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Apr29
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The Butler Group has published an analysis of the current state of the Unified Communications (UC) market which may be of interest to business decision makers. Not surprisingly, the study shows that most potential UC adopters are confused about both the technology and the benefits of that technology. That would certainly explain the low rate of adoption of the budding communications concept.
 Unified communications is the integration of many different communications systems, media, devices and applications. It can include fixed and mobile voice, e-mail, instant messaging, desktop and advanced business applications, Internet Protocol (IP)-PBX, voice over IP (VoIP), voice-mail, fax, audio video and web conferencing, unified messaging, unified voicemail, and whiteboarding into a single environment offering businesses a singe integrated communications paradigm.
Butler says the marketplace is failing to understand the benefits of UC. Most feel that it is about consolidation of infrastructure, reduction of operational costs and improved levels of service quality. The study says, “Although these are useful goals, the real value afforded by unified communications and collaboration solutions ultimately arises from improvements to business processes, enhancement of stakeholder interactions, the optimization of workflow, and driving innovation in the business."
If you do not already subscribe to Butler Group publications, they offer a try-before-you-buy plan that will give you more information from this study.
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Apr28
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If your business’s Website has been hacked in recent weeks via SQL injection attacks, don’t blame Microsoft. Heck no. Not even if it’s their fault. A Microsoft manager said the following in response to questions: "Our investigation has shown that...
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Apr25
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Economic signs are being reported (here, here, here, and here) that make it look like non-mortgage-crisis industries are going to get caught up in a very generalized market turndown that only began with the mortgage and foreclosure crisis. Not surprisingly,...
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Apr24
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It would seem that Microsoft is more than a little worried about competition from the software cloud, and especially from the likes of Google. They are worried enough, in fact, that they are enlisting a relatively untested technology, application streaming,...
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Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, has announced that the Redmond software giant may be extending the life of its Windows XP operating system. This comes only a day after the company did a very fast corporate about face on whether...
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Apr23
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Let us say that you are a business traveler. You are returning from outside the U.S. On the way through customs, you are asked to turn on your laptop, then to sign onto it, and then to let the customs...
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We have talked much lately about the difficulties in which Microsoft finds itself. These difficulties are, of course, of their own making. They have become the establishment, they have become both conservative and reactionary, they have relied too long on...
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Apr22
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In a further attempt to shore up its on-line products, Microsoft is now offering a new service called Microsoft Dynamics CRM. This Customer Relationship Management offering in the burgeoning cloud computing marketplace could be seen as another attempt to get...
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There are concerns coming to the fore about the treatment of the employees of outsourcing firms. One such article can be found in Computerworld today. Some U.S. IT executives are concerned that their corporate human resources objectives are not being...
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Apr21
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A report in Business Week has finally caused me to think outside the United States box and into the rest of the software world. The report essentially notes that slow growth (or no growth) in the U.S. economy will also...
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Infoworld today confirms a truism which I have been living with for several months now. Specifically, the magazine says that the Mac is now appearing more and more often in purely business situations, as opposed to its traditional artistic, media,...
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Apr16
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.. This is the second of a two part guest post by Luís Alves, Civil Engineer (five-year university degree - Structures and Constructions, “Instituto Superior Técnico”, Lisbon - Portugal). He can be reached at luis.alves(at)netcabo.pt Part Two – Software UsedBelow, we...
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Apr15
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. This is the first of a two part guest post on structural analysis software by Luís Alves, Civil Engineer (five-year university degree - Structures and Constructions, “Instituto Superior Técnico”, Lisbon - Portugal). He can be reached at luis.alves(at)netcabo.ptPart One -...
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Although we do not believe that the Google cloud computing components are yet ready for prime time, we have discovered that there is at least one way to improve that situation: sign up to develop applications that run within the...
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Apr14
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The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Microsoft is continuing to pursue the purchase of Yahoo Inc on its own, despite having entered into talks with News Corp (the owner of the Wall Street Journal and Dow-Jones) aimed at a...
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The Gartner Group, who said a few days ago that Open Source was here to stay, has now released a report in which they describe Windows as “collapsing.” Two Gartner analysts, Michael Silver and Neil MacDonald, use that word in...
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Apr 9
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As our regular readers know, I have been using Open Office, the free Open Source replacement for Microsoft Office, for some time. This office suite of products does what it does so well, right out of the box, that I...
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There is a lot of buzz lately about computing in the clouds. Google and Microsoft are vying for position in this burgeoning field. Adobe has just thrown its hat into the ring with a version of Photoshop on the Web....
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Apr 7
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Echoing beliefs frequently voiced in this column, the Gartner Group also says that Open Source Software is the wave of the future. In a recent Gartner report, it is likely that all businesses will be using Open Source software within...
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Perhaps the load of spam at your business just got a little easier to handle. The Virginia Supreme Court recently upheld the earlier conviction of prolific spammer Jeremy Jaynes. Also upheld was his sentence of nine years in prison. Jaynes...
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Apr 3
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This column frequently hosts news and information about the Open Source movement in business software, and about the software that it produces. So we have to write about it when the precepts of Open Source take over an entire business,...
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Apr 2
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In some ways, it seems like a lot; in other ways it seems like just a little. Usually, when you say that a company’s market share has more than tripled, you will find MBAs counting significant beans. But when the...
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Apr 1
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There is a lot of industry buzz right now about Software as a Service (SaaS). We have written a number of columns about vendors who are trying to position themselves in the new (and relatively untested by the multitudes) marketplace....
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Unified communications is the integration of many different communications systems, media, devices and applications. It can include fixed and mobile voice, e-mail, instant messaging, desktop and advanced business applications, Internet Protocol (IP)-PBX, voice over IP (VoIP), voice-mail, fax, audio video and web conferencing, unified messaging, unified voicemail, and whiteboarding into a single environment offering businesses a singe integrated communications paradigm.
