Flashback Friday - Cisco Telepresence Turns 5 - Oct. 2011

The longer you blog, the bigger the archive, and for those only recently following me, you wouldn't know my earlier posts unless you went hunting. With time comes perspective, and I thought it would be fun to re-post some older posts, so am starting this Flashback Friday theme. Not sure if I'll do this weekly or whenever, so let's see how this one flies.

If you enjoy revisiting interesting points in time for the communications space - or are just wondering about things like "what were those VON events all about?", "what was life like before twitter?", or "I had no idea about Huntsville, AL!", I think you'll enjoy these flashbacks. Or, if there's something in particular you'd like to re-visit or discover, let me know and I'll see what I've got. Am sure many of you, like me, are students of history, and having blogged regularly since 2005, I've got a lot of posts, and have seen a lot of things happen.

So, here's my first Flashback Friday post. The UC&C market has largely moved away from telepresence, but it sure was a game-changer and Cisco bet pretty heavily on it. Not so much today, but here's my post from 2011 marking it's five year anniversary.

As an aside, the video clip at the bottom is from my YouTube channel, and is the most-viewed clip I've ever posted. I hardly post video any more, but maybe I'll start again soon. If you wander about there, you'll see lots of interviews from conferences, as well as a bunch of music clips of mine from bands playing at various conferences. I'll get around to some of those on future Flashback Friday posts.

So, here we go, and if you want to view the post directly from my blog archive, here's the link.

.................................................................................................

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Cisco TelePresence Turns Five

I put up a short tweet about this yesterday (and if you're not following me there, well, you don't know what you're missing - sign up... @arnoldjon)- but amidst all the other things keeping me busy right now, I realized it needs more attention. Just wanted to add a few thoughts here.

So, the first question to ask now that Cisco has reached the five year milestone with telepresence is the same one I would have asked back in 2006. Aside from the fact that back then nobody really knew what to call it, I'll simply ask - is it telepresence or TelePresence? I'm still 50/50 on this one, and as a rule of thumb, when I'm talking about Cisco, it's "T", but for the category as a whole, it's "t".

Branding is just as important in tech as any other business, and if you toe the Cisco line, you will believe they invented everything around this space and by rights, then, it's TelePresence, period. Of course, they're not the only game in town, and weren't even first to market, but nobody does tech branding for business better than Cisco. The consumer market is another story, but let's not go there for now.

Whether or not Cisco is the Kleenex of telepresence - much like I used to say that Vonage was the Kleenex of VoIP - you really need to give some props here. I think they've earned it, and when John Chambers talks about making big bets and capitalizing on market transitions, I think he got it right with Telepresence. There, I said it - with a capital T.

I don't really think it matters that Cisco's lead offering is hugely expensive - they've been the frontrunners in immersive TP from Day 1, and now that Tandberg is in the fold, I think they'll stay there. It's a bit like complaining that the biggest stars in pro sports are overpaid. In absolute terms, that's absolutely true. Only whiny sportswriters care about that - it's the relative basis that really matters. So long as those athletes live up to expectations (and that's a big IF - hello John Lackey and Carl Crawford - I digress...), and big market teams like my Red Sox are willing to pay the freight, all is in balance. There are buyers and sellers at all price levels, and the market ultimately defines value. Cisco Telepresence may be out of reach for SMBs, but their book of business with the enterprise crowd is doing just fine, thank you.

That leads me to yesterday's announcement, which talks about some updates to their offering and how Cisco TelePresence can now reach a broader market. I'll save the details for another time, but the main thing is that Cisco is evolving the product as market conditions require. Again, this brings me back to why this five year milestone is worth reflecting on. We didn't have tablets or Android then, and the smartphone market was basically RIM and Nokia. You don't need me to tell you what's come along since, and that video has now become pretty mainstream for everybody.

As a result, Cisco needs to evolve its TP portfolio to cater to these new - and emerging opportunities, some of which didn't exist 2-3 years ago. Of course, Cisco would love to own every segment of the TP and collaboration market, but that's not going to happen, esp with all the free/OTT offerings out there that I've been writing about here and elsewhere recently.

Regardless, Cisco has done a lot of things right with TelePresence, and these new twists are just ensuring they'll have a place across all market tiers. More than that, Cisco wants be to remain at the innovation forefront with this technology, because if they don't, those fearsome interlopers - Apple and Google - will take their spot. I'm not saying that Cisco has all the great innovations here, but when it comes to delivering a value proposition that businesses are willing to pay for, they know what they're doing. This ground is going to be harder to defend as these other players continue to make inroads, but if anyone can to do it, it's Cisco.

Finally, for those of you sticking with me here to the end, you get a prize. If you want to step in the wayback machine to see what TP looked like at the beginning, here's a video clip I took of my first live demo at Cisco's Canadian HQ here in Toronto, back in December 2006. This clip is on my YouTube channel, which you're welcome to explore. I'm not posting video there these days - I don't know why - but wanted to share this as a sidebar to Cisco's fifth anniversary for TP. I was there at the beginning, and to show you how much interest there is out there around TP, this clip has by far received more views - over 100,000 - than anything else I've ever posted, and - as you'll see on the site, to this day, I'm STILL getting comments about that clip. How's that for the long tail of the Internet? If I could just find a way to make this pay...

Univago - Solving Video From the Cloud

Overview

Cloud-based video collaboration platforms are turning up across the spectrum of communications providers these days, and for good reason. Ease of use has improved, the quality of experience is now enterprise-grade, and cloud economics are making these offerings very attractive. All of this represents a big step forward from legacy, room-based systems, and now the power of video is accessible to everyone across an organization.

One of the keys to making video valuable as a collaboration tool is the ability to support ad hoc meetings. There will always be a need for formal, scheduled conferences, but today’s workplace is highly fluid, and what enterprises are really striving for is to provide applications that employees can use on their own, from any location, at any time and with any type of endpoint.

The cloud makes all this possible, and I’ve had a chance to review one of the latest entries, namely Univago from Yorktel. Pronounced Uni-vahgo, their cloud-based collaboration service was launched last October, and is one of many offerings Yorktel has developed as a managed services provider for the enterprise market.

User experience

My comments about the user experience will be brief since I don’t have intensive needs for platforms like this. That said, the user portal is intuitive, and the screens aren’t overly cluttered with options that tend to cut down the real estate that’s actually used for video. Overall, I’d say Univago has succeeded in making the process of collaborating fairly easy, right from starting a meeting, inviting people and then managing the session.

All the features you’d expect are there in terms of control functions -mute/unmute, show self view, full screen mode, etc. - selecting audio/video devices, content sharing, screen sharing, chat, etc. I particularly liked the feature for selecting bandwidth – not just to optimize the quality of experience, but also to help conserve power consumption. While Univago is very much built as a self-service platform, IT is accountable for the costs, so this is a subtle way to encourage end users to help keep that in check.

In terms of capacity, it’s worth noting that Univago can support HD meetings up to 30 people, and for a cloud-based service, this should suffice for most needs. I should also add that Univago can be customized, meaning that enterprises can use these meeting rooms as branding opportunities to show customers how tech-savvy they are. The same applies to service providers as well, so they could offer Univago on a branded basis to enterprise customers to differentiate themselves from competing carriers.

Joining a conference is quite easy, with three options that cover all the basic scenarios – via a browser, a phone or an endpoint. For browser access, Univago is optimized for Chrome, while other browsers may need a plug-in for initial use, and some certain features, such as desktop sharing are not yet supported. When calling in via mobile phone, Univago supports iOs and Android, and both require the Pexip Infinity Connect Desktop Client, which can be downloaded for free from their respective app stores.

These are fairly straightforward, but it’s the third option that enterprises will especially like. The “Endpoint” option allows participants to enter a Univago meeting room from existing video systems, either legacy or IP-based. While enterprises will already have some mix of such endpoints, in most cases, they’ll be able to use what they have to join Univago-hosted meetings. More importantly with Univago, they’ll be able to interoperate with each other – more on that later. Currently, Univago supports video endpoints and applications from Polycom, Cisco, Microsoft Lync 2010 and 2013, Lync Online via Office 365, Skype for Business, as well as the dominant video protocols, H.323 and SIP.

Another nice feature is the ability for users to have up to three separate rooms – URooms – so they can have saved settings and groups for regular meeting sessions. This makes it easy in cases where employees have back-to-back meetings with different groups or teams. Once these meetings are scheduled in the calendar, going from one to another just requires a few mouse clicks. Nothing needs to be customized or downloaded, allowing each meeting to start on time.

Notable points of difference

With so many hosted and WebRTC-based video conferencing/collaboration solutions out there, it’s hard to tell them apart. For everyday needs, they all perform similarly and have a comparable set of features. To be fair, the lines are getting blurry when focusing just on video conferencing for meetings, and then needing to compare that against full-fledged UC and/or collaboration platforms that incorporate video into their offerings. That’s a broader discussion for another time, and I’ll conclude by noting three aspects of Univago that stand out for me.

1.   Flexible deployment options

Univago is offered via three different models, two of which will be familiar. First is the pure play cloud model, where the service is hosted by Univago and accessed over the public Internet. This will be the most economic option, requiring no new infrastructure, but QoS can be impacted as scale increases or during periods where bandwidth demand is highly variable.

Second would be a private network scenario – namely MPLS – where the enterprise connects directly with the Univago cloud, bypassing the Internet entirely. Off-net users would still need to connect via the public Internet, so the attraction of this option may depend on where most employees will be working from. This option will be more expensive, but it scales better than the public Internet and IT has more control over QoS.

Third is a bit of a twist, in what Yorktel calls the “hybrid deployment”, where a Univago conference node resides onsite, behind the enterprise’s firewall. Off-net users still need to connect via the public Internet, but for everyone else – on-net users - this provides the most secure environment with highest quality experience possible. What makes this attractive is the ability for Univago to deliver a consistent experience for meeting participants from wherever they’re calling in.

For the enterprise, there’s a big benefit in that all the public Internet traffic is routed directly to another Univago node, hosted in Yorktel’s cloud. In fact, they have three data centers, one each in North America, EMEA and Asia, and each one hosts a Univago node. Wherever this traffic originates from, it is routed to the closest of these data centers, at which point, it establishes a direct connection with the Univago node on the customer’s location.

In short, this federated approach allows public Internet traffic to be vetted by Univago, only allowing authenticated participants past the enterprise firewall and into the meeting. Not only does this help keep customer bandwidth consumption down, and mitigates IT security risks, but with this distributed architecture, Univago can intelligently route calls, saving precious milliseconds in latency that can degrade a video session. There’s also a cost savings element for enterprises when participants use telephony for the audio portion of a conference. Since the nodes are regionalized, local toll free numbers can be used in place of a centralized system where all the calls dial in to the same number.

To date, this option is still in trials with some enterprise customers, so it’s not yet commercially deployed. However, I’m told interest has been keen, as it addresses some key challenges faced by distributed enterprises for supporting video with both onsite and offsite participants.

2.  Virtual gateway to bridge legacy and IP systems

The earlier issue of supporting proprietary systems and mixed protocols is addressed by their Enterprise Gateway service. This can be deployed either onsite or in the Univago cloud, but the result is the same - “any to any” interoperability. Yorktel believes Univago to be unique in this regard, whereby this service brings together all these disparate elements that usually create barriers for video conferencing – H.323, SIP, WebRTC and Skype for Business.

For enterprises struggling to do this, along with having a strong desire for a video solution that’s accessible to everyone, their virtual gateway will be a selling point. Another factor to consider here is that Univago is a full service partner. That means they’re more than just a conference bridge up in the cloud. If enterprises need support to get these elements working together, this is where Univago – and Yorktel – adds value that pure play cloud offerings cannot provide.

3.       Virtual receptionist

This is another feature that ensures only authenticated participants calling in off-net can join a Univago session hosted on the customer’s private network. Much like with audio conferencing, callers are prompted via IVR to enter their ID using DTMF tones to pass the “gatekeeper” and enter the meeting.

Since these calls will be Web-based, an IP address can be used as well, which only bona fide participants will have. Aside from making the process of joining a meeting more seamless, it keeps the spam out, which also helps optimize bandwidth consumption. It’s also worth noting that this feature represents another branding opportunity for enterprises, whereby callers can have a direct association with the company at every step of the way during their meeting experience.

Conclusion

All of the above comes with the offering – not separate, costly add-ons - so enterprises have a comprehensive solution in Univago, with a great deal of flexibility for deployment. There’s far more here than what purpose-built cloud video services offer, and compared to premise-based systems, Univago gives customers greater choice and control.

In essence, Univago is a PaaS offering that’s built for what enterprises need today when it comes to making video meetings and collaboration as easy to use a making a phone call. For enterprises looking for a vendor-agnostic partner, and don’t have the resources to manage a collaboration solution in-house, PaaS for cloud-based video is a viable approach. I’d keep watch on Univago, as their success will be a good indicator of the PaaS model as a driver to accelerate the use of video for collaboration.

Unlike most cloud-based services that are pure play video providers, I should add that Univago is one of several offerings from Yorktel, and being new, it’s almost like a startup venture inside the company. So, kudos to Yorktel for innovating around long-standing problems which enterprises really need to get solved. Collaboration is too strategic now, and with enterprises so decentralized, video simply has to work better, and that’s why Yorktel has come up with Univago.

Finally, from the buyer’s side, it’s worth noting that Univago can be purchased as a standalone offering – making it directly competitive with pure play video providers – but also in tandem with other Yorktel services. This would make sense where enterprises are looking for a full-service MSP to handle all their communications needs.

ITExpo Shout-out and Moderated Sessions

ITExpo is a week away, and for those attending, I want to make sure my sessions are on your radar.

"Are You Communicating or Collaborating?"  This is on the UC track, and runs Wednesday at 2:30

"Making Video Easy - How Hard Can it Be?" This is on the Business Transformation track, and runs Thursday at 10am

For more detail, including the abstracts and speakers who will be joining me, scroll through the Conference Program to the right date/time. For some reason their site doesn't have standalone links for each session, but it won't take long to find these.

Am off tomorrow to the Unify analyst event and from there, ITExpo in Fort Lauderdale. If you're at either event, I won't be hard to find, so feel free to drop me a line.

Yorktel case study - the right way to sell video

Video is a great collaboration tool, and I've written about it often. Unlike telephony, it's not a one-size-fits-all application, and there are many natural barriers to adoption. Cost has long been one of them, but that is definitely going away, but the same cannot be said for things like network complexity and vendor interoperability.

In most cases, video is not out-of-the-box, and that's where companies like Yorktel come into play. Don't let the name fool you - they're solely focused on helping businesses deploy video effectively, and they know very well how to address these barriers to adoption. Complexity is to be expected with today's technologies, but in the right hands this shouldn't be a deal-breaker, and that's good news for SMBs, who typically have limited IT capabilities.

I've been briefing with Yorktel on a regular basis, most recently at the ITExpo event, and it was great to hear about their continued success. While I'm not doing this toot their horn, I'd like to share a case study they recently produced for their website. The focus is on a healthcare client, and it does a great job laying out the full process, starting with the discovery phase to identify the problems. From there, a solution is developed based on a comprehensive review of needs and objectives. This is key, and the case study shows how this process truly adds value.

At the end of the day, we're really talking about solutions selling rather providing a collection of point products to address specific technology problems. This approach is very much in line with what I often write about in terms of focusing on the business needs instead of what IT wants - or thinks they want.

Clearly, one-size-fits-all doesn't work for video, and when you look at the details of what they came up with for this particular vertical market - healthcare - it's not hard to see why the customer went with Yorktel. If everyone sold video this way, it would be far more pervasive, so if you're struggling to get your customers down this path, I think you'll enjoy their case study.

Cisco Collaboration Summit - Quick Thoughts, Pix and a Wayback Video clip

Just have a window here with some quick thoughts, photos and a short clip I think you'll enjoy. As all of us who were there knows, most of the content is under NDA, so I can't say much anyhow. I do plan to share some high level analysis of my takeaways, and need to get some clearance first, so stay tuned.

The 2014 edition of Cisco's Collaboration Summit was very good as always, and worth the trip to LA. Actually, I missed some of the best parts as a variety of delays caused my flight to be 4.5 hours late. This means I didn't get to see the opening talks from John Chambers and Rowan Trollope. At least I can get a replay of Rowan's session, and will watch that once I'm back.

In short, the big news was Project Squared, a mobile collaboration platform. If this sounds like Circuit, you'd be right, but that's all I can say for now. Overall, Cisco has a lot happening in their collaboration business, and don't let the recent dip in sales numbers fool you. They have a laser focus on this space, and are all about innovation, the cloud, mobility, video and being user-centric. There are a lot of moving parts here, and the time was well spent getting updated on where all this is going. Sorry to sound so careful, but... I have to be careful. Hang on, and next week I'll have something more interesting to say. Until then...

Rowan Trollope during the locknote

Author Steven Johnson with some great insights about the real nature of innovation

One example - "the slow hunch" - talking about how great ideas often take a long time to properly germinate. This is a cool photo of a slide he put up from the earliest days of the Internet. It's the sticker hand-written by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN exclaiming that this server should not be powered down. Why? Back then, this was where the entire Internet resided and the whole thing would grind to a halt if some nitwit did that. I think you'd need to do a bit more now to get that result, huh?

Demo of the new and improved IX5000 telepresence. Very nice and still an impressive experience. Still very costly, but much less maintenance cost, power consumption and more manageable to install. What you can't see here is the open space around us, with a lot of natural light and ambient sound. You'd never know from the quality we experienced, so kudos are due for how well engineered this system is.

With that taste of today's telepresence, how about TP circa 2006? Here's a 2 minute video clip I made of the demo I got at Cisco Canada's HO when it first came out. Back then, this was a very cool experience, and I thought you'd enjoy comparing how it looks to the above picture. Notice how much bigger the camera was back then, and how you launched a call via an IP phone. I don't make video clips much any more, but this is by far the most widely-watched clip of mine. If you like like music, you might want to spend some time on my YouTube site, and we can talk more about that later.

Next Stop - LA and Cisco Collaboration Summit

Not travelling as much lately, and that's ok as I'm plenty busy with new projects and new clients.

That said, Cisco's annual Collaboration Summit is a fave event for me, and no complaints heading to LA this time of the year. All of a sudden, it's gotten pretty chilly here in Toronto, with a dusting of snow on the ground now.

I'll be flying down early Monday morning and will be there for the full time. Got some promising meetings lined up and am looking forward to the 2015 roadmap. If you follow Cisco, you'll know collaboration revenues are down, but that doesn't mean business is soft. All the players in this space are adapting to the cloud where the revenue streams and business models are new, and they're not alone in seeing this result.

Well, that's my theory, anyway. I'll let you know next week if it's reality or there's something else in play. As usual, I'll blog and tweet as time allows, and will pass on the collab summit hashtag once things get going on Monday.

Gartner's Magic Quadrant for UCaaS - UCStrategies Weighs In

Acronyms are a fact of life in this space, and UCaaS is one of the more awkward terms, but it's accurate. When we talk about UC as a Service, we're really talking about hosted UC or cloud-based UC. Yes, that's basically three ways of saying the same thing. Don't dwell on that too long - these are the problems people like me make a living trying to understand and then explain to our followers.

The cloud is fast becoming the home for everything, and UC is no exception. This says a lot about how technology keeps changing, but it says even more about how this change is impacting the UC landscape. Whereas conventional - premise-based - UC was the sole domain of vendors, they are just one class of player with UCaaS. Since this deployment model is hosted away from the customer's operation, UC can now be provided by anyone with a carrier-grade cloud infrastructure.

That cues the music for service providers to enter the game, and that's where the mix gets more interesting when it comes to the Gartner Magic Quadrant. The criteria for inclusion into this circle differ from the premise-based market, so to get the big picture, you really have consider both sets of analysis. Our latest UCStrategies podcast was all about the UCaaS MQ, and if this side of the coin is new, you'll definitely want to check it out.

Speaking of awkward terms, I'm not sure if "podcast" is the right label since this edition was done via video. If you close your eyes and just listen, sure, it's a podcast, but if you want to see what we all look like in living color, now's your chance. The session was ably moderated by Dave Michels, who is leading the  "more video" charge with UCStrategies, and we were greatly enabled by Vidyo, who provided the video conferencing platform. I'm happy to give them a plug here, and the experience was great, and as you'll see, the Hollywood Squares tile format is pretty easy on the eyes.

We may not be the most exciting bunch to watch, but nobody really is when you're just talking from your desk. Anyhow, it's the commentary that really matters, and to help you navigate this 53 minute production, Dave has broken out the times when each of us is talking. I'm at the 8:36 mark, but I hope you'll set the time aside to view the full session. Where else can you get this much free advice from people who look so good on camera?

September Writing Roundup

I'm probably the only person out there who sees everything I write, and I'm ok with that! As much as it seems we're in a post-literate world, I'm not going reduce all my ideas to clever 140 character missives or infographics that, by the way, take way way way longer to put together than a long-form post.

Rant over. If you like my take on all things telecom/disruptive tech, here are the posts you'll enjoy from last month:

Can Cisco Crack the Code for Video? Do They Need To? UCStrategies, September 29

Making Sure you get Quality of Service with VoIP Toolbox.com, September 28

Where's the Fun in UC? ADTRAN UC Blog, September 25

Will Messaging Displace Voice? Internet Telephony Magazine, September issue

What IoT Looks Like in the Healthcare Sector Toolbox.com, September 20

Getting out of the Box and Making UC Social ADTRAN UC Blog, September 18

VoIP's Hidden Value for SMBs Toolbox.com, September 10

VoIP, the Internet of Things and Business Transformation Toolbox.com, September 3

Can Cisco Crack the Code for Video? Do They Need To?

These are big questions, and my take might surprise you. The analyst community was recently updated on Cisco's collaboration roadmap, and the emphasis was very much on the new WebEx and desktop video. I wasn't expecting this much focus here from Cisco, but they have their reasons, and that's what I examined in my current posting on UCStrategies.

As a UC Expert, I contribute a monthly column to the portal, and this time around, I think there are as many questions as answers, and you can never have enough debate when it comes to big moves from market leaders like Cisco. There are several disruptive technologies in play here, and that's what makes Cisco's update so interesting. I'd love to hear your thoughts, so I'll steer you now to the portal and hope you give my post a read.

Personal Video and UC - "What are You Afraid Of?", Part 2

That's the name of my latest article running now in TMC's Internet Telephony Magazine. My Rethinking Communications column has been featured there for some time, and this writeup builds on Part 1, which ran last month.

We all know about room-based video and immersive telepresence, but personal video opens up new possibilities, both for one-to-one communication, but also the broader spectrum of UC.

The angle I'm exploring in Part 2 is bit more future-forward, as the focus is on the recent acquisition of Viber by Japan-based Rakuten. In the shadow of WhatsApp/Facebook, these types of deals send signals for how the communications market is shifting. Personal video is a distinct opportunity in its own right, but things get even more interesting when texting/messaging is part of the package, suggesting yet another move away from telephony and voice-based communication.

Nobody has quite figured this out yet, but when big companies get involved in acquisitions like this, the UC community needs to pay attention. Disruption seems to invariably come from outside the circle of usual suspects, and my view is that the Viber deal will filter up - or down - to the UC ecosystem sooner than later.

I'll leave it at that, and now it's time to steer you to the article. Also - to do this right, make sure you read Part 1 first if you haven't done so already. Then let me know what you think - deal?

Personal Video and UC - What are You Afraid Of?

That's the title of my latest Rethinking Communications column that runs in TMC's Internet Telephony Magazine. I write about video a fair bit, both for personal video and room-based scenarios. These are different branches of the video tree with distinct value propositions.

This time around, the focus is on personal video and the growing role it is poised to play with UC. You may not think personal video is business-ready, but a lot has changed both with endpoints and the various applications that support video.

My current article summarizes the current state of personal video, and my views are complemented by Simon Dudley, video evangelist for LifeSize. He's immersed in this space on a daily basis, and we both see lots of opportunity here not just for personal video as a standalone application, but also as a driver for UC. 

You can link to the article here, which is running now in the magazine's digital edition. There's more to explore on this topic, and I've written a Part 2 follow on piece, which will run around this time next month.

Calling all Conferencing Users - Share Your Experiences in a Survey (with prizes!)

I'm a market researcher by trade, and when LifeSize told me about this survey they're running, I figure why not help out and make more people aware of it.

Actually, I wish every company would do surveys like this (especially if they hire me to do it!), as I think end users need to be better understood. Whether doing quantitative surveys like this, or qualitative research such as focus groups, there is no substitute for learning first-hand from end users. If you're not familiar with the virtues of market research, there's a primer about the basics on my website, and I'd be happy to tell you more any time.

Enough about me. Here's the pitch, along with a link to the survey and a chance to win a $200 Amazon gift card:

5 minutes – 5 winners!

$200 Amazon Gift Card

One of the keys to a developing a great product is when a company truly understands its consumers wants and needs.  LifeSize, a pioneer and world leader in high-definition video conferencing systems and software applications is doing just that.

Please take 5 minutes to tell us about your usage and experiences with audio and video conferencing solutions in the workplace and you’ll automatically be entered to win one of five $200 Amazon Gift Cards. Five winners will be randomly selected from all completed entries between received between April 7 – April 18, 2014. 

Survey:  https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/59BNM2L

February Writing Roundup - My Top 8 Picks

Thought I'd start doing a monthly roundup post for my followers who don't religiously read every single post or article of mine. As you may know, I write in a variety of places, and I don't expect anybody follows them all - although you really should! - and even if you wanted to, you may not know where to find them.

On that note, if you don't know, a handy reference would be this page from my website. You might want to bookmark that.

Aside from Ziff Davis, the links there take you to my profile page where you can see an archive of my current posts - UCStrategies, ADTRAN, InformationWeek and Internet Telephony Magazine. For now, Ziff Davis is a challenge, but I will be getting a profile page there soon. Until then, the only way to see my writing there is to follow my tweets (@arnoldjon). I post there 2-3 times a week, and I tweet whenever there's a new article.

With that out of the way, this roundup post is for people who like my writing. I plan to do a monthly digest, so in one place you can click and read what I consider are my most notable posts for that time period. My intention is for you to get a fuller sense of the topics I write about - aside from my regular posts here on this blog - as well as the various outlets I share content with.

So, here are 8 posts from last month that showcase my latest thinking on the IP communications space:

All You Need is Lync - InformationWeek (if you like that, read this too)

How Bob Newhart Would Respond to UC - UCStrategies

Amazon Mayday - What it Mean for Your Contact Center - Internet Telephony Magazine, Jan/Feb issue

External Risk - Another Layer to Consider with UC - ADTRAN Blog

Is VoIP Putting Your Network at Risk? - guest post on No Jitter (more here on VoIP security)

Evolution of VoIP and Early Beginnings - Toolbox.com (Ziff Davis)

No Office? No Problem! Decentralize Your Phone System with Hosted VoIP - Toolbox.com

What you Need to Know About POTS vs PBX - Toolbox.com

What Trends Will Fizzle in 2014 - UCStrategies Podcast

We can't all be winners, and UC is really no different from other tech waves that come and go. In the early going, everyone is a winner until the novelty wears off and vendors have to start making money. We try lots of new things - some just streamline things we've been doing all along or make them more accessible, like desktop video. Others are more radical - like WebRTC - that threaten to reinvent the whole space.

I'd say we're past the novelty stage with UC, and there's already been a fair bit of consolidation, but there's more to come. This just means the stakes get higher for everybody - vendors, operators, channels and even IT decision-makers - and it already looks like the top end of the market is a two-horse race between Cisco and Microsoft.

There's lots of life left to UC, though, and the future is still be written, but not everything we've been trying over the past year or two will survive through 2014. Depending on who you speak to, the casualties will vary, and that's what we talked about during last week's UCStrategies podcast.

A fundamental challenge with UC is its fluid nature - it can be almost anything you want it to be, and that makes it really hard to know when you're done - or able to add something new. So, we covered a lot of ground, including social media, BYOD, video and WebRTC. All of these things have been trying to find a home within the UC envelope, but vendors can only keep trying for so long, and then you reach a point where something has to change. Either you drop it and move on, somehow keep it going as a loss leader, or go back to the drawing board and keep tweaking until it hits a nerve.

Nobody ever said innovation was easy, and to hear what we think are prime examples of this, you'll want to give this a listen. This week's podcast was moderated by Michael Finneran, and you can download the audio file here. If you think we're off the mark or missing something big, we'd love to hear about it - thanks!

ITExpo Preview #1 - Ontario Pavilion Briefing

TMC's ITExpo East is now less than two weeks away, and it's time to start talking things up. Am sure you're getting regular updates on the keynotes and sub-events, and it looks like they've settled into a good thing with the Miami Beach venue. The size is about right - although it might feel crowded if the event gets much bigger - and nobody is complaining about going to South Beach in late January. We survived the Ice Storm here in Toronto, so the change in scene will be very welcome!

I'll be moderating some sessions and participating in Editor's Day, and posts are coming with more details. Thought I'd start this series off talking up what the government of Ontario is doing with their trade mission to the Expo. They're returning to the show with their Ontario Pavilion, located in booth #815. I've been involved with this initiative at previous Expos, and the idea is to showcase Ontario companies in our space. Like any trade mission, it's an economical way for these companies to get direct exposure to new markets, and a chance for attendees to see what Ontario has to offer.

At present, the delegation consists of eight companies: Advance Software Concepts, Cloud Dynamics, Excelocity, In-Touch Insight Systems, Myplanet Digital, Phybridge, SVK Software, and Telax. They're all doing interesting things, and will be on hand there throughout the show.

Aside from that, the pavilion is hosting a market briefing and meet-and-greet at the booth on Friday, from 10-11am. I'll be providing an informal briefing about market trends and opportunities that these companies are addressing, and a delegate from the Canadian Consulate in Miami will be on hand. So, if you want to see the latest and greatest coming from Ontario, please join us.

I'll also be particpating in a VIP breakfast being hosted by the Ontario government, plus there's a general reception from 2-4pm on Thursday at the booth, which has been well attended in the past. See you there - go Canada!

2013 in Review for UC - UCStrategies Podcast

Last week, we focused on 2013 highlights for our weekly UCStrategies podcast, and we really had to cut things down, as there was so much to talk about. The podcast was moderated by Blair Pleasant, and I added to her thoughts about the focus on the user experience.

There's lots more worth listening to, and the replay has now been posted to the portal. I hope you give it a listen, and next podcast, we'll be looking ahead to what we think UC holds in store for 2014.

Cisco Collaboration Summit and Q1 Earnings - is Their Mojo Back?

It's a tricky question, and I know some people would love to say YES and some would love to say NO.

I'm leaning towards yes, but this is no slam dunk, especially if you're an investor. I attended their annual Collaboration Summit a couple of weeks back in Boca Raton - what's not to like? - and Cisco had their Q1 earnings call last week. I felt badly because I didn't get a chance to blog about the summit, but the stars have lined up for now, and I found that after the Q1 earnings call, there was actually a better story to tell.

That's what I've done for this month's contribution to the UCStrategies portal. Whether you're inside or outside the Cisco tent, I think you'll find this is a good read, and would love to know if you think they've got their mojo back.

Amazon's "Mayday" Button - Contact Center Implications - Webinar

Amazon's "Mayday" feature is getting a lot of attention, and while the vast majority of businesses lack the scale to offer this service promise, it sure raises a lot of questions for contact centers. One of those is "just because you can, does it mean you should?", and from there many other implications pop up. It's too early to tell if this will be a passing blip or a new stage in delivering JIT customer service, but people are talking about it now, so the webinar is definitely timely.

Thanks to the Internet, our attention span is now measured in seconds, and if you take this level of instant gratification seriously, then you need to think about what Mayday could mean for your business and how you support your customers.

If this is on your mind, then you'll want to join us on Thursday, November 11 at 2pm ET. I'm part of a panel that will be discussing the various ramifications, and will be joined by well-known consultants Neal Shact and Dennis Goodhart. TMC is hosting the event, which is being sponsored by SAP, a company that certainly wants to know where this could take things as the pathway between customers and agents gets shorter.

We're still fine-tuning the agenda, but all the pertinent details are here, including a link to the registration page. I'll have more updates as we get closer to the date.

Pros and Cons of Desktop Video

My regular followers will know that I recently attended the LifeSize Tech Day, held at their Austin, TX HQ. As per my recap post, it was a great experience; not just to see their offerings up close, but also to be immersed in the video space for a day and a half. In the spirit of using video to collaborate and extend our group experience beyond the onsite visit, LifeSize is engaging us in a series of occasional video-based briefings to more fully explore various aspects of this market.

There is always something new to learn in sessions like this, and last week they did one on desktop video. Ironically, I had yet-to-be-explained technical difficulties logging in, but was able to follow enough to gather some takeaways to share with you here. This actually merits a brief sidebar that touches on an unspoken issue which all vendors struggle with - simply getting video to work.

When you're living with video conferencing tools all day long - as these vendors typically do - it's easy to forget how complex the underlying technology is, especially with all the different standards and interoperability issues. The seamless one-touch experience is wonderful when it works as advertised, but we've all lived through much worse.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying this to pick on LifeSize. They certainly know what they're doing, and all vendors have issues here. It's an important sidebar, however, since first impressions are critical for the adoption of any new technology - especially something as intimate as video.

I think it's fair to say that many people - perhaps the majority - are skeptical about using video. Some of it is generational, and people on my side of 40 are not reflexively in a rush to go straight to video when using tools like Skype. By the way, I'm saying this as someone who is interviewed on TV from time to time, so I know what it's like to be on camera.

Another reason, though, is basic ease of use. Whether you see this as perception or reality, ease of use is not typically what comes to mind right away with video - it's almost like you expect there will be problems. When things work smoothly, it's a great experience, but when there are glitches with video, we tend to tune out real fast and not bother much trying to fix it - because we don't know what to do.

So, holding that thought in mind, if you think the tiny hiccup I had with LifeSize was an I-told-you-so moment, how do you think the analyst community felt this Tuesday when Siemens did their much-hyped re-brand for Unify? This was the biggest corporate level refresh I can remember in this space, so there was a lot riding on those first impressions.

Well, as anyone trying to watch the live video stream would attest, it was very problematic. I was hardly alone in not being able to get the feed, and when it did kick in, it was so intermittent as to be simply unwatchable. I'm not much of a twitter fan, but this was truly a good example of its value by seeing in real time that others were having the same experiences. There were tweets from all over the world with the same problem, and I had to feel badly for Unify here. Definitely a case where you live and die by the same sword.

So much for the short sidebar.

In the interest of your attention span, let me quickly come back to the topic - desktop video. Basically, what I wanted to say was how the briefing reviewed the use cases, along with the pros and cons of the applications we commonly use. Both video conferencing/calling and web conferencing were cited, with the leading exponents being Skype, Google Hangouts, WebEx and GotoMeeting.

We all know how these work, and they're easy choices for many reasons. However, it was instructive to review the limitations, such as variable video quality, limited scalability, number of steps required to get a session going, lack of support for multiparty calls and common directory integration to support everyone you want on the session.

To me, this speaks to the "good enough" nature of these applications. Nobody is expecting telepresence here, but there are plenty of use cases where the fit is good. For a lot of conferencing needs, the quality doesn't have to be HD, and if the groups are small and the nature of the meeting is fairly informal, the cost/quality tradeoff is acceptable.

No issue there, and where LifeSize comes to the table is for situations where "good enough" is not good enough. If there's one thing I've learned about video, it's the breadth of scenarios where it brings value. LifeSize does a great job explaining this, and in short, the more formal the meeting and the higher the stakes, the better the solution you're going to need.

This doesn't mean you stop using the likes of Skype or WebEx - there will always be a place for these. Rather, the higher-end solutions like LifeSize become additive to your overall toy box. When you need a better experience and a more engaging collaboration environment, it's just good business to have a room-based system where a team can gather and interact at a high level with remote co-workers.

There's a huge mid-market that doesn't need or want telepresence, but has both showing and sharing requirements that go beyond what OTT Web-based applications can deliver. LifeSize sees this as their sweet spot, and after our Tech Day experience, I can see why.

I'll be posting again when they have another deep dive session with our group, and hopefully will have a better sense by then as to how well that market opportunity is panning out.

The Consumerization of Video Conferencing

I've got another item to share with you from the LifeSize Tech Day I attended a couple of weeks back. I was part of a group of "influencers" invited to attend, as was Andy McCaskey, who writes for SDR News. We hadn't met before, but being a small group, we all got to know each other during the event.

One of Andy's post-event follow-ups was for us to do a video interview. Basically, he wanted to get my take on where video conferencing is going and how it fits into the Unified Communications value proposition. From there, we talked about the LifeSize event and where we see them going in this market.

We did the interview late last week, and it's posted now on the SDR News portal. It runs about 14 minutes, and if you get a chance to watch it, I encourage you to look at the other content there afterwards. I know Andy has interviews coming with other attendees from the LifeSize event, but they're not posted yet.

Just a quick caveat on the segment he did with me. I didn't know this was being done as a formal interview for broadcast, so the quality is far from optimal. Had I known, the video setup would have been much different and easier on the eyes. Well, it's what we say that really matters, right? And, hey, this is a simple dose of realism - something that we don't talk about when trying to explain why we don't use video all the time.

Bottom line, video does not translate well for ad hoc communication, which happens to be the way that a lot of communication actually takes place. Am not sure we're ever going to fix that, and since I'm not auditioning for a job at ESPN - that would be so much fun! - I'll just leave it at that and hope you can see past what's on the screen.