VoiceCon Unified Communications eWeekly Issue 126| September 2, 2009
A Cooperative Project of VoiceCon and UC Strategies
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This issue of UC Weekly is sponsored by VoiceCon San Francisco
 
Register now and save up to $900 off the regular price for VoiceCon San Francisco to be held November 2-5, at the Moscone North Convention Center.  For more information visit [...]

Customer attention has shifted from “What is UC?” to “How do we buy and implement UC?” as seen at VoiceCon and Interop, on UCStrategies.com, and in consulting and analyst engagements. It’s hard to find a pure VoIP procurement – almost every RFP includes UC as the main theme or as a justifying application. The program for VoiceCon SF 2009 is evolving to address this with hands-on technical content.

And, as reported last December (“The Year in Review: Part 2”, ), UC case studies continue to proliferate, with over 800 cases UC cases visible. An increasing number are in the CEBP category, as the vendors provide increasingly rich APIs and their systems integration partners enable communications to optimize business processes (“CEBP Comes to Life”).

There’s no doubt that the cloud offers some important benefits, many of which McMillan describes in his post. And there’s also no question that there are successful cloud-based services that enterprises are buying and using; Salesforce.com and Amazon’s EC2 come to mind.

But when it comes to porting over enterprise communications and IT operations, it seems that the key question is whether the cloud is a long-term play or merely a response to short-term budget belt-tightening. Timeshare systems disappeared and Centrex’s enterprise market share continues to shrink because of two inter-related issues: First, cost — enterprises found that the total cost of renting exceeded the cost of ownership of IT facilities, equipment and personnel. Second, flexibility and responsiveness – the owner of the cloud determines what capabilities will go into the cloud, when upgrades will occur and when new capabilities will be added. The pace at which an enterprise’s requirements change, however, won’t always fit with the cloud owner’s investment schedule.

A Cooperative Project of VoiceCon and UC Strategies
This issue of Unified Communications eWeekly is sponsored by Interactive Intelligence:
See us at VoiceCon Orlando, Booth #935. Also plan to attend our Leading Edge-ucation Session “Beyond Cost Savings: The Real Value of VoIP,” Tuesday, March 18, Room 2, 5:15 p.m.
Interactive Intelligence was formed in 1994 and today is [...]

A Cooperative Project of VoiceCon and UC Strategies
This issue of Unified Communications eWeekly is sponsored by VoiceCon Orlando 2008:
Just added: John Chambers, Chairman and CEO, Cisco Systems, has joined the VoiceCon Orlando keynote lineup. That’s another huge reason for you to register, and you can still save up to $200 person on a team discount. [...]

A Cooperative Project of VoiceCon and UC Strategies
This issue of Unified Communications eWeekly is sponsored by VoiceCon Orlando:
VoiceCon Orlando 2008-Register Now And Save!
The industry’s premier event for IP Telephony, Converged Networks and Unified Communications will be held March 17-20, 2008, at the Gaylord Palms Hotel in Orlando, FL. VoiceCon is uniquely focused on the changes [...]

This week’s issue of Unified Communications eWeekly is sponsored by Unified Communication Strategies:
Unified Communication Strategies is an industry resource and web portal to help enterprises, vendors and system integrators develop their UC strategies. A source of objective information and thought leadership on Unified Communications, we provide analysis, executive interviews, podcasts, white papers and other information [...]