inrich consulting

News roundup: Enterasys, Siemens, Cisco, Shoretel, RADVISION, market growth

Some highlight news items over the last fortnight in enterprise telecommunications:

Enterasys has formed a joint venture with Siemens Enterprise Communciations by taking a controlling stake in the company. This provides the networking company with a voice offering to aid competing with companies such as Nortel and Cisco who supply both voice and data solutions.

Meanwhile Cisco who already has a voice and data solution portfolio has announced an arrangement with HP to collaborate on Cisco Unified Communications products. Some analysts see this as acknowledgement by Cisco that partnerships with competitors are key to expanding their market.

Energy efficiency of equipment is making headlines. According to the Tolly Group Shoretel IP Telephony will use up to 37% less energy than Cisco for a 1,500 end deployment, thus reducing total cost of ownership and helping the environment. I’m not sure if the absolute comparisions are of too much value, however the key point of considering energy consumption and efficiency in total cost of ownership is well illustrated.

RADVISION will be enabling Cisco’s Unified Customer Voice portal, a contact center user self service product, with video. The objective is to support video interactions with customers. Perhaps this product will be renamed soon to Unified Customer Interaction Portal :).

Research firm Frost & Sullivan has made some predictions on growth for the Unified Messaging market: Contact Centres will provide the lead, and the real trigger will be Microsoft and IBM encouraging customers to upgrade their email and Instant Messaging platforms. I agree 100%.

Another market growth observation from Frost & Sullivan: growth in IP Telephony is due to replacement of out-of-date equipment rather than drivers for new functionality or cost savings. This is consistent with my own observations of the market.

Nortel has provided their top 5 examples for ”hyperconnectivity” this summer (Nortel’s marketing term for staying connected to communications anywhere anytime): the office is anywhere, rural connectivity, road tripping, island hotspots and playtime. If you ask me their idea of summer is terrible. Lets leave things to “the office is anywhere”.

Richard Tucker

Entry Filed under: cisco, enterasys, ip telephony, radvision, shoretel, siemens, unified communications