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 (OCS) and IBM Lotus Sametime, two Unified Communications solutions expected to see widespread deployment. 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 and Office Communications Server, describing the unique mechanisms each uses for integrating with enterprise telephony systems. You will leave this tutorial with a thorough overview of Microsoft Office Communications Server, IBM Lotus Sametime, and a foundation to know whether to pursue 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 and collaboration, 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 and collaboration, 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.
This tutorial is designed to provide a comprehensive overview of the options available for Unified Communications (UC). It is intended for enterprise CXOs, decision makers, IT and Communications technical managers, and business managers, who are planning to install UC solutions -- either via a new UC system or by adding UC to existing PBX and email systems and business applications. The session information will be based on a template that includes the major types of UC solutions -- desktop/mobile productivity tools, audio/web/video conferencing, mobility support;, and communication-enabled business processes. The template, which will be easily adaptable to your enterprise procurements, bids and RFPs, includes: * Diagrams of the required UC software and hardware. * Estimates of the professional services required. * Estimates of the total price for each solution. 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 helping develop 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 BCR Training course, "Planning and Implementing VoIP Unified Communications."
Marty Parker provides Unified Communications consulting support to both private sector and public sector enterprises. As a Principal of UniComm Consulting and as co-founder of UCStrategies.com, Marty is part of a network of talent and ideas to assure clients of the best and latest information about Unified Communications (UC). Marty's focus is on the applications for UC and how those applications optimize business processes to deliver hard-dollar ROI. This focus is the basis for his BCR Training course, "Planning and Implementing VoIP Unified Communications"; for his articles in BCR Magazine and on NoJitter.com (see "Top UC Applications Now Apparent", June 2007); and for his on-line UC Resources Center available at UCStrategies.com. Marty is a regular moderator and presenter at InterOp, VoiceCon and in other UC industry venues. His applications and industry-oriented perspectives on UC are based on his roles in sales, marketing, product management and executive positions with IBM and ATT/Lucent/Avaya as well as with a major Telecom VAR, and as founder and CEO of venture-funded startups in the early phases of the voice messaging industry.
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).
Asif Rehman brings over 20 years of experience in the telecommunications industry in positions ranging from research and development to product management to marketing to his current role as Director, Portfolio Marketing. Asif is responsible for developing and communicating Mitel®'s Unified Communications vision and solutions to partners, customers, and the industry at large. A dynamic speaker with in-depth industry and product knowledge, he has positioned Mitel as a thought leader in the industry. Prior to Mitel, Asif held positions in the enterprise voice, carrier wireless, and hosted ASP markets. Asif holds a Bachelor of Computer Engineering from Concordia University in Montreal.
Panelist - David Leach, Senior Marketing Manager, Siemens Enterprise Communications
David has been one of the chief creative forces behind Siemens emergence as a leader in the presence-based, unified communications landscape over the past six years. Holding various positions within Siemens over the past 20 years, David has spent the last six plus years building the marketing vision and driving the success of OpenScape. Now he is focused on building broad market awareness of the benefits presence offers for business communications in the next decade.
Panelist - David Marshak, Senior Product Manager, Unified Communications & Collaboration , IBM
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 - Gary Gordon, Product Line Manager, NEC Unified Solutions, Inc.
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 - 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 strategies. Jeff has more than 15 years of experience in the communications and mobile computing marketplaces and has been with Shoretel for 8 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 - Moz Hussain, Director, Microsoft
Panelist - Sean McManus, Manager, Voice Solutions, Software Product Management Group, Research In Motion
Sean McManus is a Manager for Voice Solutions, Software 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 17 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.
Some vendors and industry experts talk about Unified Communications as if it's "the next new thing," while others say it's already a "done deal." But how big is the market today, and which vendors are emerging as the major players? In this session, a leading UC analyst will present the findings of a recent study that takes a comprehensive look at the market's size, players and prospects. KEY QUESTIONS: * Who are the principal players, and how are they positioning themselves? * What are the current and likely future patterns of adoption?e.g., by job type, mobile work, business process? * How much of the vendors' reported "UC" sales represent traditional IP-PBX and related gear versus "true" UC products that are actually being implemented as part of an enterprise UC vision? * What variables affect adoption of UC products and technologies?
Speaker - Blair Pleasant, Principal Analyst, COMMfusion LLC
Blair Pleasant is President & Principal Analyst of COMMfusion LLC and a 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. 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.
Unified Communications (UC) cuts across a wide range of media (voice, text, messaging and video), endpoints (desktop telephone instruments, PCs, mobile communications devices) and applications. As a result, the User Interface will play a critical role - it is the user's entry point into this complex environment. Today, no single vendor dominates UC, and while you might prefer to have a single user interface, that's not a viable option, at least not yet. This session will examine your options for creating smooth access and operations among the interfaces currently available. It will give you an understanding of the role intelligent signaling links play between disparate UC components. KEY QUESTIONS: * What are the realistic options available for presenting the elements of a UC solution to end users in an efficient and useful way? * What are the trade-offs associated each of the various options? * What should you look for in the signaling capabilities presented by the various vendors? * What are reasonable objectives to set for having a unified user interface?
Speaker - Allan Sulkin, President, TEQConsult Group
Allan Sulkin, president and founder of TEQConsult Group (1986), is widely recognized as the industry's foremost enterprise communications market/product analyst. He is celebrating 30 years telecommunications market experience this month and has consulted for many of the industry's leading vendors participating at VoiceCon. Sulkin has been a long time Contributing Editor to Business Communications Review and its current online incarnation No Jitter, and has served as a Program Director and featured tutorial/seminar presenter for VoiceCon since its 1991 inception. Sulkin is the author of PBX Systems for IP Telephony (McGraw-Hill Professional Publications) and writer of the PBX chapter in the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. He can be contacted at amsulkin@aol.com
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 - Brian Meek, Director of the Office Communications & Collaboration Client Group, Microsoft
Brian Meek is Director of Office Communicator Client team, where he is responsible for the client experience for the Office Communications Group, and the real-time collaboration and communication portions of Microsoft's UC strategy. Prior to joining the OCG organization, Brian lead the SharedView project, aka Mojo, an unmanaged service that brings basic collaboration tools to all IW. Further back, Brian was a technical leader in the Live Meeting product team responsible for the platform and programming model. Brian joined Microsoft through the Placeware acquisition, where he served as Principal Architect leading the effort to build a multi-tenant web conferencing service. He started his career in internet advertising, including time as the VP Engineering for Engage Media, formerly Flycast, Inc, where he lead the team that build the first performance based online advertising service. Brian has a son, Joshua, and a daughter Olivia, and is married to Melinda. Brian's hobbies include digital photography, and bicycling.
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. This session also will analyze the barriers and issues that must be overcome for UC to fulfill its potential - with a special focus on interoperability. KEY QUESTIONS: * * What are the key indications of UC adoption and market success? * What are the top UC applications in terms of actual implementation? * How much progress has been made on UC interoperability? * What changes are likely to the UC cost architecture over the next 12 months?
Appointed to the Office of the CTO in 2005, Christian Szpilfogel brings a breadth of experience in product management, research and development, and a strong business sense to his role as VP of Strategic Business. In this role, Christian is responsible for identifying new business opportunities for Mitel, managing key customer account relationships and developing the company's overall strategic technology plan.
Panelist - David Marshak, Senior Product Manager, Unified Communications & Collaboration , IBM
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).
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 six 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 - Peter Greco, Director, Solution Management, Siemens Enterprise Communications
Peter Greco: Solution Management Director - OpenScape Unified Communications Peter Greco is Solution Management Director of Unified Communications for Siemens Enterprise Communications in the US. His responsibilities include assessing the business and solution requirements of custoemrs in the US and incorporating them into Product development plans, building the business case for unified communications for customers, developing staff skills for supporting UC, and overall US product management. Mr. Greco has served a variety of roles in Sales, Service, and Marketng with Siemens, IBM, and ROLM Communications. He is a graduate of West Chester University.
Panelist - Ross Daniels, Director of Solutions Marketing for Unified Communications, 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, 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.
Moderator - Jim Burton, CXO, CT Link/UCStrategies.com
Jim Burton is Founder and CEO of CT Link, LLC. 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 (IPO 2007) and Sphere Communications (acquired by NEC). In 1998 Burton recognized the telecommunications industry was on the verge of a major shift, from circuit switch to packet switch (IP) technology and cofounded Circa Communications to develop IP phones to address the emerging market. Polycom acquired Circa in 2000. The Circa acquisition has been a major contributor to Polycom's growth during the past several years. 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.
The migration to IP Telephony requires a vision that will likely include Unified Communications. This broader view is needed to ensure that business and capex decisions that are being made now for IP Telephony will serve your organization when you add UC capabilities. This session will help you make sense of how UC "fits" into current communication budgeting and procurement activities. KEY QUESTIONS: * What are the important UC-related questions you should ask when you go into procurement for a new system? * How is the overall cost architecture -- hardware, software, professional fees, and maintenance -- changing? How will these changes affect your total cost of ownership? * What buying methodologies for IPT and UC will help you negotiate the best technology, price and service support? * What are the new Unified Communications software license fees and models; how will they affect your total cost of ownership and buying decisions?
Mr. Carolus is Director of Consulting Operations for the independent technology consulting firm, N'compass Solutions in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Prior to joining N'compass, Douglas managed PlanNet Consulting's Communications Technology practice and earlier held technical and sales management positions with AT&T and Lucent Technologies within their enterprise communication systems business units. With over 20 years of telecommunications experience, Mr. Carolus' focus has been on enterprise-based voice communications technologies supporting complex engagements with clients such as Best Buy, Broadcom Corporation, Clark County Government in Las Vegas, Nevada, Lockheed Federal Credit Union, Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, Quest Software, Target Corporation, Medtronic, and Tennessee Valley Authority. His professional experience covers a wide range of enterprise communication services and technologies which include: Services: ? Strategic Technology Planning ? Acquisition: "Go to Market" Specifications (RFx), Evaluations, and Contract Negotiation ? Implementation Management and Oversight Technologies: ? Enterprise-class TDM and IP Telephony Systems ? Voice and Unified Messaging ? Contact Centers ? Unified Communications ? Communications infrastructure; structured cabling and technology spaces Previously, he has presented on the subject "IP Telephony Pricing and Software Licensing Models" at VoiceCon from 2006 through 2008 and also spoken at other industry events such as ACUTA, IPComm, IP University, 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.
Speaker - Jason Wright, Director of Technology & Development, N'compass
Jason is the Director of Technology and Development for N'compass. He has over 17 years of IT experience with a strong record of success creating robust IT architectures and infrastructures. Prior to joining N'compass Jason was the Vice President of IT for Retek, a worldwide provider of mission-critical software and services to the retail industry, where he was responsible for the complete lifecycle of business systems and information technology. Jason provides strategic direction to Fortune 1000 clients, aligning their technology needs with solutions that reflect the priorities of the business, IT and Facilities departments. His technology expertise and industry knowledge includes LAN/WAN networks, data center infrastructure and technology, IP enterprise applications, and emerging unified communications. Jason has a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Minnesota.
How do the Unified Communications applications and capabilities of major vendor systems hold up under stress testing in the lab? Can these new systems deliver the promised benefits reliably? In this session, an expert from a leading test lab details the results of testing done on UC applications. KEY QUESTIONS: * How do the leading vendor's UC Solutions stack up? * Who offers the most reliable distributed enterprise solution? * Who offers the best UC mobility client? * Which offer complete end to end secure solutions? * Which solutions integrate best with MS OCS and IBM/Lotus SameTime?
Rob is Charmin 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 Jose, 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 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.
The good old days of "one-size-fits-all" architectures for enterprise communications are over. You have the opportunity - and the challenge - of selecting among multiple options for deploying Unified Communications: PBX-based, desktop-based, even managed/hosted-based. This session will examine the trade-offs associated with each option and give you insight into the best way to operationalize the old adage: Form follows function. KEY QUESTIONS * What are the key criteria that determine which option best fits your enterprise requirements? * Which architectural options fit with a "user-productivity" focus for UC? Which for a "business process" focus? * What are the variables affecting TOC for each of the options? * Which vendors provide which architectural options? * How are IT organizations changing based on the emerging architectures?
Marty Parker provides Unified Communications consulting support to both private sector and public sector enterprises. As a Principal of UniComm Consulting and as co-founder of UCStrategies.com, Marty is part of a network of talent and ideas to assure clients of the best and latest information about Unified Communications (UC). Marty's focus is on the applications for UC and how those applications optimize business processes to deliver hard-dollar ROI. This focus is the basis for his BCR Training course, "Planning and Implementing VoIP Unified Communications"; for his articles in BCR Magazine and on NoJitter.com (see "Top UC Applications Now Apparent", June 2007); and for his on-line UC Resources Center available at UCStrategies.com. Marty is a regular moderator and presenter at InterOp, VoiceCon and in other UC industry venues. His applications and industry-oriented perspectives on UC are based on his roles in sales, marketing, product management and executive positions with IBM and ATT/Lucent/Avaya as well as with a major Telecom VAR, and as founder and CEO of venture-funded startups in the early phases of the voice messaging industry.
Panelist - David Leach, Senior Marketing Manager, Siemens Enterprise Communications
David has been one of the chief creative forces behind Siemens emergence as a leader in the presence-based, unified communications landscape over the past six years. Holding various positions within Siemens over the past 20 years, David has spent the last six plus years building the marketing vision and driving the success of OpenScape. Now he is focused on building broad market awareness of the benefits presence offers for business communications in the next decade.
Panelist - Ross Daniels, Director of Solutions Marketing for Unified Communications, 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, 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.
Sonu Aggarwal is the CEO of UnifySquare, Inc., a leader in addressing enterprise roadmap, architecture, and deployment needs for Office Communications Server. Sonu was previously 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. He 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.
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