R.I.P. Innovative Communications Alliance (ICA)

Previously I mentioned that during the "integrated roadmap" announcement there was continued collaboration with Microsoft technologies, I had mistaken this to mean that the existing agreement (entered back in July 2006 and expected to terminate this July) would continue and possibly renew. However only 2 days since the AvayaN strategy was announced the ICA site (and my case study!) was taken down. This now re-directs to a Microsoft Gold Partner page within the existing Avaya site.

When I asked Avaya for more information on this, the following statement was released:

"The ICA relationship ceased with the Avaya acquisition of Nortel Enterprise Solutions. ICA was based on a four year contract between Nortel and Microsoft that was already scheduled to expire within the year. Avaya has and will continue to work closely with Microsoft to ensure tight integration between our solutions providing customers the greatest flexibility in deploying UC solutions. Current customers with Microsoft OCS integrations with Nortel solutions can continue to utilize their solution as they do today.  Avaya is a Microsoft Gold development partner and has been integrating with Microsoft products across their portfolio for well over a decade - including Windows, Active Directory, Exchange, Outlook, Internet Explorer, Office, CRM, and, of course, OCS and Office Communicator. These integrations are important customer requirements that we are committed to continuing. We understand the somewhat more competitive situation that Microsoft has established, but Avaya has a lot of experience of working with competitors to ensure integration and interoperability to meet our customers' business needs.
We believe that the combination of Avaya communications with Microsoft OCS and Office products is the most powerful end-to-end solution for Microsoft customers in the market, and are continuing to invest and enhance all our solutions in this area. "

Shame...but not surprising, especially given the threat that OCS brings to the traditional PABX vendors. I'd imagine it would be unlikely for this agreement to be re-established.

Posted 4 Feb 2010 by Adam Jacobs | no comments
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The iPad funny we all knew was bound to happen...(well us Brits did anyways!)

Posted 29 Jan 2010 by Adam Jacobs | no comments
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The first round of iPhone 3G VoIP apps are released to the app store

Since the announcement of the iPad and Apple's new software development kit, VoIP is now permitted over 3G - yay! Previously a hack known as 3Gunrestrictor was used to trick the iPhone into sending illegal data over the 3G network, as expected this was broken regularly by iPhone OS updates.

Applications released to date include:

I have already made a Skype-out call via Fring over Vodafone's 3G network and I can confirm success!

Posted 29 Jan 2010 by Adam Jacobs | no comments
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iPad does VoIP, but is it filling a hole that needs plugging?

Last night Apple hosted their 2010 media event and as expected a the much hyped new tablet style device was launched, namely the “iPad”. Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs touted the iPad to fill the gap between mobile phone and laptop, but does this requirement really exist?

Personally speaking I find the lack of full Mac OS X makes the device quite unattractive, essentially rendering the iPad as an overgrown iPhone.

Other negatives include: 

  • No camera
  • No Flash
  • 10 hours battery life (how can this compete with other e-ink based eBook readers)
  • No flash memory slot
  • No interchangeable batter (usual Apple story)
  • Limited to AppStore applications only
  • No hard keyboard (without keyboard dock)
  • No multi-tasking

It does however have a microphone, speaker/headset socket and given the recent changes to VoIP over 3G (introduced in Apple’s latest iPhone SDK) it would make for a another piece of kit you could make a call home with! But surely you could just use the iPhone for this purpose?

 I have a tablet, with Windows 7/multi-touch I might add, why would I need anything else?

A video preview of the iPad can be seen below.

Posted 28 Jan 2010 by Adam Jacobs | no comments
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Microsoft IT cuts telelphony costs by deploying OCS 2007 R2 (bet they got a good deal on their CALs!)

Deploying OCS definitely delivers cost benefits, R2 specifically offers an in-built conference bridge service - many enterprise spend £1,000's on managed offerings. Brett Johnson explains how MS UK saved in excess of £3.5 in one year!

Taken from Brett Johnson's Blog:

I needed to get permission to post this, but now I have, here is our real example of how Office Communications Server R2 (OCS R2) has been deployed in our Dublin data centre and as such, enabling all Microsoft UK employees the capability of reducing travel expenditure as well as our 3rd party conferencing costs but utilising the native capabilities of OCS R2, namely: Live Meeting and Audio Conferencing.

Compelling reading for any case study.

“In Microsoft UK, the Sales & Marketing and Support Group has seen average cost reductions of over 50% in both T&E and Telecoms, generating savings of £3.6m saving year on year (over the period from November 2008 to Oct 2009 compared to the previous 12 months)

· T&E costs savings are 51% T&E (£3.3m)

· Telecom costs savings are 54% Telecoms (£320k)

The cost savings are due to the adoption of Unified Communication and Live Meeting and changes in the travel policy. The travel policy changes resulted in many business meetings being hosted online and therefore business continued as before.”

Source: here

Posted 26 Jan 2010 by Adam Jacobs | no comments
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Same blog, different name!

When I first started up this blog (almost a year ago) it was about Virtualisation, Messaging, Windows, Voice and anything else relevant! However over the last 6 months a common theme has prevailed - Unified Communications.

Therefore from this point forth "I'm a PC Blog" is now "I'm a UC Blog", both old and new domains remain intact, namely http://imapcblog.com (old) and http://imaucblog.com (new).

The focus continues to be things that are UC:

  • The PBX
  • Mobiles/VoIP enabled devices (iPhone, BlackBerry & Windows Phone)
  • Microsoft Exchange
  • Microsoft Communications Server
  • Security
  • Crazy off-topic geekyness!
Posted 25 Jan 2010 by Adam Jacobs | no comments
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Avaya+Nortel integrated roadmap announced

For those of you that didn't attend Avaya's webinar (or just want some key take-aways) read on...

Firstly I thought it might be good to remind you why the joining of these two telecommunications giants is a big thing for the UC community.

1.     Nortel and Avaya have a combined Unified Communications revenue share of 32%, bigger than any other competitor (see illustration below)

2.     Avaya's CS1000 (previously Nortel) as of rel 5.5 supports integration with OCS 2007, OCS 2007 R2, Microsoft Exchange 2007, Nortel SCS and Avaya Aura + more

3.     The Nortel/Microsoft Innovative Communications Alliance continues (they play nice with some of the Redmond UC guys!)

So what is changing?

First the CS1000...

Throughout the keynote participants were asking about the life of their CS1000 or Meridian investments, Avaya consistently delivered the message that development will continue, rel 7.0 in 2010 and further releases planned subsequently. Given Avaya's policies on end of life support, should the CS1000 be dropped today, end users would be covered until 2017 (as mentioned previously, this is not planned).

Contact Center

Avaya has interestingly decided to continue to develop Nortel's Contact Center product, initially placing it for mid-market. From what I can gather their plan is to scale up future versions in view of replacing Avaya's Contact Center:

"With that as the architectural approach that both we and the Nortel Enterprise Solutions team agreed was the right direction, we started looking at our various products and product sets. And what we found was that within the Nortel Enterprise Solutions product portfolio is a product known as CC7. The team believed in the architecture that I described earlier, but they were well on the path to pursuing that. Their CC7 product has a number of the elements, the core elements of that architecture. It was designed to operate in a multi-vendor environment. It could operate on top of Avaya Aura and the session manager environment. As a result of that what we decided was that CC7 would become the midmarket Contact Center solution for Avaya going forward. Midmarket because today CC7 doesn't have the scale or the fault tolerance required to operate in the high end enterprise environment. Our road is to continue with the Avaya Contact Center solution, CC elite, but to move to CC7 for the midmarket."

Unified Communications

To finish off the keynote an analyst from Forester spoke of how positive an effect this would have on the Avaya/Nortel proposition (at this point I was drifting), however he did echo the views that UC adoption is growing and overall a 1/3 of all new business opportunities are within this space.

A full transcript is available here

Posted 20 Jan 2010 by Adam Jacobs | 1 comment(s)
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More Jan 2010 updates: Live Meeting client and Outlook conference add-in

Taken from Brett Johnson's Blog:

Busy day today :)

The latest versions of the Live Meeting Client and Outlook Conference Add-In have been released – this also includes the 64bit version Add-In’s for the 64 bit version of Outlook 2010 – woohoo..!

Remember

  1. Both the LM Client and Conf Add-In versions should match for the best experience – so install both – I just installed over the top of the existing ones with no issues.
  2. Once you have installed the latest Conf Add-In you will need to check your Audio location is correct.

clip_image001

For the more Techy:

Source: here

Posted 16 Jan 2010 by Adam Jacobs | no comments
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New Exchange 2010 deployment assistant for upgrades or new installations

The new Web-based tool walks you through various upgrade and deployment scenarios, including upgrades from Exchange 2003 or Exchange 2007 to Exchange 2010. Currently, the upgrade from Exchange Server 2003 is the first scenario available.

Source: here

Posted 14 Jan 2010 by Adam Jacobs | no comments
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January 2010 Office Communications Server 2007 R2 updates

Client updates:

Communicator 2007 R2 cumulative update: January 2010 here

Server updates:

Office Communications Server 2007 R2 cumulative update: January 2010 here

Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Administrative Tools cumulative update: January 2010 here

Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Core Components cumulative update: January 2010 here

Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Database cumulative update: January 2010 here

Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Unified Communications Managed API 2.0 Core Redist 64-bit: January 2010 here

Posted 12 Jan 2010 by Adam Jacobs | no comments
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Happy new year to all readers of I'm a PC Blog!

Wishing you all a great 2010 (and hopefully bigger budgets for UC spend!)

Posted 31 Dec 2009 by Adam Jacobs | no comments
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Avaya completes aquisition of Nortel, but what does this mean?

Just before the Christmas break I received an e-mail from Nortel, the subject was "Avaya has completed its purchase of Nortel Enterprise Soulution" - before I started to digest the content of this message, I hoped that the "Avaya" future might bring spell checking as "Soulution" is a Switzerland based high-end audio system manufacturer! (sorry couldn't resist)

The body of the message contained the much expected marketing blurb:

The consolidation of these two great companies will expand Avaya’s global coverage, enlarge its portfolio of systems and services, and increase its expertise and specialization. By combining complementary skills and increasing research and development investments, the new company will bring better products to market more quickly.

Basically Avaya+Nortel=bigger, better telecommunications manufacturer! However it then went on to provide a new site "Avaya Nortel Information Center" dedicated to Nortel (or Avaya) customers, that de-constructs the changes taking place and the knock on effects. Furthermore a reference is made to an online event that will deliver Avaya's integrated roadmap (to pre-register go here).

A full transcript of the e-mail is below:

We are pleased to announce Avaya has completed its acquisition of Nortel Enterprise Solutions (NES) and Nortel Government Solutions (NGS), creating the most experienced and comprehensive leader in real-time business communications. The new Avaya is the global business communications expert delivering open and flexible communication systems that transform the way people collaborate to enhance performance and enable growth for companies small to large.

The consolidation of these two great companies will expand Avaya’s global coverage, enlarge its portfolio of systems and services, and increase its expertise and specialization. By combining complementary skills and increasing research and development investments, the new company will bring better products to market more quickly.

Avaya has long delivered exceptional services to the market and has been recognized for services delivery. Avaya will honour support contracts for all customers acquired in the transaction and continue to invest in bringing innovative services and tools to our customers and partners.

To begin addressing the questions that you likely have, Avaya has created the Avaya Nortel Information Center on avaya.com, a dedicated website where you can find links to the press release, frequently asked questions, and other integration-related resources.

Questions about the future of Avaya and NES products, services, and solutions are no doubt top of mind for you. Avaya will announce the integrated product roadmap in the next 30 days. An online event will be available for customers, which you can pre-register today.

Thank you for your continued business.

 

Posted 30 Dec 2009 by Adam Jacobs | 1 comment(s)
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Hell hath frozen over...Exchange 2010 officially supports BlackBerry Enterprise Server (in only 4 weeks since RTW)

Uncharacteristically the Exchange Team has announced official support for BlackBerry Enterprise Server in just over four weeks since the release to web.

Taken from the Exchange Team Blog:

I'd like to share with everyone some good news today— BlackBerry® Enterprise Server (BES) is now fully supported on Microsoft® Exchange Server 2010 and BlackBerry® Technical Support Services are readily available.

This is the earliest customers have been able to deploy BlackBerry smartphones with a new Exchange release - ever. Customers who rely on BES as an important part of their messaging and collaboration infrastructure have told us that more rapid support for RIM's solution is critical to them. So we partnered with RIM earlier in the development cycle to ensure organizations moving to the new release experience no user downtime.

In order to enable full support, three updates are required:

All three of these updates are available to customers of Exchange Server 2010 and BlackBerry Enterprise Server v.5.0 with Service Pack 1 at no cost. BlackBerry Enterprise Server v5.0 Service Pack 1 and Maintenance Release 1 can be found here: http://www.blackberry.com/support/downloads

Additional information on the solution requirements, preparing the BlackBerry environment for Microsoft Exchange Server2010, can be found on the BlackBerry site here.

Today's roll up also includes other minor updates to areas including calendaring, OWA, and transport. You can read more about Exchange Server 2010 RU1 here.

- Paul Bowden, Exchange Release Manager

Posted 10 Dec 2009 by Adam Jacobs | no comments
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Existing "Remote Call Control" deployments will still be supported in OCS 2010

During recent discussions with a number of individuals within the OCS product group I have been told that "Remote Call Control" (RCC) will not be available beyond the current 2007 R2 release. When I asked why I was told that it was "a feature that had never really taken off".

Whilst RCC is considered a more complex setup, it definitely delivers the most return on existing investments and assists in phasing out legacy PBX equipment over time (this time amount of time can only have worsened given the current economic climate). Remember the Microsoft marketing slogan "non-rip and replace"?

However it seems that RCC is not going to RIP yet! In a post made on the OCS blog earlier today the following statement was made, "Microsoft has announced the deprecation of the RCC feature for the next release of Office Communications Server, so new deployments of RCC will not be supported with the coming release.   However, customers who have existing deployments of RCC can upgrade to the next release and will continue to be supported through the lifecycle of that release – a good long time."

Thanks guys, this is great news!

Source: here

Posted 9 Dec 2009 by Adam Jacobs | no comments
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Off topic: Enabling PS3 Remote Start over the Internet (without a uPnP enabled router)

I recently purchased a Sony PSPgo, I liked the idea of gaming or purchasing movies without the procurement of physical media. There is of course an alternate more skeptical view that the world is not quite ready for "download only" consoles, this is evidenced by a complete lack of knowledge that this new PSP device exists (this can be witnessed at most gaming outlets).

One underrated piece of functionality is "Remote Play", which is the capability of controlling or screen scraping your PS3 console via the PSP. This allows remote access to your movies, pictures and music (including BBC iPlayer and PlayTV for UK folks), therefore turning your PS3 into a pseudo Slingbox if you will.

However, to truly take advantage of this setup you need to enable "Remote Start", this sends a Wake-on-LAN request to your PS3 thus bringing it out of hibernation and into a state where it can be controlled. This is easily configured to work over your local area network, but "Remote Start" over the Internet is a little more touch and go.

I could have probably just enabled uPnP on my router, but I don't like to do this as it allows applications to punch holes in my Firewall (sometimes without permission). Therefore I decided a more manual approach was required, Sony's recommendation was to port forward TCP/UDP 9293 (this is the comms channel used for "Remote Play"). Alas this alone did not make it work as my PS3 was set to DHCP, so next I assigned a static address, still no success...I then realised that the ARP table on my router was flushing itself as soon as the console went into hibernation.

Workaround: Most routers allow you to set static ARP or "Bind IP to MAC", in my case I was using a Draytek (see below) - as soon as this had been set my problems disappeared!

Posted 4 Dec 2009 by Adam Jacobs | no comments
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