsoft's Application Platform group. Prior to joining Microsoft, Swift held vice president positions at enterprise application integration and CRM software vendors where responsibilities included product management, CRM and Data Warehouse implementations, and technical support operations. Swift has an MBA from Columbia University in New York, NY.
Panelist - Phil Edholm, Chief Technologist, Nortel
Phil Edholm is the Chief Technology and Strategy Officer for Nortel's Enterprise Solutions group. Leveraging his experience as a technology leader across Nortel enterprise line of data and voice networking products, Phil focuses on the Nortel Enterprise Portfolio. In this role, he is responsible for defining the vision and strategic directions in the enterprise business. He also is responsible for technology strategy, standards, and advanced research. In this role he & his team drive the technologies and architectures across the Nortel Enterprise portfolio delivering systems value & capability. At Nortel, Phil has led the development of VoIP solutions and multimedia communications as well as IP transport technology. Phil's background includes extensive LAN and data communications experience, including 9 years with Sytek/Hughes LAN Systems and 4 years with Silicon Valley start-ups. Phil was a member of the IEEE 802.3 standards committee during the definition of broadband Ethernet and 10BaseT, developed the first multi-protocol network interfaces, and was a founder of the Frame Relay Forum. He has been a featured speaker at many international conferences and is recognized as an industry visionary and leader of the convergence transformation. In 2007, he has been recognized by Frost and Sullivan with a Lifetime Achievement Award for Growth and Innovation Leadership. Phil is a widely sought speaker at global conferences and has been in the VoiceCon Great Debate three times. Phil has been recognized by the IEEE as the originator of "Edholm's Law of Bandwidth" as published in July 2004 IEEE Spectrum magazine and as one of the "Top 100 Voices of IP Communications: by Internet Telephony magazine. Phil has 9 patents with 12 patent applications pending. He holds a BSME/EE from GMI/Kettering University.
Panelist - Pat Galvin, Lead Architect, IBM Sametime
Panelist - Stephen Beamish, Vice President Business Development and Marketing, Mitel
Stephen Beamish Vice-President Business Development and Marketing Mitel Stephen Beamish is responsible for communicating and evolving Mitel's corporate positioning and brand equity in the global marketplace. This includes marketing Mitel's comprehensive portfolio of small, medium, and enterprise business communications solutions that deeply integrate into customer processes creating new efficiency and productivity benefits. Stephen is also responsible for corporate business development initiatives and expanding Mitel's key strategic alliances. Prior to joining Mitel, Stephen was Director of Global Product Marketing for the Alcatel® Broadband Access Product Line. Stephen is a sought out speaker for many industry events and has published a number of business and technology white papers. He has an International MBA from the Norwegian School of Economics and holds a patent in ROI Business Modeling.
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.
Moderator - Fred Knight, GM/Co-Chair, VoiceCon, Publisher, No Jitter
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 an annual conference into a 12-month per year operation, comprising two major conferences - VoiceCon Orlando and VoiceCon San Francisco - the VoiceCon Webinar series and two e-newsletters -VoiceCon eNews and VoiceCon UC eWeekly. From 1984-2007 Fred was editor and then publisher of Business Communications Review. During that period, he covered the tumultuous changes that dramatically changed the industry. Under his stewardship, BCR received numerous awards from industry and publishing groups and associations. In December 2007, BCR magazine ceased publication and the editorial product shifted to the Web with the creation of a new website - NoJitter.com. Fred managed the organization's migration from print to electronic publishing and serves as publisher of NoJitter.com. Fred earned his BA in journalism at the University of Minnesota and has a Master's Degree in public administration from The Maxwell School, Syracuse University.
11:00 am–11:30 am
Refreshment Break sponsored by VoiceCon Virtual Events (Location: Osceola Foyer)
The VoiceCon User Forum will present enterprise executives discussing their experiences with migrating to new communications infrastructures, architectures and services. In a roundtable format, the speakers 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 the new technologies and architectures are having on end users and the IT/telecom organization.
Panelist - Joe Abate, Director of Information Systems, Mount Kisco Medical Group
Joseph Abate has been the IT Director for the Mount Kisco Medical Group for over nine years. During his tenure, the Group has more than tripled in size to over 170 physicians across 15 locations. Joe has successfully continued to grow the IT environment and infrastructure to keep it one step ahead of the Groups growth. Previously he held technical and management consulting positions in various companies including a multi-national oil company and a small computer consulting firm. He holds a bachelor's degree in Computer Science and his area of specialties include Network and Applications Management.
Panelist - Karen Bailey, VP, Voice and Communication Services Executive, Wells Fargo
Ms. Webb Bailey leads a team of Voice and Contact Center Telephony professionals in the end-to-end delivery of communication services and products. Ms. Webb Bailey combines deep technical knowledge with business acumen and broad-based communication skills. She has over twenty years of experience in Information Technology and Risk Management in a variety of roles including management, program development and execution, technical writing, consulting, and training. She is the published author of Building Cisco MultiLayer Switch Networks and was the Technical Editor for Building Cisco Remote Access Networks. Recently, Ms. Webb Bailey has transformed the Wachovia Voice and Contact Center Telephony Services team from an organization of disparate technology groups to a single service delivery organization following the guiding principles of C4, or Converge, Centralize, Consolidate and Customer First!. Prior to her role at Wachovia, Ms. Webb Bailey also served in several key initiatives at Bank of America including leading the Consumer VoIP rollout, the development and execution of risk management, compliance and governance processes for third party relationships, and the roll-out of an Optical Core Network and new Metropolitan Area Networks.. Prior to her roles at Bank of America, Ms. Webb Bailey filled a variety of leadership, training and consulting roles including leading the Information Security Engineering team for DowNET, building a market-leading technical training company, teaching CCIE curriculum classes and providing technical consulting. Ms. Webb Bailey holds a Bachelor of Science in Information Systems and is a CCIE (Certified Cisco Internetwork Expert). Past certifications held include CCSI (Cisco Certified Systems Instructor), MCNE (Master Certified Novell Engineer) and MCNI (Master Certified Novell Instructor) and CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional).
Panelist - Robert Butler, Chief Information Officer, Hay Group, Inc.
CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER SUMMARY Drive business value and performance by developing blended business and IT strategies. Create tactical solutions to enable growth and profitability. Improve service levels while reducing IT spend. Implement global technology transformations, in matrix organizations, through evangelization of business benefit of solutions and empowering users to assume greater control of local IT assets and resources. Direct worldwide IT - policies, applications, infrastructure and support. Interact with internal and external clientele and stakeholders. Build, lead, optimize and mentor global teams. Negotiate with vendors, present at board level. CAREER HISTORY Hay Group, Inc. Philadelphia, 1987 to Present Global human resources consulting firm with over 100 offices in 47 countries and 3,000 employees. Worldwide Director, Information Technology 1999 to Present Report to the Chairman / CEO. Lead 15 total direct and 47 total indirect reports. Manage $7.7 million direct and $4.2 million indirect expense and $5 million capital budgets. Create IT vision and strategy to enable company strategy. Identify new data sources and guide subject matter decisions. Direct global application development and support for core businesses. Explore new business concepts and opportunities, recommend direction to executive management and create enabling technology solutions. Implement IT organizational policy and strategy; develop budgets and plans, monitors projects and processes, while establishing priorities for departmental objectives. Ensure IT productivity, competence and customer satisfaction. Leverage emerging technologies to drive business performance.
Panelist - Conrad Cross, Chief Information Officer, City of Orlando
Conrad C. Cross Chief Information Officer City of Orlando Conrad C. Cross currently serves the City of Orlando's Technology Management Department as its Chief Information Officer. He has held several positions including Computer Operations Bureau Chief, Applications Development Bureau Chief, Systems and Networks Bureau Chief over the past 19 years. Conrad worked in the private sector as Director of Network Operations for two companies, Virtual International, Inc. and Applied Digital Communications, Inc., both providers of networking services and applications. A certified computer developer Conrad holds a management degree from the University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida. He has had many hours of training on computer, data/voice communications and management issues with various organizations such as IBM, Microsoft, and Gartner. Currently, Conrad serves on the board of directors for the Orlando chapter of the Society of Information Managers (SIM), the advisory board of the University of Central Florida's business school and Federal Computer Week CIO Summit. He has chaired the E-government Advisory Committee for the City of Orlando and served on the Mayors High Tech Advisory Committee. He was the winner of the 2001 IT Achievement Award sponsored by the Computer and Technology Showcase organization. Conrad was the recipient of the inaugural City of Orlando Mayors Leadership Award in August 2005 and in November 2008 was a finalist in the Leader of the year at the national SIM awards.
Moderator - Zeus Kerravala, SVP Enterprise Research, The Yankee Group
Zeus Kerravala, senior vice president, leads Yankee Group's Global Enterprise and Consumer Research Kerravala's team analyzes the impact of connectivity transformation on the Anywhere Consumer and the Anywhere Enterprise, and probes the changes to behaviors, motivations and technologies that result. Kerravala manages the research and consulting agenda that enables clients to meet the demands of the global connectivity revolution. Kerravala's expertise involves working with customers to solve their business issues through the deployment of infrastructure technology. Before Yankee Group, Kerravala was a senior engineer and technical project manager for Greenwich Technology Partners, a leading infrastructure consulting firm. Earlier, he was the vice president of IT for Ferris, Baker Watts, a mid-Atlantic brokerage firm, deploying corporate-wide technical solutions to support the firm's business units. Kerravala was also an engineer and technical project manager for Alex. Brown & Sons, where he was responsible for the technology related to the equity trading desks. Kerravala holds a B.S. degree in physics and mathematics from the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada.
Moderator - Eric Krapf, Co-chair, VoiceCon, Editor/Lead Blogger, No Jitter
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, CMP Media'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.
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.
John Bartlett John Bartlett is a leading authority on real-time traffic, application performance and Quality of Service (QoS) techniques. He specializes in helping enterprises manage voice, video and data application performance. Recent work has focused on designing global networks to best support video conferencing and telepresence systems. John has engaged with over 50 enterprises and over 20 network vendors to analyze network performance problems, design network solutions, and support network deployments. John has 30 years of experience in the semiconductor, computer and communications fields in marketing, sales, engineering, manufacturing and consulting roles. He has contributed to microprocessor, computer and network equipment design for over 40 products. He has been consulting since 1996. Prior to working as a consultant, John was a founder and VP of Engineering and Manufacturing at Agile Networks, now part of Lucent Technologies. Under his leadership, the company designed and built a high performance Ethernet switch implementing VLANs, and one of the first commercial ATM switches. Both products were successfully introduced to the market and the firm became profitable before it was acquired. Mr. Bartlett also served on the IEEE 802.1 committee during this period, and contributed to the development of the IEEE 802.1P and IEEE 802.1Q standards (priority and VLANs.) He previously worked for 9 years at Encore Computer, Corp. in engineering and engineering management positions designing networking equipment and large scale multiprocessor systems. At the end of this time Mr. Bartlett was managing 70 engineers across 2 geographic sites. John is a graduate of Dartmouth College, and Dartmouth's Thayer School of Engineering, where he received the Dartmouth Society of Engineers Annual Prize for the quality of his thesis presentation. John is co-owner of a patent in shared memory multiprocessor design.
Panelist - Don Van Doren, Principal, UniComm Consulting, LLC
Don Van Doren has worked for most of his professional career as a systems developer and consultant applying innovative technologies, systems, and processes to meet business goals. He is now Principal of UniComm Consulting, President of Vanguard Communications, and a co-founder of UCStrategies.com. UniComm Consulting and Vanguard Communications are each independent consulting firms focused, respectively, on unified communications (UC) and contact centers and customer interactions. UCStrategies.com is the industry web portal site for information on UC issues and developments. Vanguard's two decades of consulting work in contact centers help people, processes, and data processing and communications systems technology come together to solve an important business objective - providing an efficient and effective means to interact with a company's customers. For the last several years, Don's research, client work, and writing has been increasingly focused on the emerging field of unified communications. Several years ago, he and Marty Parker, a colleague from early voice messaging days, began working together on these issues. In 2007 they created UniComm Consulting, an independent consulting firm to concentrate on helping enterprises to understand the potential for UC in their business, develop strategies appropriate to their goals and opportunities, identify specific applications and associated ROI, help identify supplier partners, and assist with implementation, including project management, change leadership, and metrics. In addition to his client projects through Vanguard and UniComm Consulting, Don writes articles and columns and speaks frequently at industry conferences on these subjects. Don has an undergraduate degree from Yale University and an MBA from the University of Michigan. Contact Don at dvandoren@unicommconsulting.com.
Panelist - Zeus Kerravala, SVP Enterprise Research, The Yankee Group
Zeus Kerravala, senior vice president, leads Yankee Group's Global Enterprise and Consumer Research Kerravala's team analyzes the impact of connectivity transformation on the Anywhere Consumer and the Anywhere Enterprise, and probes the changes to behaviors, motivations and technologies that result. Kerravala manages the research and consulting agenda that enables clients to meet the demands of the global connectivity revolution. Kerravala's expertise involves working with customers to solve their business issues through the deployment of infrastructure technology. Before Yankee Group, Kerravala was a senior engineer and technical project manager for Greenwich Technology Partners, a leading infrastructure consulting firm. Earlier, he was the vice president of IT for Ferris, Baker Watts, a mid-Atlantic brokerage firm, deploying corporate-wide technical solutions to support the firm's business units. Kerravala was also an engineer and technical project manager for Alex. Brown & Sons, where he was responsible for the technology related to the equity trading desks. Kerravala holds a B.S. degree in physics and mathematics from the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada.
Gary Audin has more than 40 years of computer, communications and security experience. He has planned, designed, specified, implemented and operated data, LAN and telephone networks, and VoIP and IP converged networks all around the world, and he advises venture capital and investment bankers in communications technologies.
Michael Finneran, Principal of dBrn Associates, Inc. is an independent consultant and industry analyst specializing in wireless technologies, mobile unified communications, and fixed-mobile convergence. With over 30-years in the networking field, his expertise spans the full range of wireless technologies including Wi-Fi, 3G/4G Cellular, WiMAX, and RFID. A lively and informative speaker, Mr. Finneran has appeared at hundreds of trade shows and industry conferences including VoiceCon, InterOp, and the Mobile Business Expo. In the consulting area, he has provided assistance to carriers, equipment vendors, end users, and investment firms in the US and overseas. A long time columnist for Business Communications Review, he now contributes regularly to NoJitter and UC Strategies. Well respected as an educator, Mr. Finneran has conducted over 2000 seminars on networking topics in the US, Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. His programs are offered through Telecom+UC Training. A long-time member of the IEEE and the Society of Telecommunications Consultants, Mr. Finneran holds a Masters Degree from the J. L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.
Panelist - Eric Krapf, Co-chair, VoiceCon, Editor/Lead Blogger, No Jitter
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, CMP Media'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 - Fred Knight, GM/Co-Chair, VoiceCon, Publisher, No Jitter
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 an annual conference into a 12-month per year operation, comprising two major conferences - VoiceCon Orlando and VoiceCon San Francisco - the VoiceCon Webinar series and two e-newsletters -VoiceCon eNews and VoiceCon UC eWeekly. From 1984-2007 Fred was editor and then publisher of Business Communications Review. During that period, he covered the tumultuous changes that dramatically changed the industry. Under his stewardship, BCR received numerous awards from industry and publishing groups and associations. In December 2007, BCR magazine ceased publication and the editorial product shifted to the Web with the creation of a new website - NoJitter.com. Fred managed the organization's migration from print to electronic publishing and serves as publisher of NoJitter.com. Fred earned his BA in journalism at the University of Minnesota and has a Master's Degree in public administration from The Maxwell School, Syracuse University.
