With the unified communications market already hard at work digesting the significance of Microsoft’s recently announced strategic pact with Polycom, rumours are emerging that Cisco is preparing to spring a surprise bid for Internet phone operator Skype.

According to TechCrunch, Cisco made a formal offer to acquire Skype just before the company’s recent SEC filing of its intent to make an initial public offering (IPO). Continue Reading

Microsoft has announced a multi-year strategic partnership with Polycom, the unified communications and video-conferencing pioneer, which promises to intensify both companies’ already fierce competition with Cisco.

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Dell’s ongoing game of catch-up with IBM and HP in the race to be the enterprise infrastructure provider of choice gained vital momentum this week with the company’s $1.15 billion acquisition of virtualised storage vendor, 3PAR. The deal, which has been widely applauded by analysts is also expected to give Dell a little more leverage in its relationship with EMC.

However, the most immediate impact of 3PAR’s acquisition Continue Reading

As the UK’s premier IT infrastructure technology conference and exhibition IP EXPO has always been the ‘go to’ event for state-of-the-art virtualization technology. This year’s show will be no exception, not least because IP EXPO 2010 is set to be the first UK event to showcase VMware’s latest infrastructure technology – a network hypervisor. Continue Reading

O2 has signaled its intent to cash in on its market leading position in mobile data services market, and withdrawn unlimited data bundling from its service portfolio. The move is a shock for the 3% of O2 customers whose unlimited data access became a premium service on July 12^th, and its impact is likely to be monitored closely but the company’s competitors who are also keen the raise the profitability of their costly wireless data infrastructure.

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It has taken probably a decade longer than its proponents expected, but it looks as if booming demand for voice over IP (VoIP) and session initiation protocol-based (SIP) services may finally be chiming the death knell of the TDM-based PBX, in North America at least.

According to Frost & Sullivan, VoIP access and SIP trunking service revenues turned in what the researcher described as “down-turn defying” performance last year, with revenues up 22% at $717.3 million, and customer numbers up 401%.

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Why Wireless Working is Important to Organisations of all Sizes

I have on the desk in front of me a device about the same size as a bar of chocolate. Its primary purpose is to provide me with the freedom to be anywhere I choose and yet allow me to speak (at the touch of a few buttons) to anyone else in the world similarly equipped with such a device and without my needing to know where they are.  That in itself is a phenomenal capability.

But this device which fits comfortably into my pocket is more than a one trick pony. It can also store the name, address and phone number of everyone I know, remind me of their anniversaries and any appointments I may choose make with them, tell me the time, show me a list of things I should be doing, and even calculate the number of shopping days before my birthday.

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Last week Rob Grieg, Director of ICT and Operations from Leicester Theatre Trust (LTT) travelled down to London to explain how NEC Philips provided a Unified Solutions which has revolutionised Leicester’s new Curve theatre – a £61million state-of-the-art cultural project which was opened by Her Majesty The Queen on 4 December last year. Based around a service-orientated Unified Communications architecture – NEC Sphericall – the solution integrates the communications technologies with business applications providing a flexible and open infrastructure to support its current and future development plans.

View Rob Grieg presentation – Listen to Rob Grieg’s presentation – Read the case study

One in three UK workers recently reported that they would rather have more opportunities for flexible working than get a pay rise, according to Alison Brewer, Solutions Marketing Manager at Mitel. In these cash-strapped days should employers be looking at this option to increase productivity whilst reducing office space costs ? In her session Alison explains the benefits of flexible working and suggests ways to overcome some of the challenges of flexible working.

View Alison Brewer’s presentation – Listen to Alison Brewer’s presentation

This question was central to Mark Lawton’s presentation on Expanding UC and Presence into Mobile Communications where he outlined BT’s vision is to deliver collaborative technologies to Remote, Mobile and Home Based Workers and discussed the merits of delivering business critical information into the field.

View Mark Lawton’s presentation - Listen to Mark Lawton’s presentation